I’m trying to keep tabs on my daughter’s iPhone from my Android phone, but I really don’t want to install anything on her device. I’ve heard there might be ways through built-in account syncing or carrier features, but I’m not sure how to set that up. Anyone know the trick?
Short answer: you kinda can’t do it completely without touching her phone, but you don’t need a third-party app. The easiest legit route is logging into her Apple ID on iCloud.com from your Android browser — if Find My is enabled on her iPhone, you can see her location right there, but you’d need to set that up on her device first (one-time thing). Your carrier might also have a family tracking feature built into your plan (Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T all have these) which is honestly the lowest-drama option.
Sadly, you generally can’t reliably track an iPhone from Android without installing an app or using some form of device-level tooling—iOS is pretty locked down and blocks the “no-app” approaches people mention (account syncing, carrier tricks, etc. typically won’t give real-time location like you want). If you need real monitoring, the cleanest route is using a proper parental-control solution like mSpy (it’s built specifically for this, though the downside is you do have to install/setup on the iPhone).
If you tell me what you mean by “keep tabs” (live GPS, web history, messages, geofences, etc.), I can point you to the closest realistic option on iOS.