Get a New iPhone for the Holidays? Turn Off This Setting on Your Old Device

Were you gifted a new iPhone Air or a device from the iPhone 17 lineup for the holidays? Or maybe you decided yo treat yourself and upgrade your device. Either way, Apple suggests you turn off Find My on your old iPhone to protect your device.

The Find My app from Apple can help you locate your luggage in a busy airport, find a single missing AirPod and ensure you know where all your devices are. Disabling Find My on an iPhone before you give it away turns off its Activation Lock feature. This feature can prevent anyone else from using the device, which is helpful if your iPhone is stolen or ends up in the wrong hands.

However, if you are giving your iPhone to a friend, Activation Lock could stop them from using it. Fortunately, you can turn off Find My in just a few easy steps. Here is how to turn off Find My before you upgrade to a new iPhone.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source on Chrome.

How to turn off Find My

1. Tap Settings on your iPhone.
2. Tap your name across the top of the menu.
3. Tap Find My.
4. Tap Find My iPhone.
5. In the new menu, toggle off Find My iPhone.

Now you should be good to give your iPhone away. However, if you have Stolen Device Protection turned on, you won’t be able to turn Find My off. If you do have Stolen Device Protection turned on, here’s how to disable it so you can turn Find My off.

1. Tap Settings on your iPhone.
2. Tap Face ID & Passcode. You might have to enter your Passcode here to continue.
3. Tap Stolen Device Protection.
4. In the new menu, toggle on Stolen Device Protection.

Once Stolen Device Protection is disabled, follow the steps above to turn off Find My. But before you give away your iPhone, remember to remove all of your personal information and factory reset your device, just in case. You don’t want any of your old iPhone’s information floating around.

For more iOS news, here’s everything you should know about iOS 26.2, the new features that were included in iOS 26.1 and my review of iOS 26. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.