Recently replaced dead batteries on 3 airtags (car, luggage 1, luggage 2). Everything worked fine before batteries died.
Now, Findmy on iPhone shows all 3 items and location.
Findmy Mac shows car’s current location, home, with recent timestamp.
The other 2 items show Home, but timestamp is “last seen in March”, which suggest to me that the Mac Findmy is not getting current info from these 2 airtags and doesn’t really know where they are.
I have toggled Findmy off/on on both iphone and Mac but problem persists.
How do I get Mac Findmy to update info on these airtags?
Advice appreciated,
Peter Donlevy
I’d consider putting the luggage in your car and driving around for a bit to see if that changes their location. Perhaps because their location has not changed, the status date has not changed.
Before doing anything complex or convoluted, I recommend re-seating the top part of the AirTags that are reporting “last seen in March”. Also ensure your phone’s Bluetooth is turned on.
ETA
One more thing: if you mixed and matched replacement battery brands in your AirTags, make sure none were the childproof type.
From Apple:
Look for packaging that states “Compatible with Apple AirTag”. Some CR2032 batteries with bitterant coatings might not work with AirTag or other battery-powered products.
AirTags got their location from nearby Apple devices. Take them to your local Starbucks/Peets/somewhere-there-are-lots-of-iPhones and see what happens after 30 min or so.
That would be worth a try if they weren’t updating at all. But the fact that the OP sees them update on his iPhone tells me they’re powered alright and transmitting. The Mac side (FindMy network, iCloud, …) is the problem here, not the AirTag I’m afraid.
I disagree the problem can be isolated to the Mac without checking the AirTags because a family member saw the same thing (“last seen xxx days ago”, located at “Home”) recently and the cause was an improperly seated AirTag cover following a battery change.
In any case, I think Occam’s Razor is a good principle to follow whenever troubleshooting. Making sure an AirTag is powered on is a lot easier than beginning by strapping a suitcase to a car roof and driving around for half an hour, visiting a coffee house, or digging around the depths of macOS.
But he already knows the AirTag is powered because it’s been updating on his iPhone just fine.
Problem Gone. Rather than just toggle Mac Findmy off/on, I logged out/into iCloud yesterday. After that Findmy Mac said “no location found”. However, this morning both luggae tags are shown at home, timestamp yesterday. must have been a very slow iCloud Sync. Lesson learned: after replacing (dead) airtag batteries, log out/on iCloud, just to be sure.
Thanks for everyone’s suggestions.
Pete
2 Likes