iCloud Find My

Access Find My device locations and battery status via the iCloud CLI (pyicloud).

Setup

• Install pyicloud:

brew install pipx
pipx install pyicloud

• Authenticate (one-time):

icloud --username [email protected] --with-family --list

They'll need to enter their password and complete 2FA. The session will be saved and lasts 1-2 months.

• Store Apple ID:

## iCloud Find My
Apple ID: [email protected]

Usage

List all devices

icloud --username APPLE_ID --with-family --list

Output format:

------------------------------
Name           - Liam's iPhone
Display Name   - iPhone 15 Pro
Location       - {'latitude': 52.248, 'longitude': 0.761, 'timeStamp': 1767810759054, ...}
Battery Level  - 0.72
Battery Status - NotCharging
Device Class   - iPhone
------------------------------

Parsing tips:

• Devices are separated by ------------------------------
• Location is a Python dict (use eval() or parse with regex)
• Battery Level is 0.0-1.0 (multiply by 100 for percentage)
• Battery Status: "Charging" or "NotCharging"
• Location fields: latitude, longitude, timeStamp (milliseconds), horizontalAccuracy

Get specific device

Find a specific device by grepping the output:

icloud --username APPLE_ID --with-family --list | grep -A 10 "iPhone"

Parse location

Extract and format location data:

icloud --username APPLE_ID --with-family --list | \
  grep -A 10 "Device Name" | \
  grep "Location" | \
  sed "s/Location.*- //"

Then parse the Python dict string with Python or extract coordinates with regex.

Parse battery

icloud --username APPLE_ID --with-family --list | \
  grep -A 10 "Device Name" | \
  grep "Battery Level"

Device Names

Device names come from iCloud and may include:

• Fancy Unicode apostrophes (U+2019 ') instead of ASCII '
• No apostrophes at all (e.g., "Lindas iPhone")

Session Management

• Sessions last 1-2 months
• Stored in user's home directory
• When expired, re-run the authentication step
• PyiCloud validates automatically on each request

Common Patterns

Check battery before going out:

# Get battery for specific device
icloud --username ID --with-family --list | \
  grep -B 2 -A 5 "iPhone" | \
  grep "Battery Level"

Get current location:

# Extract location dict and parse coordinates
icloud --username ID --with-family --list | \
  grep -A 10 "iPhone" | \
  grep "Location" | \
  sed "s/.*- //" | \
  python3 -c "import sys; loc = eval(sys.stdin.read()); print(f\"{loc['latitude']}, {loc['longitude']}\")"

Check if device is charging:

icloud --username ID --with-family --list | \
  grep -A 10 "iPhone" | \
  grep "Battery Status"

Proactive Use Cases

• Battery warnings: Check battery levels before calendar events (going out)
• Location context: Answer "near me" queries by checking user's current location
• Home/away detection: Check if user is at home based on coordinates
• Low battery alerts: Warn if battery <30% and not charging

Troubleshooting

Authentication errors:

• Session expired - re-authenticate
• Wrong Apple ID - check stored ID
• 2FA required - complete 2FA flow

• Device offline
• Find My disabled
• Location Services off

• Check exact device name with --list
• Names are case-sensitive
• May have Unicode apostrophes

Notes

• Requires macOS (iCloud API quirks)
• Family Sharing must be enabled to see family devices
• Location updates every ~1-5 minutes when device is active
• Battery readings may be cached (check timestamp)