How to turn off location services on an iPhone easily

There are many reasons why you may want to turn off location services on your smartphones. Sometimes, you may want to save your phone’s battery, in which case, turning off location is the best thing you can do. Other times, you may just want to temporarily cut off location access to certain apps and services.

If you’re on an Android phone, turning off your location is as easy as hitting a toggle in the quick settings panel. However, there is no such toggle on iPhones, leaving new users stranded. Don’t worry though, we have two ways to easily turn off the location services on your iPhone. Let’s begin with number one.

Turn off location services from the Settings app

To turn off location services the old-fashioned way, simply open the Settings app on your iPhone, scroll down till you see the ‘Privacy & Security’ section and tap on it. The very first option in here should be titled ‘Location Services’. Tap on it and turn off the Location Services toggle off. You have now turned off the location on your iPhone.

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When this toggle is turned on, you can also see a list of all apps that have access to your location below, in case you ever want to fine-tune anything specifically for certain applications.

Turn off location services using the Shortcuts app

If you find yourself frequently turning your location services on and off like me, diving in and out of the Settings app can be a nuisance. Instead, you can make the most of the powerful Shortcuts app on iOS to create a shortcut that takes you straight to the Location Services settings page. This may sound complicated, but it is super easy and will take under a minute to set up. Here’s how.

Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone. Tap on the Plus-shaped button on the top-right (+). On the shortcut creation screen, tap ‘Add Action’ and type ‘Open URLs’ in the search bar. You should now see the Open URLs action among the options below. Tap on it.

You’ll now come back to the shortcut settings page and see that an action that says ‘Open URL’ has been added. Tap on the URL part of this line (which should be blue) and either type or copy-paste this URL in there without the inverted commas – “prefs:root=Privacy&Security&path=LOCATION“. Name the shortcut ‘Location’ and save it.

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You can now go back to the main screen of the Shortcuts app, open the new ‘Location’ shortcut and open the drop-down next to the name (on the top). Choose the ‘Add to home screen’ option and you now have a shortcut on your home screen to easily take you to the Location Services Settings page.

Those were two easy ways to turn off the location services on an iPhone. Remember, you can find most other settings in iOS by entering the Settings app and using the search bar on top to type out the exact setting you’re looking for. This will be easier and help save you time if you don’t know where to look for a particular setting.