Revealing your location to someone else can be a privacy breach – or it can be beneficial. If you want to make sure a friend knows you’re on the road or your spouse knows you’re stuck in traffic (and you don’t want to call them while you’re driving), then an active location tracker can be a real help.
In this article, we will examine how to set up location tracking on an Android phone. This is using a Pixel phone running Android 10; your mileage may vary depending on the manufacturer. And there’s one thing to know: You’re the only one who can give others permission to track your location, and you can revoke it at any time.
- open Google Maps
- Tap your profile picture in the upper right corner. Go to “Location sharing” and tap “new share”
You can now choose who to share your location with and for how long. The preselection is “One hour” but you can tap the plus/minus keys to adjust the timing. If you want the person to have unlimited access to your location, select the “Until you turn this off” option.
Next, icons are presented for your favorite and/or most used contacts. If the person you want to give access to isn’t there, swipe left and tap the three dots labeled “More” to access all your contacts. Either way, tap “Share” when you find the right person.
The person you shared with will now be listed at the bottom of the “Location sharing” screen. They will now be notified that they have access to your location.
To stop sharing your location, go to the “Location sharing” page, tap the person’s name and tap the “Stop” button. In the meantime, you can ask the person you shared your location on the same page to share their location with you in turn.
When you stop sharing your location, the person’s name stays there, but you’ll get a notification that you haven’t shared your location with them. This is for situations where you might want to share again; you won’t have to go through the whole process again – just tap on their name and the blue “Location”
