How To Mark Parking Spot On Iphone

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If your car has a Bluetooth stereo, then you can set your iPhone to remember exactly where you parked, and mark the spot in your iPhone's Maps app. Once enabled, you'll never lose your car again. The process is automatic: Whenever you leave your car, the marker is placed. Let's see how it works.

Several factors need to be present for you to just walk away from your car and have Siri make a note of its location: You must have a modern-enough iPhone, a car with a compatible Bluetooth stereo, and you must switch on the feature on your iPhone. If you have all of those covered, then this really is a set-and-forget feature. Or set and not-forget, I guess.

How Show Parked Location works

Show Parked Location is ingenious. All it does is to watch for when your iPhone disconnects from your car's Bluetooth, and makes a not of where it happened. Then, it marks this location on a map. Later, when you return and can't remember where you left the car, you can easily find this location by opening up the Maps app.

How to set your iPhone to remember where you parked

Parking reminders are set-and-forget
Photo: Cult of Mac

To use the Show Parked Location feature, you need to be running iOS 10 or later, and an iPhone 6 or newer. Go to Settings>Maps, and then scroll down to Your Car. Then toggle the switch for Show Parked Location. That's it, phone-wise, but you have a little more work to do if you haven't yet connected your iPhone to your car's stereo. That's beyond the scope of this article, but you can check Apple's own support page for help.

How to find your parked car with Maps on iPhone

show parked location

When you return to the warren of streets in the old part of town, or the huge gridded expanse of the Megamart parking lot, you can find your iPhone easily. Just open up the Maps app, tap the search field, and the list of suggestions will already include Parked Car as an option. Just tap this to see your car's location on the map. From there, you can have the Maps app give you directions, just as you can to any location. I love that all the regular transport options apply, too — Drive, Walk, Transit, or Ride. I imagine the irony of somebody finding themselves so far from their parked car that they have to take public transit to get to it.

How to manually remember your parking spot with 3D Touch

3d touch location mark

If you don't have a fancy Bluetooth car stereo, or if you ride a bike instead of using a car, then you can still mark your parking spot. The rub is that you will have to remember to remember, because this tip involves manually marking a location with the maps app. The good news is that, if you have a 3D-Touch-enabled phone, it's super easy to do.

To mark your spot, just press hard on the Maps app icon, and then pick Mark My Location from the options that pop up. Then, when you're returning and can't remember which lamppost you locked your bike to, you can open the Maps app and you'll see Marked Location at the top of the suggestions list that takes up almost half the screen.

Now you know how to let your phone look after your vehicle, you need never worry about losing it again. Unless it gets stolen, of course.