How to remove an item tracker before you pass it on

What does removing a tracker do?

Removal unbinds the tag from your Apple Account so that it can be paired by somebody else.

A Find My accessory is locked to one account at a time. That binding is a deliberate anti-theft measure: it stops somebody who has stolen a tagged bag from simply adopting the tracker inside it. The side effect is that the lock also stops anybody legitimate from adopting it until you let go.

When you remove an item, three things happen. It disappears from your Items list. It stops reporting positions to you. And it becomes available for the next person to pair.

Why can't the new owner just pair it themselves?

Because the tag will refuse, and there is no way round that from their side.

A new phone holding a still-registered tag sees a message telling it the accessory is linked to another Apple Account. There is no reset button on the hardware that clears the binding, and removing the battery does nothing, which is the entire point of the design.

This is the most common second-hand marketplace complaint in the category. It is not a fault, and the only person who can resolve it is the previous owner.

When should you do it?

While the tag is still within Bluetooth range of your phone, and before the item leaves the house.

Removal works best when your phone can talk to the tag directly, because the app completes the unbinding on the accessory itself as well as in your account. Do it at the kitchen table with the tag in your hand.

If the item has already gone, you can still remove it from the account remotely, but the tag may need a further step, a battery pull and a re-pair attempt, before it will take a new owner.

How do you remove one?

1. Open Find My and switch to the Items tab.
2. Pick out the tag you are letting go of. Check the name carefully, because removing the wrong one is an annoying five minutes.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the item card and tap Remove Item.
4. Confirm. The item disappears from the list, and your phone stops receiving positions for it.
5. Press and hold the tag until it chimes to confirm it is ready to pair again, and if you are handing it over in person, watch the new owner add it.

Which situations need this doing?

Any time the tagged object leaves your control permanently, and most times it leaves temporarily.

Selling a bag, a case, a bike or a car with the tag still inside is the obvious case. So is giving keys to a new tenant, returning a hire car, or passing a pushchair on to a relative.

The borderline case is lending. A suitcase loaned to a friend for a fortnight is fine to leave registered, you will see where your own suitcase is, which is what you wanted. But tell them, because their phone will otherwise warn them that an unknown accessory is travelling with them, and that is a bad half hour for everyone.

What if you leave it registered by mistake?

The other person's phone will notice, and it is designed to.

Apple's unwanted tracking alerts exist precisely for the case of a tag moving with somebody who does not own it. Their phone warns them, offers to make the tag play a sound so they can find it, and shows instructions for disabling it. On a genuine sale, that is an embarrassing message and a refund request rather than a security incident, but it is avoidable with two minutes of preparation.

If you are on the receiving end of such an alert after buying something second-hand, the answer is not to hunt for a workaround. It is to go back to the seller and ask them to remove the item from their account.

Where the Homing Tag fits into all this

The Homing Tag is a standard MFi certified Find My accessory, which means everything above applies to it exactly as written: it binds to one Apple Account, it is removed from the Items list in the same three taps, and it is covered by Apple's anti-stalking warnings both when you are the owner and when you are not.

For completeness, the hardware: 36.3 by 36.3 by 9 millimetres, roughly 10 grams, IP67 sealed, a speaker reaching 80 to 100 dB, around sixty metres of direct Bluetooth range before the passing-device network takes over, and a CR2032 cell rated at up to two years. Locations are encrypted end to end, so even we cannot read where a tag has been.

Two things it will not do: draw an arrow, because there is no Ultra Wideband inside, and work with Android in any form; an iPhone or an iPad on at least iOS 14.5 is what it asks for.

Boxes hold two tags and two key rings at under £15, delivered free within the UK. The two-pack is here.

Passing keys on after a move? The moving-day checklist covers the handover.