How to Share and Find Location on Google Maps (2026 Guide)

Quick Answer

Google Maps lets people share their location with each other by consent — open your profile » Location sharing, pick who and for how long. Everyone can see sharing is on and can stop it anytime, which is exactly what makes it healthy. There is no legitimate way to see someone’s live location without them knowing, and trying to is a privacy violation. This guide shows the honest, agreed-upon way to share and find location for family coordination and safety.

Google Maps has a genuinely useful location sharing feature, and there are plenty of honest reasons to use it. Letting your family see you are on the way home. Coordinating a meet-up in a crowded city. Making sure a friend got back safely after a night out. Keeping an eye on a child who is old enough to travel alone.

This guide covers how Google Maps location sharing actually works, how to set it up on Android and iPhone, how to find someone who has shared with you, and the important legal line that separates sharing from covert tracking.

The Honest Answer First

Let us deal directly with the question that brings most people here: can you see someone location on Google Maps without them knowing?

No. Google Maps location sharing is consent-based by design. The other person must actively share with you, they can see in their settings that sharing is active, and they can stop it at any moment. Google built it that way deliberately.

There is one narrow exception worth being precise about: a parent supervising a child Google Account through Family Link can see that child device location. That is a supervised account with a legal guardian relationship, not a workaround for tracking adults.

Everything else that claims to locate a person on Google Maps secretly is either requiring their account password, which is unauthorised access, or simply not working. Tracking another adult covertly is a criminal offence in most countries. We cover that properly further down.

What Google Maps Location Sharing Shows

When someone shares their location with you, you can see:

• Their name, photo, and the recent location of their device on the map
• Their device battery level and whether it is charging
• Arrival and departure times, if you set up a Location Sharing notification
• How they are travelling, such as walking or driving, when available

Two useful details. Location Sharing keeps working even when Timeline is switched off, and it updates in the background even when Google apps are not open. It also works cross-platform, so an Android user and an iPhone user can share with each other without issue, which is where Google Maps has a real advantage over Apple Find My.

How to Share Your Location (Android and iPhone)

The steps are nearly identical on both platforms.

1. Open the Google Maps app and make sure you are signed in to your Google Account.
2. Tap your profile picture or initial in the top right.
3. Tap Location sharing, then New share.
4. Choose how long to share for: a set number of hours, or Until you turn this off.
5. Select the person you want to share with, then tap Share.

The recipient needs a Gmail address for this to work. Google documents the full process, including the desktop settings, on its official Location Sharing help page.

Sharing with someone who has no Google Account

You can generate a link instead. In the same Location sharing menu, choose to copy the link and send it however you like. Anyone with that link can see your real-time location for up to 24 hours.

Sharing your trip progress

This is the feature most people miss, and it is often exactly what they actually wanted. While navigating by car, foot or bicycle, swipe up on the information card and tap Share trip progress. The person you choose sees your destination, estimated arrival time, and current location, and sharing stops automatically when you arrive. It is perfect for letting someone know you are on your way without setting up permanent sharing.

How to Find Someone Who Has Shared With You

1. Open Google Maps and tap your profile picture.
2. Tap Location sharing.
3. Tap the person name to see them on the map.

Requesting someone location

If you have shared with each other before, you can ask them to share again. In Location sharing, tap a contact and choose Request. They receive a notification with your email address and can accept, ignore, or block the request. Note that if they block it, you cannot ask again. The system is built so the other person is always in control.

Arrival and departure alerts

Once someone shares with you, you can add a Location Sharing notification to be alerted when they arrive at or leave a place. Useful for knowing a child reached school, or a partner left the office. They can see that you have set this up.

Tracking a Child With Family Link

This is the legitimate route for parents, and it is free.

Google Family Link lets a parent supervise a child Google Account, see the location of the child Android device on a map, and receive notifications when the child arrives at or leaves a location. It also handles screen time limits, app approvals, and content filtering, which is usually what a worried parent actually needs rather than message surveillance.

