Android’s Find Me Alternative Could Be Better Than Apple’s
For those of us with an iPhone, sharing your location with friends and family is easy. The Find Me app (officially Find My Friends) is your one-stop shop for keeping track of the contacts, devices, and items in your life. But there is no obvious equivalent on Android. You won’t find the “Share Location” option when texting your friends on a Pixel, Galaxy, or OnePlus. But as it turns out, the Android Find My alternative can be more useful than the Apple app.
If you want to share your Android location with a friend, don’t use a third party app. Instead, use one from Google: Google Maps. Everyone’s favorite navigation app is the perfect solution to keep track of your friends. The best part? It’s platform independent so you can track your friends on Android and iPhone. You can even use Google Maps location sharing on a computer as it is linked to your Google account.
This feature requires your friend’s Gmail address to be in your Google Contacts. On iPhone, you can also allow Google Maps for the iOS Contacts app to find Gmail addresses. However, permanent and perpetual tracking requires Gmail; if the contact in question doesn’t have Gmail, you can send them a tracking link, but the link will only work for 24 hours. It also requires Google Maps to always have access to your location. If you have “Allowed only while using” (Android) or “When using app” (iOS) enabled, you need to toggle these options in your phone’s location settings. However, don’t worry too much because Google Maps will warn you if you don’t have the required permissions.
How to share your location with all your friends using Google Maps
To get started, launch Google Maps, tap your profile in the top right corner, and select Location Sharing. Click “Share location” and you will see the location sharing settings menu. Here you can choose how long you’d like to share your location (as little as 15 minutes or as much as 24 hours), but if you’re looking for a real Find My experience, select “Until you turn it off.” This will allow you to continue sharing your location unlimited time until you decide to cut ties.
Under this option, you will see all the Google accounts you have in your Google Contacts. Touch who you want to share with. If you have Gmail addresses in your non-Google Contacts, click “More” to see them (you’ll need to give Gmail permission here if you haven’t already).
After selecting contacts, click “Share”. If you need to set up any location permissions, Google Maps will prompt you to do so. Otherwise, you are in! Your friends will get your location and will be able to see how far you are from them, your specific address and even your smartphone’s battery level. If you ever want to stop sharing your location, go back to your location sharing settings, then tap a contact in the list and choose Stop.