How to: Detect Bluetooth Trackers

Table of contents

• What’s a Bluetooth Tracker?
  • What Common Bluetooth Track­ers Look Like
• What it Looks Like When Your Phone Auto­mat­ic­ally Finds a Tracker
  • On Android Devices
  • On iPhones
• How to Manu­ally Search for a Bluetooth Tracker
  • Manual Search on Android Devices
  • Manual Search on iPhones
• What to Do If You Find an Unknown Tracker

Bluetooth loca­tion track­ers such as AirTags, Tile, and Samsung SmartTags are marketed as a way to keep track of luggage or a misplaced wallet, but they can also be easily slipped surrepti­tiously into a bag or car, allow­ing stalk­ers and abusers unpre­ced­en­ted access to a person’s loca­tion without their know­ledge. These devices are small enough to fit inside wallets or on a keychain, which makes them diffi­cult to find, espe­cially if you don’t know what you’re look­ing for.

If you have an Android device or iPhone, you can search for Bluetooth loca­tion track­ers that might have been placed on you, in your bag or on a car. Your phone may also send you an alert if it detects one of these track­ers trav­el­ing with you, though the timing of that alert may vary, and you may only get a noti­fic­a­tion for specific brands of Bluetooth track­ers.

This guide will detail what your phone can detect on its own, and which track­ers you need a third-party app to detect. Keep in mind that the reli­ab­il­ity of detec­tion apps isn’t perfect and you should not rely on them entirely.

What’s a Bluetooth Tracker? anchor link

Bluetooth track­ers are small battery-powered devices meant to track prop­erty. They use Bluetooth to commu­nic­ate with other devices, usually phones, to piggy­back on a cell or Wi-Fi connec­tion to send their loca­tion to the owner of the tracker. The reli­ab­il­ity and accur­acy of these track­ers is depend­ent on the network they’re attached to. For example, Apple’s AirTags can piggy­back on every iPhone within Bluetooth range (about 30 feet), mean­ing in most cities and towns they’ll be very accur­ate. Other brands work simil­arly, but on their own networks. Bluetooth track­ers do not have GPS built into them and aren’t as accur­ate as GPS. In order to use a Bluetooth tracker, the owner must register the tracker to an account, which typic­ally also links the tracker to some combin­a­tion of a name, user­name, or phone number.

Most Bluetooth track­ers allow the owner to “share” the track­er’s loca­tion with others. For example, an AirTag owner can share the loca­tion of an AirTag with up to three other people. Users of Life360’s Tile can share with an unlim­ited number of people. If an AirTag is shared with you or someone you are with, you will not get “unknown tracker” alerts. Also, if you scan an AirTag to find its owner, it will not indic­ate that it’s being shared with someone else.

It works like this: let’s say you place a Bluetooth tracker on a bicycle, and your bicycle is then lost. The tracker will constantly ping nearby phones telling the phones where it is. If those phones are set up to work with the tracker (like all iPhones are by default with AirTags, or like a Tile tracker will do with other Tile users and with Amazon’s Side­walk network), the phone sends the approx­im­ate loca­tion of that tracker to the manu­fac­turer, so you, the owner of the tracker, can then see where the tracker is. From the perspect­ive of the owner, it will look some­thing like this:

On the left is a screen­shot from Apple’s Find My app on iPhone, on the right is Tile’s app, also on iPhone.

While device manu­fac­tur­ers repeatedly suggest these are meant only for track­ing phys­ical prop­erty, it is very easy for someone to place one of these track­ers on a person. To combat stalk­ing, some Bluetooth track­ers provide a means for non-owners to locate a tracker if it is near you, either through phone apps or by making a sound. We’ll get into how those apps do and don’t work below, but first it’s good to get an idea of what you’re look­ing for.

