What Happens When You Mail an AirTag?
Have you wondered what would happen if you were to drop an AirTag in an envelope and send it to a friend? Take Control author and occasional TidBITS contributor Kirk McElhearn mailed one from Stratford-upon-Avon to London to find out. He then set up a script on his Mac to take a screenshot of the Find My app every two minutes to track the AirTag on its journey. Amazingly, while the AirTag isn’t designed for real-time tracking, Kirk was able to track its progress like in a spy movie, which is a testament to the size of Apple’s Find My network.
Kirk noted that his friend wasn’t alerted to the presence of an AirTag after it arrived. Glenn Fleishman explained that it was likely because it had been moving with other people and was now just sitting in a house. Otherwise, if you had a roommate with an AirTag, it would alert you constantly.
Another guy did this in the Netherlands too.