How to Manage Important Locations on Your iPhone

Key Locations is a feature on iPhones and iCloud-connected devices that tracks places visited and frequency of visits. The resulting data is used to identify key locations for iPhone users and provide personalized services such as location memories in Photos or better traffic routing. While this may sound like Apple is tracking your movement and possibly storing data, the phone manufacturer says otherwise.

According to Apple’s statement, data in Key Locations is encrypted end-to-end and cannot be read by the phone manufacturer. However, if you want to check out this feature, here’s how to do it:

How to Unlock Key Locations

By enabling Locations Important, you access location-related information in apps like Photos, Calendars, and Maps. Here’s how to enable it:

Stage 1: Launch the Settings app from your iPhone’s home screen.

Step 2: Scroll down the list of options and tap on Privacy.

Stage 3: Select Location Services.

Step 4: Scroll down the page and select System Services at the bottom of the list.

Step 5: Scroll down the page and select Places of Interest.

Step 6: When you tap this option, you will need to authenticate yourself. Authentication can be via Touch ID, Face ID, or your password.

Step 7: On the new page, check if the button next to Places of Interest is greyed out. If available, tap to open.

By enabling Places of Interest, after a while you should see some places you visit often under History.

How to Turn Off Important Locations on iPhone

If you’ve had your iPhone for a while, you might already have Key Location enabled and have pre-saved locations. Here’s how to turn it off:

Stage 1: Launch the Settings app from your iPhone’s home screen.

Step 2: Scroll down the list of options and tap on Privacy.

Stage 3: Select Location Services.

Step 4: Scroll down the page and select System Services at the bottom of the list.

Step 5: Scroll down the page and select Places of Interest.

Step 6: When you tap this option, you will need to authenticate yourself. Authentication can be via Touch ID, Face ID, or password.

Step 7: On the new page, check for a green fill in the toggle next to Landmarks. If available, tap to turn it off.

Step 8: Tap Turn Off from the popup to confirm disabling Significant Locations.

Disabling Important Locations doesn’t clear your location history, it just prevents your device from saving information about your locations. Follow the steps below to clear location history.

How to Clear Important Location History

There are two things you can do when it comes to clearing the Key Locations History. You can remove a specific location from the list or delete the entire list. Here’s how it works:

Clear Specific Location from Important Location History

Key Locations Here are the steps you need to follow to remove a specific location from your History:

Stage 1: Launch the Settings app from your iPhone’s home screen.

Step 2: Scroll down the list of options and tap on Privacy.

Stage 3: Select Location Services.

Step 4: Scroll down the page and select System Services at the bottom of the list.

Step 5: Scroll down the page and select Places of Interest.

Step 6: Under History, select one of the cities under this heading.

Step 7: Tap Edit at the top right of the map.

Step 8: Tap the red line next to the address you need to remove.

Step 9: Tap Delete to remove the address.

Clear All Important Locations History

Here’s what you need to do to clear your entire Key Locations History:

Stage 1: Launch the Settings app from your iPhone’s home screen.

Step 2: Scroll down the list of options and tap on Privacy.

Stage 3: Select Location Services.

Step 4: Scroll down the page and select System Services at the bottom of the list.

Step 5: Scroll down the page and select Places of Interest.

Step 6: Scroll down the list of options and tap on Clear History.

Step 7: You will receive an alert asking you to confirm your action, once again tap on Clear History.

Fix Location Based Reminders on iPhone

Disabling Significant Locations on an iPhone may affect the performance of location-dependent features or apps on the device. An example is location-based reminders. However, if Important Locations is enabled and location-based reminders are not working, you may need to try other fixes.