Change your iPhone's location on Windows.

Windows can talk to an iPhone over USB, and iOS will accept a simulated location from any computer it trusts. Put those two facts together and you can move your phone anywhere on earth from a PC, without jailbreaking it and without installing anything on the phone itself. Here is the whole procedure, including the one Windows-specific piece that trips almost everybody up.

Updated 10 August 2026 · about 5 minutes to read

What you need before you start

Four things, and one of them is the piece people miss. Windows, unlike macOS, ships no way of talking to an iPhone out of the box. That arrives with Apple's own software, and every tool in this category depends on it whether or not it tells you so.

  • Windows 10 or 11. Either edition, 64-bit.
  • Apple's Apple Devices app, free from the Microsoft Store. iTunes works too, and if you already have it you are done, because both install the same underlying Apple Mobile Device Service. Apple Devices is the smaller download on a clean machine.
  • An iPhone or iPad running iOS 16 or newer, with Developer Mode switched on. Older versions work too and do not have a Developer Mode toggle at all.
  • The cable. A data cable, not a charge-only one. The very cheap third-party cables sometimes carry power and nothing else, and a phone that charges but never appears is almost always that.
Why Apple Devices

Draftpin reaches the phone through Apple's USB multiplexer, which listens on 127.0.0.1:27015 on your PC. That service comes from Apple Devices or iTunes and from nowhere else. Without it there is no route to the phone, and Draftpin says so explicitly rather than showing you an empty device list and letting you guess.

The procedure

  1. Install Apple Devices, then restart

    Get it from the Microsoft Store and let it finish. Restart the PC afterwards even though it does not insist. The device service registers at boot, and skipping the restart is the most common reason a freshly installed machine still cannot see a phone.

  2. Turn on Developer Mode on the phone

    On iOS 16 and newer: Settings → Privacy & Security → Developer Mode, switch it on, and restart the phone when it asks. The toggle only appears after the phone has been connected to a computer running developer tooling at least once, which catches people out, so plug in first and then look. Full walkthrough, with the case where the toggle is missing.

  3. Install Draftpin and plug the phone in

    Download the Windows build and run it. The Windows installer is not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen shows a blue warning the first time: click More info, then Run anyway. (The Mac build is signed and notarised, so it does not do this.) Connect the phone, unlock it, and tap Trust on the prompt that appears. Draftpin finds the device on its own. There is no pairing step and nothing to configure.

  4. Pick where you want to be

    Three ways, all equivalent. Type a place name into the search box and pick it from the list. Paste coordinates straight in: 40.690008, -74.045843 and 40°41'24"N 74°02'45"W both work, and are resolved on your machine rather than sent anywhere. Or just click the map where you want to be.

  5. Press Teleport

    The staged pin becomes the phone's reported location, and every app on it updates within a second or so: Maps, the weather, your own app under test. Open Apple Maps on the phone and press the locate button to confirm.

  6. Move, if you need to move

    A location that never changes is enough for most testing. When it is not, hold the arrow keys or W A S D, or drag the on-screen joystick, and the position walks in that direction at whatever speed you picked. For anything repeatable, plan a route and press play instead.

  7. Put it back

    Press Reset to real, or pull the cable. Either restores the phone's own GPS immediately. Nothing was written to the device, so there is nothing else to undo.

Does it need administrator rights?

Usually not, and the answer depends only on which iOS version the phone is running.

  • iOS 17.4 and newer: no. Draftpin brings up the tunnel iOS requires inside its own process, using a pure-Python network stack, so there is no kernel interface to open and no elevation to ask for.
  • iOS 17.0 to 17.3.1: yes. Those three releases predate the service that makes the in-process tunnel possible, and the fallback needs a privileged network interface. Draftpin detects this and tells you plainly rather than failing somewhere obscure. Updating the phone to 17.4 or later is the fix, and 17.4 shipped in March 2024.
  • iOS 16 and older: no. Different, older transport; no elevation involved.

When Windows can't see the phone

Nearly always one of four things, in roughly this order of likelihood.

  1. Apple Devices is not installed, or the PC has not been restarted since it was. Check for Apple Mobile Device Service in Services.
  2. The phone is locked, or Trust was never tapped. Unlock it and unplug and replug.
  3. Developer Mode is off on iOS 16 or newer.
  4. The cable is charge-only, or the port is a front-panel one wired badly.

Draftpin reports which of these applies rather than showing a generic failure, because the fix is different in each case. The longer version, with what each error actually means.

What this will not do

Worth knowing before you spend the five minutes, because none of it is fixable by choosing a different tool.

  • It does not hide itself. Draftpin sets the location your phone reports and makes no attempt to defeat apps that check whether that location is simulated. Games and family-tracking apps that check will see it. If that is what you are after, this is the wrong tool.
  • Latitude and longitude only. The call iOS exposes takes exactly two arguments, so no tool of any kind, free or paid, can set altitude or a compass heading.
  • The cable has to stay in. There is no wireless mode. Unplugging is the undo button, which is convenient but not optional.

Questions

Can you change an iPhone's location from a Windows PC?

Yes. iOS exposes a location-simulation service to any computer the phone trusts, over USB. Windows needs Apple's free Apple Devices app installed first, because that is what provides the USB service Windows uses to talk to an iPhone at all. With that in place, a desktop app such as Draftpin can set the coordinates the phone reports, and no jailbreak or phone-side installation is involved.

Do I need iTunes to change my iPhone's location on Windows?

You need either the Apple Devices app or iTunes, but not both, and not for their own sake. Both install the Apple Mobile Device Service, which is the Windows component that makes an iPhone reachable over USB. Apple Devices from the Microsoft Store is the smaller of the two and is the one to install on a clean machine.

Does changing your iPhone's location on Windows need administrator rights?

Not on iOS 17.4 or newer, and not on iOS 16 or older. The one exception is iOS 17.0 to 17.3.1, where Apple's transport required a privileged network tunnel; updating the phone to 17.4 or later removes the requirement. Draftpin detects which case applies as soon as it sees the device and says so.

How do I put my iPhone back to its real location?

Unplug the cable, or press Reset to real in the app. Either restores the phone's own GPS immediately. Restarting the phone clears it too. The simulated location is held only for the life of the connection and nothing is written to the device, so there is nothing to undo afterwards.

Is it free?

Draftpin has a permanent free tier, and Pro is £29 once or £4 a month. The commercial Windows tools that do this (iToolab AnyGo, Tenorshare iAnyGo, iMyFone AnyTo, Dr.Fone Virtual Location) charge a subscription for the same underlying Apple facility. How they compare, honestly.

Get on with it

Download the Windows build.

Free to start, no account, and about a minute from download to a phone standing somewhere else.

Download for Windows Download for Mac