Use iPhone Safety Check to Review Sharing Without Resetting Everything

For a routine review of who can see your information, open Manage Sharing & Access in iPhone Safety Check. It lets you inspect individual people and apps before stopping particular sharing arrangements. Emergency Reset is the separate option intended to stop sharing immediately and broadly.

Before opening the review

Apple requires an iPhone with iOS 16 or later, signed in to an Apple Account using two-factor authentication. Its Safety Check instructions, published in September 2026, remain useful for a current privacy review. This guide follows those instructions, rather than describing a new feature released today.

Consider the effect of changing access before proceeding, especially if another person may notice a change. Apple also warns that Screen Time restrictions or device-management profiles can make some options unavailable. If Stolen Device Protection is enabled, behaviour can differ; our Stolen Device Protection guide explains its security-delay setting.

Review people, then apps

1. Open Settings, choose Privacy & Security, then Safety Check. Scroll down if necessary.
2. Tap Manage Sharing & Access, then Continue. Changes are saved as you go.
3. In the people review, choose People to inspect individuals, or Information to inspect the kinds of information shared. Review the selected entries and stop only the sharing you intend to change.
4. In the app review, choose Apps to examine individual apps, or Information to review the data categories available to them. Check the entries before removing access.
5. Tap Continue to review device and account security. Follow the available prompts for connected devices, identity-verification phone numbers and emergency contacts. Review any proposed password or passcode changes deliberately rather than treating them as automatic cleanup.
6. Tap Done when the review is finished.

The available device checks depend on your setup and software. Apple includes synced-computer reviews from iOS 17 onward and iPhone Mirroring computer reviews from iOS 18 onward. Not seeing an optional item does not by itself mean the whole review failed.

Verify the result before relying on it

Use Back, or quit and reopen Safety Check, to verify the changes. Check people sharing and app access separately. If you changed account settings, also review connected devices, verification phone numbers, emergency contacts and any synced computers you removed.

Quick Exit closes Settings and returns to the Home Screen. It does not cancel work: changes already made remain saved. To share again later, reopen the relevant app or service and share the content again. Apple notes that some services notify people when sharing resumes.

When an expected entry is missing

If an Apple app such as Notes or Fitness was deleted, Apple says it may need to be downloaded again before its shared information appears. Restrictions or management profiles are another reason individual controls may be absent.

Safety Check cannot review everything. Non-Apple accounts and passwords, social-media sharing, devices using a different Apple Account, and sharing configured in other apps on an iPad or Mac require separate checks. A completed iPhone review confirms the changes you inspected; it is not an audit of every account you own.