Find My can provide location information until a device’s battery is fully depleted.
With Find My enabled, nearly all your Apple gear can be tracked if you lose it. But what happens if it takes you a while to notice and your iPhone or iPad’s battery runs down before you do? What location information does it send to that point, and then how long do you have to use Find My to identify its location?
Apple has added ever more ways for Find My on an iPhone or iPad to provide a signal that helps you find it over time. But there are limits depending on type and model.Powered off iPhone still sends its location
If you have an iPhone 11 (any model) or later with iOS 15 or later installed, your iPhone continues to send a short-range signal over Bluetooth even when it’s ostensibly powered off—it acts like an AirTag in that mode. Starting with iOS 15, when you bring up the screen that lets you swipe the power-off slider, you see a message on any supported iPhone:
iPhone Remains Findable After Power Off
Find My helps you locate this iPhone when it is lost or stolen, even when in power reserve mode or after power off. The location is visible in Find My on your other devices, and to people in Family Sharing you share location with. You can change this “Find My network” functionality by going to Find My in Settings.
The signal continues to send for up to 24 hours after you’ve turned your iPhone off. If the iPhone is at its lowest power level, power reserve mode, it will send its current location over the Find My network for up to five hours.
When you power down your iPhone with a model that supports the feature, Find My continues to send a signal for up to five or 24 hours.
There’s no way to disable this feature without turning off the Find My network. I recommend against it since it’s such an aid to finding your hardware when it can’t reach the internet or has no ability to use the internet, like earbuds.