What Common Bluetooth Track­ers Look Like anchor link

Some brands, like Tile and Chipolo, make a hand­ful of differ­ent designs, so it’s worth look­ing at the product pages to famil­i­ar­ize your­self with each offer­ing so you know what to look for. Here are some of the most popu­lar track­ers:

• Apple AirTags
• Life360 Tile
• Samsung SmartTags
• Chipolo

Currently, only Apple AirTags alert you with a sound effect when they are trav­el­ing with you and not with the owner, and even those can take up to 24 hours before they’ll start emit­ting noises. This video details what sound an AirTag makes.

If you do not own a smart­phone, the AirTag’s beep­ing sounds are likely the only clue you’ll have that someone has placed a tracker on you. However, know that it’s possible for someone to disable that sound effect.

What it Looks Like When Your Phone Auto­mat­ic­ally Finds a Tracker anchor link

Both Android and iOS can auto­mat­ic­ally detect when an unknown AirTag is trav­el­ing with you. “Unknown” means the tracker has been paired with someone else’s phone, but is not currently connec­ted to their phone. For example, if you are with a friend who has an AirTag attached to their keys, you will not get a noti­fic­a­tion about that Bluetooth tracker. However, if that person lends you their keys for the day and you are not phys­ic­ally together with your friend for the day, you should get a noti­fic­a­tion about an “unknown” tracker.

Your phone will not detect the tracker imme­di­ately and it can take up to 24 hours before you get a noti­fic­a­tion. This feature currently only works with AirTags without need­ing to down­load an extra app, though both Android and Apple have announced plans to support other Bluetooth track­ers, like those made by Life360 and Samsung. Other Apple Bluetooth devices that use the company’s “Find My” network, like wire­less head­phones, can also trig­ger these alerts.

In order for detec­tion to work, you need to enable certain services on your phone, includ­ing Bluetooth, some loca­tion services, and noti­fic­a­tions. Most of these are enabled by default when you first set up your phone, but depend­ing on your secur­ity plan, you may have disabled them. Here are direc­tions for check­ing they’re enabled for Android and iPhone.

If you get an unknown tracker noti­fic­a­tion, that means there is a Bluetooth tracker that your phone has detec­ted moving with you. Before you panic, remem­ber that these noti­fic­a­tions can still show up for a legit­im­ately used tracker, like the example above when a friend gave you their keys with an AirTag attached to them.

But an unknown tracker noti­fic­a­tion can also mean someone placed a Bluetooth tracker on you or some­thing you own, without your know­ledge. It’s import­ant to know what these noti­fic­a­tions look like, and what to do about them if you get one.

Once you get a noti­fic­a­tion, search anywhere you think an object about the size of a U.S. Quarter (or 1 Euro) could be hidden, includ­ing any pock­ets or the lining of bags or jack­ets, or under­neath a car. We most commonly hear of them being hidden inside bags and on cars, includ­ing behind the license plate.

On Android Devices anchor link

AirTag Noti­fic­a­tions on Android 14+

As long as your phone can run Android 14 or newer (you can check which oper­at­ing system you have installed under Settings > About Phone > Android Version), it can detect AirTags (but not other Bluetooth track­ers) natively without down­load­ing any extra apps. This feature is enabled by default, but if you want to double-check, then open Settings > Safety & emer­gency > Unknown tracker alerts and make sure “Allow alerts” is enabled.

These settings may vary depend­ing on which version of Android you have and which phone you have. Refer to your phone’s manu­fac­turer’s website if these direc­tions do not work.

If your phone detects an AirTag, you will get a noti­fic­a­tion that looks like this:

A noti­fic­a­tion for an unknown AirTag on Android 14.

Tap the noti­fic­a­tion, and you’ll see a map along with the time and date that shows roughly when your phone noticed the tracker. Even though a map is displayed, that does­n’t mean the owner of the AirTag was view­ing your loca­tion at that time. The AirTag’s owner cannot see a history of the AirTag’s move­ment, just the current loca­tion when they open the “Find My” app on an Apple device. This is not always the case with other track­ers, like Tile and Samsung SmartTags, which may provide a history to the owner (we’ll get to how to detect those below).

