Can you track an international container move with an AirTag?

Partly, and the pattern is predictable. You get reports at the origin agent's warehouse, sporadic ones around the port, then nothing at all for the ocean leg. Mid-ocean is a genuine dead zone. Reports resume near the destination port and get dense again at the delivery address. The silence in between is normal, not a sign your container is missing.

What does the map look like at each stage?

An international move is not one journey. It is five or six handovers with waiting in between, and each has its own signature on the map once something is recording the reports.

• Packing day at home: dense reports, because your own phone and everyone else's are right there.
• Origin agent's warehouse: a cluster of reports in one spot, thinning out once the crate is deep in a building. Days of this is normal while a container is filled.
• Drayage to the port: a short burst of movement along a road, then a stop.
• Port terminal: patchy. Terminals are large, mostly empty of pedestrians, and your box may sit stacked among steel for days.
• The ocean leg: nothing. Expect a flat line for the entire crossing.
• Destination port and customs: reports return, often days after the vessel arrives, because the container waits before it is opened.
• Destination agent and delivery: dense again, ending at your new address.

The useful thing about that shape is that it is repeatable. Once you recognise it, you can tell a boring stage from a wrong one without phoning anybody.

Why does the ocean leg go completely dark?

An AirTag has no GPS and no cellular connection. It broadcasts Bluetooth, and a point on your map only exists when some passing iPhone hears it and relays the sighting. In the middle of an ocean there are no passing iPhones. That is the whole explanation.

A container ship does carry people, but they are not standing next to your crate. Your box is somewhere in a stack, inside a sealed steel container, which is close to the worst environment a short-range radio signal could be asked to escape. Even a crew member walking the deck is unlikely to be in range of it.

So weeks of nothing is the expected result of a sea crossing, not a failure of the tag or of the recording. We show that stretch as a gap rather than drawing a line across the ocean, because a drawn line would be a guess presented as a fact.

What does silence mean, and what does it not mean?

Silence means no Apple device has been close enough to your tag to report it. It is a statement about the people near your shipment, not about your shipment.

• It does not mean the AirTag is broken.
• It does not mean the container has been lost or diverted.
• It does not mean the tag's battery is dead, though a tag sealed in a crate for months is worth thinking about before it goes in.
• It does not mean the goods are not moving. Most of a container's journey happens where nobody is walking around with a phone.

What silence does mean is that the last reading stands until something contradicts it. That is exactly why the history matters more than the pin here: on a multi-month move, the current pin is often a stale reading from a port two weeks ago, and only the series makes that obvious.

When is a gap actually worth chasing?

Gaps are only interesting when they contradict something you were told. Compare the map against the schedule from your agent rather than against your nerves.

• Your paperwork says the container was loaded on the 4th, but the tag kept reporting from the origin warehouse until the 19th.
• The vessel is confirmed as arrived and discharged, and a week later there is still nothing from anywhere near the destination port.
• Reports resume in a city that is not on any version of the route you were given.
• Delivery is confirmed as complete and the tag is still reporting from the destination agent's warehouse.

Those are conversations worth having, and a timestamped series of readings is a much better opening than a screenshot of a pin. A pin shows where the box is now, which is usually the one thing nobody disputes.

How should you set it up before the packers arrive?

The single decision that matters is timing. History starts when you connect, and nothing can reconstruct the past, so connecting the week before packing day is worth more than any feature.

1. Put fresh batteries in the tags well before packing day. The crate will not be opened again for months.
2. Spread several tags across different cartons rather than concentrating them in one. A tag near the container door reports far more often than one buried in the middle.
3. Note which carton each tag is in, so a reading means something specific later.
4. Connect the Apple ID your tags are on and confirm you are seeing reports before the truck leaves.
5. Check the map at handover points: warehouse, port and arrival, rather than every day at sea.

Two practical caveats. Ask your agent about tags with batteries inside sea freight; carrier and customs rules vary by route and are their job to know, not ours to guess. Connecting opens a 7-day free live tracking window; paid passes extend live tracking for longer journeys measured in months.

One limit is ours and worth repeating: AirTag History only works for tags on the Apple ID you sign in with. It tracks your crates, not the container, the vessel, or anybody's phone.