How to track someone on Google Maps after they share their location with you

• You can track someone on Google Maps who is sharing their location with you by opening the "Location sharing" menu and tapping the contact's name.
• You can track a friend, co-worker or family member on Google Maps, but that person needs to enable location tracking for you specifically.
• To stop tracking someone, ask the person to turn off location sharing or disable tracking in Google Maps.

If you and your close contacts use Google Maps, you might want to use the app's location sharing feature.

Using this optional tool, friends, co-workers and family can share their location with each other and see their locations on the map in real-time.

That makes it easy to track someone on Google Maps, with a caveat: the person you want to track must opt into sharing their location, so it's (thankfully) not possible to track anyone without their knowledge or consent.

How to track someone on Google Maps

1. Start Google Maps on your iPhone or Android.

2. Tap your account avatar at the top right of the screen. In the pop-up menu, tap "Location sharing."

3. You'll see a list of everyone who is currently sharing their location with you at the bottom of the screen. To see someone's precise location, tap the entry and the map will zoom into their position.

If you want to track someone using Google Maps in a web browser on a computer, the process is essentially the same. Open Google Maps in a browser and then click the three horizontal lines at the top left of the web page (the "hamburger menu"). Then click "Location sharing" to see your contacts on the map.

How to share your location on Google Maps

The person you want to track on Google Maps must enable location sharing before you can follow them. You don't need to share your own location to track someone else, but you might need to help the other person turn on their location sharing.

1. Using the Google Maps app on Android or iPhone, tap your account avatar at the top right of the screen. In the pop-up menu, tap "Location sharing."

2. If this is the first time you're sharing your location, you'll need to tap "Share location" on the Stay connected screen. Otherwise, tap "New share."

3. Choose the contact you want to share your location with and select how long to share -or until you manually turn off location sharing.

4. Tap "Share."

How to ask someone to let you track them

If someone has already shared their location with you in the past, you can ask them to share again. To do that:

1. Start Google Maps on your iPhone or Android.

2. Tap your account avatar at the top right of the screen. In the pop-up menu, tap "Location sharing."

3. Tap a contact in the list and then tap "Request." The contact will receive this request on their phone and can choose to accept or deny it.

How to stop tracking someone on Google Maps on your phone

If you no longer want to see someone's location on your map, you can ask them to stop sharing their location with you. Alternatively, you can hide them from view in Google Maps.

1. Start Google Maps on your iPhone or Android.

2. Tap your account avatar at the top right of the screen. In the pop-up menu, tap "Location sharing."

3. In the list of shared contacts at the bottom of the screen, tap the person you want to stop tracking.

4. Tap the three dots at the right side of the screen and then tap "Hide [contact] from map."

To do this in a web browser on your computer, open the Location sharing menu and click the contact you want to stop tracking. Then click "Hide on map."

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