Android’s “Unknown AirTag” search screen.

If you tap “Play sound” it should trig­ger the AirTags beep­ing sound to help you find it (this does­n’t always work and you may end up with an error message, even if an AirTag is nearby, so don’t rely on it). Once you find the tracker, hold the AirTag to the back of your phone to get more inform­a­tion about it, includ­ing the last four digits of the phone number of the registered owner, and the serial number which can be useful to confirm any suspi­cions you may have, or if you decide to contact law enforce­ment. Keep in mind this can be a burner phone or a second­ary phone number. Like­wise, this screen will not display any indic­a­tion that an owner of an AirTag shared the AirTag’s loca­tion with others. After you find the AirTag, proceed down to the what to do if you find a tracker section below.

After scan­ning an AirTag, you’re shown inform­a­tion about the owner, includ­ing the last four digits of the phone number they used on their Apple account.

Other Unknown Tracker Noti­fic­a­tions with AirGuard

If you cannot update to Android 14 on your phone, or you want auto­matic tracker detec­tion for more than just AirTags, then you’ll need to use a third-party app. There are a number of apps that can search for track­ers, but we’ve found AirGuard useful at detect­ing the most popu­lar track­ers. But in our test­ing for this guide, the app was not perfect and on a couple occa­sions took longer than expec­ted to register an unwanted tracker.

Down­load AirGuard from the Google Play Store and open the app. You’ll be asked to allow a few permis­sions that are required for the app to work: loca­tion, nearby devices, and noti­fic­a­tions. If you’re concerned about enabling the loca­tion permis­sion, the app can still work without access to loca­tion, but will not include a loca­tion history of where the app found the tracker. Here is AirGuard’s privacy policy.

Once you get through the permis­sions, you’ll be taken to the app’s main screen.

AirGuard’s dash­board on Android.

There are a number of settings in AirGuard you can change to fit your needs, but the default settings are enough to send you a noti­fic­a­tion when the app detects an unknown tracker follow­ing you. When AirGuard detects a tracker that’s been follow­ing you, you will get a noti­fic­a­tion that looks like this.

Tap the noti­fic­a­tion, and it’ll open AirGuard. If you enabled the loca­tion permis­sion, you will see a map of where your phone first noticed the tracker, and a number of options for what to do next.

If this is a tracker you know of, you can tap “Ignore Device” to stop getting noti­fic­a­tions about it. While not likely due to Bluetooth’s short range, there might be false detec­tions of track­ers. If you are some­where that you know for certain no tracker is with you, you can tap “False Alarm.”

An AirGuard noti­fic­a­tion on Android.

AirGuard’s map screen on Android.

If you have not already found where the Bluetooth tracker was hidden, tap “Detailed Scan.” This shows a screen with a percent­age number on it. The number is how strong the signal between your phone and the tracker is, and works sort of like radar. Walk around with your phone to see if the percent­age gets stronger. This indic­ates you’re getting closer to the Bluetooth tracker. If the percent­age goes down, it means the signal is weaker, which means you’re moving in the wrong direc­tion.

Once it’s around 90% or above, you should be very close to the tracker. After you find it, proceed down to the what to do if you find a tracker section below.

Airguard’s tracker search screen on Android.

On iPhones anchor link

AirTag Noti­fic­a­tions with iOS 14.5+

Any iPhone running iOS 14.5 or newer will auto­mat­ic­ally detect an unknown AirTag that’s follow­ing you and send you an alert (You can check which version of the oper­at­ing system you are running by open­ing Settings > General > About > iOS Version). You can double-check that this setting is enabled by open­ing up Settings > Noti­fic­a­tions > Track­ing Noti­fic­a­tions and make sure “Allow Noti­fic­a­tions” is enabled.

If your phone detects an unknown AirTag trav­el­ing with you, the noti­fic­a­tion will look like this:

Apple’s unknown AirTag noti­fic­a­tion on an iPhone.

