AirPods Find My Network Support Includes Tethering to Apple ID and New Manual Unpairing Process

Apple announced earlier this year that, with iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, the Find My Network will be able to locate AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. Now, it has emerged that this will be achieved by tethering the AirPods to a specific Apple ID, with an unusual system of covering the ‌AirPods Pro‌'s speaker holes to remove the linked account.

Find My AirPods Feature
First spotted by 9to5Mac, iOS 15 developer beta five code has confirmed that, to work with Apple's ‌Find My‌ Network, ‌AirPods Pro‌ and ‌AirPods Max‌ will need to be tethered to an ‌Apple ID‌. This means that even if a user connects someone else's AirPods to their device, they will remain tethered to the owner's ‌Apple ID‌.

To remove the configured ‌Apple ID‌ and disable connection to the ‌Find My‌ Network, such as when passing the AirPods to a new user, owners will have to follow a number of manual steps similar to the process for untethering an AirTag.

For ‌AirPods Max‌, users need to hold down the Active Noise Cancelation button at the same time as the Digital Crown for 12 seconds. For ‌AirPods Pro‌, users have to cover the interior and exterior grilles with their fingers while pressing the button on the stem three times in sequence.

Support for the ‌Find My‌ Network will likely come via an ‌AirPods Pro‌ and ‌AirPods Max‌ firmware update alongside iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 later in the fall. First and second-generation AirPods will not support the ‌Find My‌ Network.

Previously, all AirPods devices appeared in the ‌Find My‌ app, but were not remotely locatable using the ‌Find My‌ Network like an ‌AirTag‌, which uses low-energy Bluetooth to feed a device's location back to the owner via nearby iPhone or iPad.

Related Roundups: AirPods Max, AirPods Pro
Related Forum: AirPods

Popular Stories

iphone 16 pro ghost hand

5 Reasons to Skip This Year's iPhone 17 Pro

Thursday July 10, 2025 4:54 am PDT by
Apple will launch its new iPhone 17 series in two months, and the iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to get a new design for the rear casing and the camera area. But more significant changes to the lineup are not expected until next year, when the iPhone 18 models arrive. If you're thinking of trading in your iPhone for this year's latest, consider the following features rumored to be coming...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Expected Later This Year With These New Features

Saturday July 12, 2025 3:09 pm PDT by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year, and a handful of new features and changes have been rumored for the device. Below, we recap what to expect from the next Apple TV, according to rumors. Rumors Faster Wi-Fi Support The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports ...
iPhone 17 Pro in Hand Feature Lowgo

iPhone 17 Pro Coming Soon With These 16 New Features

Friday July 11, 2025 12:40 pm PDT by
Apple's next-generation iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are only two months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models. Latest Rumors These rumors surfaced in June and July:A redesigned Dynamic Island: It has been rumored that all iPhone 17 models will have a redesigned Dynamic Island interface — it might ...
macbook pro blue green

M5 MacBook Pro No Longer Coming in 2025

Thursday July 10, 2025 12:38 pm PDT by
Apple does not plan to refresh any Macs with updated M5 chips in 2025, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models are now planned for the first half of 2026. Gurman previously said that Apple would debut the M5 MacBook Pro models in late 2025, but his newest report suggests that Apple is "considering" pushing them back to 2026. Apple is now said to be...
iphone 16 pro pro max

iPhone 17 Pro Models With BOE Displays Will Be Sold in China Only

Thursday July 10, 2025 11:59 pm PDT by
iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max models with displays made by BOE will be sold exclusively in China, according to a new report. Last week, it emerged that Chinese display manufacturer BOE was aggressively ramping up its OLED production capacity for future iPhone models as part of a plan to recapture a major role in Apple's supply chain. Now, tech news aggregator Jukan Choi reports...
Apple Watch Ultra 2 Complications

