Finding devices for another Apple ID

By PaulMartz, 15 December, 2019

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

With the old Find My iPhone app, I could easily sign in with my wife's Apple ID to help her find her iPhone. How do I do this in iOS 13 with the new Find My app?

On the Me tab, there's a button called Help A Friend. That sounds promising, but I haven't figured out how to make it work.

Thanks for any help.

Options

Comments

By Tyler on Thursday, December 26, 2019 - 11:51

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

When you double tap, "Help a friend," a webpage should open in Safari to sign into another Apple ID. If you decline the request to sign in with your own ID, you should be able to enter hers. From there, at least in theory, you should be able to use Find My to locate a device. However, I've never done this so I'm not exactly sure how accessible it is.

When I select Help A Friend, it takes me to the Apple ID sign in page, like you described. However, the Apple ID field is already populated with my Apple ID, and it's a read-only field so I can't change it. The page has a Cancel button, but double-tapping it does nothing.

By Tyler on Thursday, December 26, 2019 - 11:51

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Have you tried double tapping the, "Use different Apple ID," button instead of the cancel button?

Tyler, I'm not sure why you would have a Use Different Apple ID button and I wouldn't, but that appears to be the case. After I select Help A Friend and Safari opens to the iCloud sign in page, there is no option for me to use a different Apple ID. This is latest iOS on an iPhone XR.

I appreciate your help with this.