Tap the noti­fic­a­tion, and you will see a history of every­where you’ve been since your phone first noticed the AirTag. Even though a map is displayed, that does­n’t mean the owner of the AirTag was view­ing your loca­tion at that time. The AirTag’s owner cannot see a history of the AirTag’s move­ment, just the current loca­tion when they open the “Find My” app. This is not always the case with other track­ers, like Tile and Samsung SmartTags, which may provide a history to the owner (we’ll get to how to detect those below).

Apple’s “Find My” iPhone app show­ing the history of an AirTag.

If this is an AirTag you know about, like in the above example where you’ve borrowed a friend’s keys and they have an AirTag attached to them, you can tap “Pause Track­ing Noti­fic­a­tions” to disable noti­fic­a­tions for that specific AirTag.

Other­wise, you have a couple options to help in your search for an unknown AirTag if you do not know where it is. Tap the “Play Sound” option to make the AirTag play a beep­ing sound to help you locate it. If that does not help you locate the AirTag, tap the “Find” option. If you’re close enough, you will see a screen that attempts to guide you to the exact loca­tion of the AirTag with arrows. Follow the direc­tions on screen to find it.

Apple’s search for an AirTag screen on iPhone.

Once you locate the AirTag, and confirm it’s unknown to you, scroll down and tap “Learn About This AirTag.” This will open your web browser and take you to a website that lists the serial number and the last four digits of the phone number that’s registered to that AirTag, which can be useful to confirm any suspi­cions you may have or if you decide to contact law enforce­ment. Keep in mind this could link to a burner phone or a second­ary phone number. Like­wise, this screen will not display any indic­a­tion that an owner of an AirTag shared the AirTag’s loca­tion with others. After you find the AirTag, proceed down to the what to do if you find a tracker section below.

After scan­ning an AirTag, you’re shown inform­a­tion about the owner, includ­ing the last four digits of the phone number they used on their Apple account.

Other Unknown Tracker Noti­fic­a­tions with AirGuard

If you need to search for more than just AirTags, then you’ll need a third-party app. There are a number of apps that can search for track­ers, but we’ve found AirGuard useful at detect­ing several types of track­ers. But in our test­ing for this guide, the app was not perfect and on a couple occa­sions took longer than expec­ted to register an unwanted tracker.

Down­load and then open the AirGuard app from the Apple App Store. You’ll be asked to allow a few permis­sions that are required for the app to work: loca­tion, nearby devices, and noti­fic­a­tions. If you’re concerned about enabling the loca­tion permis­sion, the app can still work without access to loca­tion, but will not include a loca­tion history of where the app found the tracker. Here is AirGuard’s privacy policy.

If AirGuard detects a tracker, you will get a noti­fic­a­tion that looks like this.

An example of a noti­fic­a­tion from AirGuard on iPhone.

Tap the noti­fic­a­tion, and AirGuard will open up to this screen, show­ing a map and history of where your phone first noticed the tracker.

Airguard’s iPhone app show­ing some of the history of when a tracker was detec­ted.

You have a few options on this screen: “Locate Tracker, ” which we’ll get to shortly, “Observe Tracker, ” and “Ignore Tracker.” The “Observe Tracker” option allows you to set a timer that will send you another noti­fic­a­tion in an hour if the tracker is still follow­ing you, which is useful if it’s still not clear if this is an “unknown” tracker. Tap “Ignore Tracker” if you know what the Bluetooth tracker is and do not want to get noti­fic­a­tions about it anymore.

If you do not know who owns the tracker or where it is, tap the “Locate Tracker” option. This shows a screen with a percent­age on it. This number is how strong the signal between your phone and the tracker is, and works sort of like radar. Walk around with your phone to see if the percent­age gets stronger. This indic­ates you’re getting closer. If the percent­age goes down, it means the signal is weaker, which means you’re moving in the wrong direc­tion.