Apple Watch Ultra 3: What to Expect

Sunday July 13, 2025 10:30 am PDT by
The long wait for an Apple Watch Ultra 3 is nearly over, and a handful of new features and changes have been rumored for the device. Below, we recap what to expect from the Apple Watch Ultra 3:Satellite connectivity for sending and receiving text messages when Wi-Fi and cellular coverage is unavailable 5G support, up from LTE on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Likely a wide-angle OLED display that ...
apple wallet drivers license feature iPhone 15 pro

Apple Says iPhone Driver's Licenses Will Expand to These 8 U.S. States

Tuesday July 8, 2025 11:26 am PDT by
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, providing a convenient and contactless way to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps. Unfortunately, this feature continues to roll out very slowly since it was announced in 2021, with only nine U.S. states, Puerto Rico,...
iPhone 17 Air Colors Thumb 2

iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air Rumored to Come in These 9 Colors

Friday July 11, 2025 12:30 am PDT by
The iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air will be available in a total of nine color options, according to new information coming out of Asia. The iPhone 17 Air's expected color options. According to the leaker going by the account name "yeux1122" on the Korean blog Naver, accessory manufacturers are now producing camera protector rings for the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air in colors to match their...

Top Rated Comments

anticipate Avatar
51 months ago
The old method only told you where you last used the airpods. The new method has Bluetooth LE pinging to the find my network much like an AirTag does now. It doesn’t have precision finding but will use Bluetooth to get you close.

Right now none of that is possible unless you attach an AirTag to your airpods case.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
svenning Avatar
51 months ago

Haven’t you always been able to locate AirPods with Find My? I don’t understand why this is billed as a new feature.
To my understanding (and someone please correct me if I’m wrong) currently the AirPods location in Find My is only based on when it was last connected to your own phone - in iOS 15 it will work more similar to airtags in that it will update the location if other idevices are nearby.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
joecomo Avatar
51 months ago

Haven’t you always been able to locate AirPods with Find My? I don’t understand why this is billed as a new feature.
not really - data was never up-to date and they got lost regularly from the "find my" app. Tracking was not usable for real-life settings.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
evertjr Avatar
51 months ago

Where did you read that? Nothing in the article says you can locate your lost AirPods until someone physically picks them up and opens the lid, or maybe for the 45 minutes that the battery lasts if one of them is outside the case.
Apple literally said during the event that the AirPods Pro will be able to be located even inside the case.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Amadeo Avatar
51 months ago

Where did you read that? Nothing in the article says you can locate your lost AirPods until someone physically picks them up and opens the lid, or maybe for the 45 minutes that the battery lasts if one of them is outside the case.
The article links to the announcement ('https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/10/airpods-pro-airpods-max-find-my-network-support/') right at the start...

This is a great new addition. The ability to track it since it was last connected to my phone has never been useful for me. Especially if I go through the day with them, but not necessarily using them. I live in New York. So, I never leave the house without them in case I end up on a lengthy walk or on the subway. Even if I never open them, I like to carry them with me. But that also means that if I lose them while out, the last place it was located was at home. This has literally happened to me, but thankfully I remember where I left them.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jhollington Avatar
51 months ago

Yeah this seems rather odd - if anybody can do that without 'permission' from the original Apple ID then this is a very useless feature. Especially in the eyes of thieves who will just do this by default now...
I strongly suspect that won't be the case — it would be a ridiculous omission if it were.

Right now, if you reset an AirTag, or other Find My Network device like a Chipolo ONE Spot, it still remains tethered to the original owner's Apple ID unless they remove it from their Find My app. Much the same way Activation Lock works on an iPhone.

Apple calls this "Pairing Lock" and if it's already thought of this for a $29 AirTag, I can't believe that the $249 AirPods Pro and $549 AirPods Max wouldn't work in the same manner.

The fact that it's not "Activation Lock" suggests that anybody finding your AirPods could still use them with their own iPhone or other Bluetooth device, but they wouldn't be able to disassociate them from the Find My Network, so you'd still be able to track them down.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)