Android Location Tracking for Measuring the Whereabouts of Your Closest Friends and Families on Snapchat, Facebook, and Google Maps

If you use an iPhone, and everyone you want to keep tabs on uses an iPhone, then the obvious option for location sharing is the Find My app in iOS (and iPadOS and macOS). But first, for this to work as intended, you need to have location sharing enabled on your iPhone:

You might think you’d rely on it more than you actually would, because you only want to do this with the people in your life. And these tools do come with built-in controls for managing what you’re actually sharing and when.

Locations can be shared with your friends and family in Snapchat, too, via the Snap Map. Tap the map pin icon (lower left) on the main screen to see where all of your contacts are — or at least those contacts sharing their location with you. Pick which friends you want to see where you are from the gear icon in the top-right corner.

To temporarily stop sharing your location across all of your contacts, open the Me tab, and turn off the Share My location switch is on. To stop sharing it with a specific person, tap their name on the people tab and choose stop sharing my location.

Google Maps for Android and iOS is one of the best ways of doing this, as it’s cross-platform and is an app that a lot of people have installed on their phones.

If you are sharing location with others, you can see other people if you want and they can’t see you. To make your location visible, you need to enable location tracking on your phone: you just need to tap on the location option and it will give you the Use location option.

Many of us are aware that modern technology can be tracked with many different methods, so if you haven’t already, you don’t have to. But knowing the whereabouts of trusted friends and family can be useful a lot of the time, and it’s something you can do from your Android phone.

I’ve used this many times to figure out where to meet someone or to check when guests are going to arrive so I know exactly how much time I’ve got left to tidy up. It can be helpful for parents, too, to know their kids are safe and where they’re supposed to be.

Family Link: A Family-Friendly App for Tracking, Messaging, and Tracking Children’s Places of Insights

Tap on a contact in the list underneath the map to zoom in on their precise location. You’ll also get an information card telling you how far away they are from you, when their location was last updated, and the battery level of their phone (which might be the reason they’re ignoring your calls).

Bear in mind that location monitoring is available on its own dedicated tab if you use the Family Link app to monitor the device of a child. The feature of this app could be convenient for people who use it less than for people who use Google Maps for their kids.

Life is good, too, but it is geared toward families. As well as offering location-sharing features (including location-based alerts) that you and your kids can make use of, the app also offers private messaging and device tracking features. The app can warn you about an accident if it thinks a family member has been involved.