Once it’s around 90% or above, you should be very close to the tracker. After you find it, proceed down to the what to do if you find a tracker section below.

Airguard for iPhone’s search feature.

How to Manu­ally Search for a Bluetooth Tracker anchor link

Since phones only detect AirTags and only alert you after a certain amount of time has passed, you should also know how to search for Bluetooth track­ers manu­ally. This way, if you suspect a tracker was placed on you but you cannot phys­ic­ally find it, you can use the app to help you imme­di­ately.

Manual Search on Android Devices anchor link

Search for AirTags with Android 14+

You can manu­ally search for AirTags without the need to down­load a third-party app as long as your phone can run Android 14 or newer.

To do so, open Settings > Safety & emer­gency > Unknown tracker alerts, then tap the “Scan now” button to initi­ate the scan. If an AirTag is found, you’ll see this screen.

Android’s “Manual Scan” screen for Bluetooth track­ers.

Tap the tracker icon, and you’re taken to the same screen that appears if an unknown tracker is auto­mat­ic­ally detec­ted. Here, you have the option to “Play sound.” This should initi­ate a beep­ing sound to help you find the AirTag, though we found it does­n’t always work reli­ably.Android’s screen for show­ing a found AirTag.

Once you find the AirTag, you can hold the white side of it to the back of your phone to open up a browser window that displays the serial number and the last four digits of the owner’s phone number. You may need to hold it up to your phone for a few seconds before this works. If you still do not know who owns the AirTag, take a screen­shot to save the inform­a­tion, and proceed down to the what to do if you find a tracker section below. Keep in mind this can be a burner phone or a second­ary phone number. Like­wise, this screen will not display any indic­a­tion that an owner of an AirTag shared the AirTag’s loca­tion with others.

After scan­ning an AirTag, you’re shown inform­a­tion about the owner, includ­ing the last four digits of the phone number they used on their Apple account.

Search for Other Track­ers with AirGuard

If you cannot update to Android 14 on your phone, or you want to search for more than just AirTags, then you’ll need to use AirGuard here as well. If you haven’t already down­loaded the app and enabled the permis­sions, do so now. You’ll be asked to allow a few permis­sions that are required for the app to work: loca­tion, nearby devices, and noti­fic­a­tions. If you’re concerned about enabling the loca­tion permis­sion, the app can still work without access to loca­tion, but will not include a loca­tion history of where the app found the tracker.

Open AirGuard and tap the “Scan” button with a radar icon at the bottom of the screen. After a brief anim­a­tion, you’ll be shown any Bluetooth track­ers the app detects nearby. This type of manual scan works best when you’re some­where away from other people, as the results may include track­ers you purchased your­self or any track­ers owned by someone nearby. For example, if you initi­ate this scan in a park­ing lot or in an apart­ment build­ing, you will likely see a bunch of results, most of which are not being used to track you.

AirGuard’s scan screen, show­ing a number of results, on Android.

Tap any tracker you do not recog­nize, and you’re taken to a screen with more inform­a­tion about the tracker.

AirGuard’s device screen after you tap a specific tracker on Android.

For AirTags, you are given the option to play a sound to help you locate it, though this does­n’t always work very well and may not always initi­ate a sound. If that is not an option or does­n’t work, you can use a radar-like search feature. Tap the “Detailed Scan” button, where you will see a screen with a signal strength meter. Walk around, and if the signal gets stronger, keep walk­ing in that direc­tion. If it gets weaker, try another direc­tion.

Once it’s around 90% or above, you should be very close to the tracker. Proceed down to the what to do if you find a tracker section below.

AirGuard’s scan screen on Android.

Manual Search on iPhones anchor link

You cannot manu­ally search for AirTags from an iPhone without down­load­ing a separ­ate app, like AirGuard. Search­ing for Bluetooth track­ers with AirGuard is straight­for­ward, though your options for what you can do to find Tiles and SmartTags are more limited than what’s possible with AirTags.