You can set it up from the Family Link location setup guide. A few practical notes: the child needs a Google Account and an Android device, Chromebook, or compatible device, and you must live in the same country. Family Link cannot supervise an iPhone in the same way, so for an iPhone child you would use Apple Screen Time and Family Sharing instead.

Worth saying plainly: even with a child, openness works better than secrecy. Children who understand the rules and why they exist develop better judgement than children who are watched covertly and find out later. Family Link is visible to the child by design, and that is a strength rather than a limitation.

Why Not Use a Tracking App?

Search results for this topic overflow with services promising to pin anyone on a map from their phone number alone, quietly and without their knowledge. It is worth knowing why that promise is empty.

A phone number cannot reveal a location. This is the simplest reason and the most important. There is no mechanism by which an ordinary phone number hands over someone whereabouts, so any site advertising it is either describing something else or selling nothing at all. The niche is thick with scams that bill you monthly and hand back a fabricated pin or a vague map of the person home city.

It is against the law. Slipping tracking software onto an adult device, or signing into their Google account uninvited, is prosecutable across most of the world, and a wedding ring is not a defence. We lay out the actual statutes, and why intent does not save you, in our guide on the legal position on monitoring a partner phone.

The products themselves are hazardous. They ask you to switch off protections and hand over deep permissions, and researchers keep finding malware tucked inside them. It is not a market with reputable players either: well-known monitoring brands have been hacked, spilling their customers data, and others have folded overnight. The Coalition Against Stalkerware, which unites privacy groups, law enforcement and security firms, catalogues the products in this space and helps the people harmed by them.

The Line Between Sharing and Tracking

One test settles it: does the person know, and can they turn it off?

• Location sharing: they accepted, they can see it is on, they can stop it whenever they choose. Google Maps location sharing, trip progress, and Family Link for a supervised child all work this way.
• Covert tracking: the person does not know and cannot stop it. This is stalkerware, and using it on another adult is illegal.

If a method only works as long as the other person does not find out, that tells you which side of the line it is on. And practically speaking, the covert approach fails anyway. Both Android and iPhone now actively warn people about unfamiliar tracking, so covert monitoring tends to come to light on its own, and rarely at a convenient time.

If You Think Someone Is Tracking You

Plenty of people arrive at this topic from the opposite direction, uneasy that someone already knows their movements. The Google Maps part of that is quick to check, so start there.

Open Google Maps, tap your profile picture, and choose Location sharing. This is the single most overlooked leak: a permission you granted a partner, a family member or a friend long ago simply keeps running, and you forget it exists. Read the whole list and stop sharing with anyone who should not still be on it.

The other Google-specific place to look is your account itself. Visit your Google Account security settings, review every device that is signed in, and sign out anything you do not recognise before changing your password and switching on two-step verification. Someone reading your location through your own logged-in account does not need any app on your phone at all.

If those two checks are not enough to settle it, the problem may be software on the device rather than a sharing setting, and that is a broader job covering device-admin apps, accessibility abuse and account back doors on both Android and iPhone. We walk through the whole thing, including safe removal, in our guide on how to tell if your phone is being tracked and what to do about it. It also covers the one thing to sort out before you touch anything: if there is any chance the person involved could react dangerously, plan the sequence with a domestic abuse support service first, using a device they have never had access to.

Google Maps vs Apple Find My

If you are choosing between them:

• Google Maps is the better choice for mixed groups, because it works identically across Android and iPhone. It also shows battery level and travel mode.
• Apple Find My is smoother if everyone is on iPhone, and adds Precision Finding on newer models plus the Check In safety feature.
• Family Link (Android children) and Apple Family Sharing with Screen Time (iPhone children) are the correct tools for supervising a minor.

There is no reason not to use both if your family spans platforms. Neither costs anything.

