How to share your location with Android
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Last year’s article about optimising Google Maps mentioned Location Sharing. Since then there have been several experiences, such as trying to meet up in Sydney Airport parking areas, or at an unknown café or pub in a country town, where a shared location would have been of great assistance. But too late, it was difficult to activate when needed while driving. Determined to avoid these situations in future, we researched how to make it easy.
Manually share location in Google Maps
In Google Maps you can share your location in real time with your contacts, even those who do not have Google accounts or Maps. Just open your Google Maps app and tap the profile icon or menu at the top right of the screen, then select Location sharing. A page appears with a blue Share location button.
To make it easier next time, tap on the top right menu and then on Add to Home screen. This adds a shortcut icon on your device’s Home screen – or at least on a screen you can scroll to from Home. We had to find it and move it to the actual Home screen – it was in the App Drawer in one case.
You also have the option to Share Location after you have selected your destination and directions.
When you tap on the Share Location icon it opens Maps, showing any current location shares plus a New share button. With this you can choose to share your location with selected contacts for the default one hour or until you turn sharing off, or you can use the plus or minus buttons to adjust the sharing time.
You can also share locations that you are not currently at. Just tap and hold on any location on the map to drop a pin. Tap the address section at the bottom of the screen to expand it, then tap Share.
You’ll see a pop-up list of contacts and apps you can use to share the location.
When sharing, your contact can see your location on the map, and you can see theirs if they have allowed you to, plus their name will be listed at the bottom of the screen. Tap on it to see full location sharing details, along with the option to stop sharing.
On older versions of Maps you might see a Copy to Clipboard option for pasting a link into a message or email. On current versions you will see icons that let you send the link through a wide range of message and email apps.
Depending on your device you may have additional options displayed on this screen, such as sharing your ETA, requesting that a contact shares their location, and on a Pixel phone with Live View you can see a Street View of where they are as they progress.
Get some Assistance
Ok, so you can have an icon on your home screen that takes you into Maps’ Share Location in one tap, and if you have previously shared with a contact you can do so with a couple more taps, but how about hands free? As long as you have Android Assistant on board it’s even easier.
Using Assistant for location sharing is super easy in fact, and a better choice if you are driving. Just say “Hey Google, share my location with xxx”. If you are in a noisy environment it is best to break that up into individual commands replying to Assistant responses. As long as the person is in your Contacts
list there should be no problem, or for anyone who isn’t you can recite their mobile number to Assistant.
Interestingly, Google Assistant will know if the contact has a WhatsApp account even if you don’t, and will offer you a choice of sending your location message by either SMS or WhatsApp, for example. However it is sent, the receiver can tap on the message or email and a map will open, showing your location.
We tried asking Google Assistant to share location via various apps, which was not always successful. For example, Assistant said she “can’t send through Facebook Messenger yet.”
What other ways can you share your location?
Many apps, particularly messaging apps, include a Share Location function. These generally have less capabilities than Google Maps, but can be very convenient. So if you are in a chat conversation with an individual or group and someone asks “Where are you” it’s simple to reply to with a location link.
Facebook Messenger
Even if you aren’t on Facebook you can use Messenger, which seems a particularly reliable app in areas of poor mobile coverage. Of course it’s one more bit of personal information to FB, but they probably know it all anyway!
Just tap the four dots to the left of the message box and then select “Location”. A message is sent with a map showing your location for one hour. You can tap on this and cancel it at any time if you wish. It’s that simple – although Google Assistant can’t do it for you.
Note that standard SMS messaging has a function that works pretty much the same way, and includes a map image of where you are, and Assistant can send it for you.
WhatsApp Live Location is similar but with more options. You can share your live location, or can select from locations known to
WhatsApp shown as small green dots on the map. The recipient can choose to open your message in an app such as Maps, and in that case can then choose to navigate to the location.
This is very useful when you are wanting to meet up at a certain point, and good when driving as Android Assistant can send your live location hands free. As previously noted, Assistant knows if a contact has a WhatsApp account, and if they don’t have WhatsApp it works the same way by sending SMS.
Snapchat
We haven’t tried it, but Snapchat has a Location Sharing function that lets you send to some or all of your friends.
Glympse
Glympse is more of a dedicated location sharing app and works well. It gives you lots of options, and also has the ability to set up events. Glympse is free from the Google Play Store and does not run ads, so it’s easy to give it a try.