Down­load and then open AirGuard if you haven’t already done so. You will need to allow several permis­sions for the app to work, includ­ing your loca­tion, noti­fic­a­tions, and Bluetooth.

Tap the “Manual Scan” button in the bottom menu bar.

AirGuard’s home screen, on iPhone.

The next screen will display any track­ers the app detects. This type of manual scan works best when you’re some­where away from other people, as the results may include track­ers you purchased your­self or just any legit­im­ate track­ers from someone nearby. For example, if you initi­ate this scan in a park­ing lot or in an apart­ment build­ing, you will likely see a bunch of results, most of which are not being used to track you.

AirGuard’s “Scan” screen, on iPhone.

If you see an unknown tracker, tap the name of the tracker, then on the next screen tap “Locate Tracker.” You will see a screen with a signal strength meter.

Walk around, and if the signal gets stronger, keep walk­ing in that direc­tion. If it gets weaker, try another direc­tion. Some track­ers, like AirTags, will have the option to “Play Sound, ” which you can tap to trig­ger a sound effect if the tracker has a speaker. If you get an alert that says “Play­back Failed, ” that means the tracker is still connec­ted to the owner’s phone, mean­ing they are nearby. It is also possible to phys­ic­ally damage and disable an AirTag’s speaker, so you may not hear a sound even though the signal is getting stronger.

This can mean a couple differ­ent things: it may indic­ate that it’s a nearby stranger’s AirTag who isn’t track­ing you, or it can mean that the AirTag hasn’t been discon­nec­ted from the owner long enough to be marked as “unknown” yet. This is why it’s import­ant to do this test far away from other people when you can. If you find an unknown tracker, proceed to the what to do if you find a tracker section below.

AirGuard search func­tion, on iPhone.

What to Do If You Find an Unknown Tracker anchor link

If you find an unknown Bluetooth tracker, it’s import­ant to consider your next steps care­fully. What’s best for you will depend on your situ­ation, but here are a couple factors to keep in mind.

A safety plan is an import­ant step to take before you do anything else. If you are in a rela­tion­ship with an abus­ive person, that abus­ive person may be the owner of the device and could be using it to track you. If you disable the device and the abus­ive person can’t track your loca­tion anymore, they may make other abus­ive choices and engage in beha­vior that is more danger­ous to you. Before letting that abus­ive person know that you are aware of their track­ing, develop a plan to do that in a safe way. A local advoc­ate for victims of domestic viol­ence can help you create that plan. If you live in the United States, you can find a local advoc­ate through the National Domestic Viol­ence Hotline by call­ing 1–800–799–7233, or by texting “Start” to 88788.

If you believe that disabling an unknown tracker is a safe thing for you to do, you can disable any tracker by remov­ing its battery. Some, like AirTags, show you how to disable it in the app when it’s detec­ted. Others, like those made by Samsung and Tile, may require a special tool—­like a paper­clip—to remove the battery. If you disable a Bluetooth tracker this way, whoever put it there will be aler­ted and will likely assume you found it.

Direc­tions for how to disable an AirTag on an iPhone.

You can some­times learn addi­tional inform­a­tion about who owns a Bluetooth tracker after you find it, though only AirTags provide much data . If you hold an AirTag to the back of your phone, you’ll be taken to a website that lists the serial number and the last four digits of the owner’s phone number. Tile, Samsung SmartTags, and Chipolo do not have a similar feature, though some Chipolo models will work with Apple’s “Find My” app to display similar info to what you get with AirTags.

If you feel like your safety is at risk , you may wish to contact law enforce­ment or a trus­ted friend before taking any action with the tracker itself. It’s very likely that if you disable the tracker, the owner will know you found it. Depend­ing on the maker of the Bluetooth tracker, law enforce­ment can some­times request inform­a­tion from the manu­fac­turer. Be sure to take screen­shots of any inform­a­tion you found, being sure to include the serial number of the tracker if it’s avail­able.

 

Last Reviewed: March 12, 2024