Troubleshooting Location Sharing

• Their location is not updating. Their device may be offline, out of battery, or have location services switched off. Google Maps shows the last known position with a timestamp in that case.
• You cannot see them at all. Confirm they actually accepted. A pending request shows nothing until they tap accept.
• Sharing stopped after 24 hours. Link-based shares expire after 24 hours by design. For ongoing sharing, share directly with their Google Account instead of a link.
• The recipient has no Gmail address. Direct sharing requires one. Use the link method instead.
• Location is wrong in a busy area. Google sometimes snaps a position to a nearby point of interest. Indoors and in dense city blocks this can be off by a building or two.
• It worked and then stopped. They may have turned sharing off, which they are entitled to do at any time.

Privacy Tips for Location Sharing

• Prefer time-limited shares. An hour, or until the end of the day, covers most real needs. Indefinite sharing should be reserved for people you genuinely want seeing you permanently.
• Audit your list periodically. People accumulate. Open Location sharing every few months and remove anyone who no longer needs to be there, such as an ex-partner or a former flatmate.
• Use trip progress instead of permanent sharing when the real need is just letting someone know you are on the way.
• Remember what it reveals. Ongoing sharing exposes your movement patterns over time, not just where you are now. Share it with people accordingly.

A Word About Google Maps Timeline

Timeline is a separate feature that people often confuse with location sharing, and the distinction matters. Timeline is your own private record of where you have been, visible only to you in your Google Account. It is not shared with anyone, and turning it on does not expose you to other people. Location Sharing works whether Timeline is on or off.

Where Timeline becomes relevant is if someone else has access to your Google Account. Anyone who can log into your account can open your Timeline and see your movement history. That is another reason to make sure nobody else knows your Google password, and to turn on two-step verification. If you are worried, check your Timeline settings and review which devices are signed in to your account.

Related Reading

For the equivalent guide on Apple devices, see how to see someone location on iPhone. If you suspect your own device is being tracked, read how to detect and remove phone tracking. And if the real worry underneath this is a relationship, our honest guide on what to do when you are worried about a partner phone covers ground that no tracking app will.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I see someone location on Google Maps without them knowing? No. Location sharing requires the person to actively share with you, and they can see it is active and stop it at any time. The only exception is a parent supervising a child Google Account through Family Link.

Can I track a phone using only the phone number? No. A phone number does not expose location. Services claiming to do this are misrepresenting what they offer, and many are outright scams.

Does Google Maps notify someone when I view their shared location? No, but they can always see that they are sharing with you, and they chose to share in the first place. They can revoke it whenever they like.

Does location sharing work between Android and iPhone? Yes. This is Google Maps main advantage over Apple Find My. Sharing works identically across both platforms.

Can I track a device that is turned off? No. A powered-off device cannot report its location to Google Maps. You will see the last known location with a timestamp from before it went offline.

Is it legal to track someone with Google Maps? Sharing that the other person switched on themselves, and can switch off, is always fine. Covertly monitoring a fellow adult who has not agreed to it breaks the law in most places. A parent supervising a minor child through Family Link is generally lawful.

How accurate is Google Maps location sharing? Usually accurate to within a few metres outdoors with a good GPS signal. Indoors, in dense city areas, or in poor signal it can drift, and Google may snap the position to a nearby point of interest.

How do I stop sharing my location? Open Google Maps, tap your profile picture, tap Location sharing, tap the person, and choose to stop. You can also pause all sharing from your Google Account settings.

The Bottom Line

Google Maps location sharing does everything most people genuinely need. It is free, it works across Android and iPhone, it handles one-off shares, ongoing sharing, trip progress, and arrival alerts. For a child on Android, Family Link adds proper supervision including location.

The one thing it deliberately will not do is let you follow another adult in secret, and that protection applies to you as much as to anyone else. The services promising to get around it are illegal to use, frequently fraudulent, and technically dangerous.

If what is really driving the urge to track someone in secret is that the trust between you has broken, a dot moving across a map repairs none of it. That answer lives in a conversation, not in an app.