AirTag data privacy: what we store
AirTag History stores three things per location report: latitude, longitude and the time it arrived. It also holds the Apple session tokens needed to keep polling, encrypted. It never keeps your Apple ID password in plain text. How far back the history goes is set by your tier, and nothing exists from before the day you connected.
What exactly do you store?
The list is short because the job is narrow. A location history needs points and times, and a way to keep asking Apple for more of them. Everything below is in service of one of those two things.
| Data | Stored? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Latitude and longitude of each report | Yes | This is the history. Without it there is no map, no route and no export. |
| Timestamp of each report | Yes | A location with no time proves nothing to a mover or an insurer. |
| Which of your tags a report belongs to | Yes | So a route belongs to one suitcase rather than to all of them at once. |
| Apple session tokens | Yes, encrypted | Polling the Find My network on your behalf needs a live session. |
| Your Apple ID password | No | Nothing we do requires keeping it, so it is never persisted in plain text. |
| Anybody else's tags | No | Reports are encrypted to the owner's Apple ID. We only ever see yours. |
This page is about location data and the Apple connection, which is the part people are actually asking about. It is deliberately specific rather than a broad promise: a list you can check is worth more than an adjective.
Why don't you keep my Apple ID password?
Because there is no point in the flow where having it again would help. The password is used once, at the moment you connect, to establish a session with Apple. What we keep afterwards are the tokens that session produced, and those are what the poller uses from then on.
So the password is not persisted in plain text at any stage. That is a design decision rather than a setting, and it is the reason the reconnect step below exists at all. If we had kept the password, we could quietly re-log-in for you, and we would rather not be able to.
The stored session material is encrypted at rest. We are not going to dress that up with claims about schemes, infrastructure or certifications on a marketing page; what we will say plainly is what is held and what is not.
What happens when the session expires?
Apple sessions do not last forever. When the tokens we hold stop working, polling stops, and the history simply has no new points in it until you reconnect. You will need to sign in again through the connect flow, including whatever two-factor step Apple asks for.
That is a real inconvenience and we are not going to pretend otherwise. It is the direct consequence of not keeping your password: the alternative is a service that can log in as you indefinitely without you being present, which is a worse trade.
The points already recorded are unaffected. A lapsed session leaves a gap in the history from the moment it lapsed, not a hole in what was already saved.
How long do you keep my location history?
Your tracking window starts the moment you connect. While your window is active, every sighting is recorded and saved to your private timeline.
- Free: 7 days of live tracking starting at connect, with unlimited AirTags.
- Track pass: 30 days of live tracking.
- The Move pass: 90 days of live tracking, plus stops and dwell-time detection and a timestamped PDF evidence report.
- Long-haul pass: 6 months of live tracking.
When a tracking window closes, polling stops recording new updates — but your recorded history is never deleted or hidden. Everything logged during your window remains stored, browsable, and exportable.
You can export your timeline at any time to CSV or GPX. An exported file is yours to keep forever.
Why can't you show me anything from before I connected?
Because those reports were never written down anywhere that can be read back. Find My location reports are end-to-end encrypted to the owner's Apple ID, so Apple holds no readable trail on its servers to hand over: not to us, and not to you either.
Apple's own app shows one pin at the last reported location and overwrites it when the next report arrives. The old workaround of reading a Mac's local Find My cache stopped working with macOS Tahoe. There is no archive sitting somewhere waiting to be imported.
So the first day of your history is the day you connect. That is a limitation of ours in the sense that we cannot fix it, and it is worth stating plainly rather than discovering after a move has already gone wrong.
Who can see where my tags have been?
You can, through your own account. The history exists because we recorded reports that were decrypted with keys belonging to the Apple ID you connected, and it covers only the tags registered to that Apple ID. There is no lookup for a tag on somebody else's account.
The service is independent and not affiliated with Apple. Connecting does not change what your AirTags broadcast: a tag we poll still chirps when it is separated from its owner and still trips unknown-tracker alerts on nearby iPhone and Android phones, because that detection happens on the phone next to the tag rather than on any server.
The acceptable-use policy prohibits using the service to track people rather than belongings. That is the same boundary the data model already draws: only your own tags, and only where they went.
Frequently asked questions
What data does AirTag History store?
For each location report it stores latitude, longitude, a timestamp and which of your tags the report belongs to. It also stores the Apple session tokens needed to keep polling the Find My network, encrypted. That is the location side of the service in full. There is no separate hidden collection.
Do you store my Apple ID password?
No. The password is used once, when you connect, to establish a session with Apple. It is not persisted in plain text at any stage. What is kept afterwards are the session tokens that login produced, stored encrypted, and those are what the poller uses from then on.
How long is AirTag location history kept?
Connecting opens a 7-day free live tracking window. Paid passes extend live tracking to 30 days on Track, 90 days on The Move, and 6 months on Long-haul. When your tracking window closes, polling stops — but your recorded history is never deleted or hidden, and exported CSV or GPX files are yours to keep.
Can you recover my AirTag history from before I connected?
No, and neither can anyone else. Find My reports are end-to-end encrypted to the owner's Apple ID, so Apple holds no readable history to hand back, and the old Mac cache workaround stopped working with macOS Tahoe. Your history starts the day you connect, which is why connecting before a move matters.
Can AirTag History see other people's AirTags?
No. It only records reports for tags registered to the Apple ID you sign in with, because the keys that decrypt a tag's reports live in the account that tag is paired to. There is no lookup for somebody else's tag, and the acceptable-use policy prohibits tracking people in any case.
What happens when my Apple session expires?
Polling stops and the history gets no new points until you reconnect through the connect flow, including Apple's two-factor step. Everything recorded before the lapse is untouched. This is the direct cost of not keeping your password: nothing here can silently log in as you.
Does connecting change what my AirTag broadcasts?
No. Recording location reports does not alter the tag itself, so it still chirps when separated from its owner and still triggers unknown-tracker alerts on nearby phones. That detection runs on the phone standing next to the tag, which is why no service can switch it off from the owner's side.
Start keeping the route
AirTag History polls your AirTags every 5 minutes and keeps the timeline Find My overwrites. Free for 7 days, and your history starts the moment you connect, not before, so connect ahead of the move.