How to Manage Your Tile Tracker: Rename, Share, Transfer, and More

Since Life360 acquired Tile in 2021, the Tile app has been absorbed into the Life360 ecosystem — meaning some settings and menus look different than older guides describe. This article covers every account management action you might need, using the current app as of 2026.

How to Rename a Tile Tracker

You can rename any Tile in the app without affecting how the tracker functions — the name is just a label in your account. The change takes effect immediately on your phone and syncs to the tracker on its next Bluetooth connection.

Steps to rename:

1. Open the Life360 app and tap the Keys icon at the bottom of the map.
2. Select the Tile you want to rename from your list.
3. Tap Edit Name and Photo.
4. Type the new name and save.

Short, location-based names work best. "Car Keys," "Backpack," or "Work Bag" are easier to scan quickly than a generic name like "Tile Pro #2." You can also assign a custom emoji to distinguish Tiles at a glance.

How to Share a Tile with Someone Else

Sharing lets another person see your Tile's location in their own app without taking ownership. Both people can ring the Tile and see its last known position. The original owner keeps full control, including the ability to revoke access at any time.

To share a Tile:

1. Tap your Tile in the Keys view.
2. Tap Share this Tile.
3. Enter the recipient's email address linked to their Life360 or Tile account.
4. Tap Send — the invitation lands in their app immediately.

Sharing requires the recipient to have a Life360/Tile account. It is a free feature, unlike some competitors that lock sharing behind a paid tier. To revoke sharing later, return to the same screen and tap Remove next to the shared user.

How to Hide or Unhide a Tile

Hiding a Tile removes it from your active list without deleting it. It still belongs to your account, and the tracker can still be found by the crowd-network if you mark it lost. It just won't show up in your daily Tiles view or trigger separation alerts. Most useful for Tiles with dead batteries you haven't gotten around to replacing, or for trackers stashed somewhere you don't need to check every day.

To hide a Tile:

1. Select the Tile in the app.
2. Scroll down and tap More Options.
3. Under Actions, tap Hide.
4. Confirm by tapping OK.

To unhide: go to Settings → Manage Hidden Tiles from the main menu. Select the Tile and tap Unhide. It returns to your normal list immediately.

How to Transfer a Tile to a New Owner

Transferring is different from sharing. A transfer removes the Tile from your account entirely and hands ownership to someone else; they become the primary owner, with full control. You lose all visibility into the tracker after the transfer completes.

To transfer a Tile:

1. Select the Tile in the app.
2. Scroll down and tap More Options.
3. Under Actions, select Transfer Tile.
4. Enter the recipient's email address and confirm.

The recipient receives a notification in their app and the Tile appears in their account automatically. If you had previously shared the Tile with other users, those shared connections are severed; the new owner starts fresh. For a second-hand sale, this is the right process: transfer first, then hand over the physical device. Doing it in reverse (handing over the device without transferring) can cause account lock issues for the new user.

How to Replace a Tile in the App

The Replace function is for when you buy a new Tile to swap out an old one in your lineup. It keeps the name, settings, and shared-user connections from the old Tile and reassigns them to the new hardware. Useful if you're upgrading a Tile Pro after the battery dies or if a unit gets lost and you want to slot a replacement into the same "Car Keys" slot without reconfiguring everything.

To replace a Tile:

1. Select the old Tile in the app.
2. Tap More Options → Replace.
3. Hold the new Tile close to your phone and follow the pairing steps.
4. The old Tile is deactivated and the new one inherits its settings.

If you're just swapping a dead CR2032 battery in a Tile Pro (not replacing the whole device), you don't need to go through this process. The tracker reconnects automatically once the new battery is in. See our Tile tracker review for a breakdown of which models have replaceable batteries.

How to Factory Reset a Tile

A factory reset clears the tracker's local data and forces it to re-pair. It does not remove the Tile from your account; the tracker stays registered, but will need to reconnect on the next Bluetooth contact. Factory reset is mainly useful for troubleshooting connection problems or for wiping a Tile before passing it to someone else.

To factory reset:

1. Make sure you're near the Tile with Bluetooth enabled.
2. Select the Tile in the app.
3. Tap Settings, then Factory Reset.
4. Confirm. The reset completes in seconds.

After a factory reset, the Tile will reconnect automatically the next time it comes within Bluetooth range of your phone with the app running.

How to Deactivate or Delete a Tile From Your Account

Deactivation is permanent. Once a Tile is deactivated, it can never be reactivated, not even by Tile support. The hardware itself becomes a dead unit. This is intentional: it prevents someone from finding your old Tile and using it without your knowledge. Don't deactivate a Tile unless you're certain you're done with it.

To deactivate, contact Life360/Tile support at support.thetileapp.com. There's no in-app deactivation button; this is a deliberate friction point to prevent accidental permanent loss.

If you just want to stop seeing a Tile in your account without deactivating it, use Hide instead (covered above). Hiding is reversible; deactivation is not.

Tile Premium and Free: What Account Tier Affects

Several management features work differently depending on whether you have a free or paid Life360/Tile account:

The core management functions (rename, hide, share, transfer) are free. Premium adds longer location history and zone-based Smart Alerts, but neither changes how any of the steps above work.

2025 Security Notice: Tile's Bluetooth Privacy Issue

In September 2025, researchers at Georgia Tech published findings showing that Tile trackers broadcast their MAC address and a semi-randomized unique ID in unencrypted plaintext over Bluetooth. Unlike AirTag, which rotates identifiers cryptographically and routes all location data through Apple's encrypted anonymized relay, Tile's identifiers are partly static, meaning someone with a Bluetooth sniffer can track a specific Tile over time without access to your account.

Life360 acknowledged the issue but provided limited detail on fixes. If you use a Tile in a context where location privacy matters (vehicle tracking, valuables in shared workspaces), the unencrypted Bluetooth broadcast is a real gap, not a theoretical one. The crowd-network data itself is encrypted on Life360's servers, but the on-device Bluetooth signal is not. That's a hardware limitation. Software updates won't fully close it on current-generation Tiles.

For more context on how AirTag compares in terms of anti-stalking architecture, see our article on AirTag’s safety design.

Thinking About Switching? AirTag 2 for iPhone Users

If you're an iPhone user who has been managing a Tile mostly out of inertia, the case for switching has gotten stronger. The Find My network runs on over a billion iPhones and is built directly into iOS; no separate app, no Life360 account. The 2026 AirTag 2 adds a U2 chip that extends Precision Finding (the directional arrow mode) to about 60 meters, versus roughly 15 meters on the original AirTag. That's the biggest practical difference when you're physically searching for something in a parking lot or an airport.

For a detailed comparison, see AirTag vs Tile. If you use Android, Tile remains the better option; AirTag only works with iPhone.

Sticking with Tile? Our Samsung SmartTag 2 vs Tile comparison is useful if you're Android-curious, and best Bluetooth trackers has the current field ranked by use case.

And if you're considering switching away from Tile entirely, Tile alternatives has the full list of what to switch to depending on your device and use case.

The Bottom Line

Every Tile management task, from renaming to transferring to factory resetting, runs through the Life360 app and takes under a minute. The core functions are all free; Premium only matters if you need extended location history or zone-based alerts. If you are an iPhone user and find yourself frustrated with the Life360 transition, switching to AirTag 2 gives you tighter OS integration and stronger Bluetooth privacy with zero subscription cost.

Frequently Asked Questions