Update

The Update action requests a fresh location and state update for the devices linked to an Apple Account.

To save battery, Home Assistant polls your devices on a dynamic interval. This action is useful when you need an up-to-date location right away, for example to check whether anyone is home when a door opens.

Using this action from the user interface

If you prefer building automations and scripts visually, Home Assistant walks you through this action step by step. You pick what to target, tweak a few options, and save. No YAML knowledge required.

To request an update from an automation or a script:

1. Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
2. Open an existing automation or script, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
3. If you’re setting up a new automation, add a trigger in the When section. Scripts don’t need a trigger. They run when something else calls them.
4. In the Then do section, select Add action.
5. From the search box, search for and select Apple iCloud: Update.
6. Optionally, enter the Account to update. Leave it empty to update every configured Apple Account.
7. Select Save.

This action does not support targets. In the UI, you are not prompted to choose an area, device, entity, or label.

Options in the UI

Using this action in YAML

If you work directly in YAML, or you want to know exactly what Home Assistant does under the hood, this section has the technical reference. It lists the field names you use in YAML, their types, and which ones are required.

In YAML, refer to this action as icloud.update. A basic example looks like this:

action: icloud.update
data:
  account: "[email protected]"

This requests an update for all devices on the given account.

Options in YAML

Try it yourself

Ready to test this? Open Developer tools > Actions, search for this action, fill in the fields, and select Perform action. You see what happens on your actual entitiesAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more] without writing a line of YAML.

More examples

Real scenarios where this action shows up in automations and scripts. Copy any example and adapt it to your setup.

Automation: check presence when the front door opens

When the front door opens, request a location update so the presence detection reflects the latest position.

• Trigger: The front door opens
• Action: Apple iCloud: Update

alias: "Update iCloud location on door open"
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id: binary_sensor.front_door
    to: "on"
actions:
  - action: icloud.update
    data:
      account: "[email protected]"

Still stuck?

The Home Assistant community is quick to help: join Discord for real-time chat, post on the community forum with the action you’re calling and what you expected to happen, or share on our subreddit /r/homeassistant.

Related actions

These actions work well alongside this one:

• Play sound: Plays the Lost device sound on an Apple device.

• Display message: Displays a message on an Apple device.

• Lost device: Puts an Apple device into Lost Mode.