How to Share Your Location on Google Maps (iPhone & Android), Step by Step
Google Maps shares your position in real time with whoever you choose, for free and across iPhone and Android. Here are the steps, arrival alerts, and what it doesn't do (so you don't find out the day you need it).
If what you want is for someone to see where you are, Google Maps does it without installing anything else: the app is already on almost every phone, works the same on iPhone and Android, and it's free. We'll go step by step, and at the end we'll tell you where it falls short, which matters too.
Sharing your location with someone
- Open Google Maps and tap your profile picture (top right).
- Tap Share location, then Share location again (or “New sharing option,” depending on the version).
- Choose how long: one hour (you can add or subtract minutes) or until you turn it off.
- Choose who with: a person from your Google contacts, or copy the link and send it by WhatsApp, text, or email to someone without a Google account.
- Tap Share. The other person will see you in their Google Maps, in the shared location tab, with the time of the last update and, if you have it turned on, your battery level.
To stop sharing, same path: profile picture › Share location › the person › Stop sharing. If you shared “until you turn it off,” it doesn't expire on its own: remember to turn it off.
What your phone needs for it to work
- Google Maps' location permission set to “Always” (iPhone) or “Allow all the time” (Android). With “While Using the App,” your position freezes as soon as you close the app and the other person sees you “40 minutes ago.”
- Location Services turned on on your phone and, on Android, battery saver set to unrestricted for Maps (your manufacturer may put it to sleep: the guides by brand).
- Data or Wi-Fi: GPS calculates your position without a network, but sending it needs a connection. Without coverage, the other person sees your last known position.
Alerts when someone arrives or leaves
Google Maps can notify you when a person sharing with you arrives at or leaves a place: open their card under Share location, tap “Add notification,” choose the place, and pick whether you want an alert for arrival, departure, or both. You can have up to five alerts per person. Important and honest: the other person gets a notification that you created the alert, and they can remove it. It's a consent-based design, and we think that's a good thing.
Sharing by link with someone who has no account
The link works for someone without a Google account (your mom, a friend with an iPhone without Maps installed): they open it in their browser and can see you for the time you chose, up to 24 hours. After that, you need to create another one. It's perfect for “I'm on my way, follow me,” not for everyday routine.
Where Google Maps falls short
- It's not a group. You share one-on-one; each family member has to share with every other. With five people, that's twenty shares.
- It has no SOS, no chat, and no one-tap “I've arrived.” It's a map, a very good one, but a map.
- Privacy is all or nothing: you share your exact spot or nothing. There's no “just the area” and no invisible mode that the other person sees as such.
- It's Google: your shared location lives in your Google account, under its data policy. For many families that's acceptable; for others, it isn't.
If your family wants one single place with everyone on the map, automatic arrival alerts, SOS, battery, chat and video calls, with each person choosing whether they appear precisely, by area, or invisible, that's what a family locator app like Mi Estela does. If you only need to “see where they are” now and then, Google Maps is free and does the job. We compare them here, with names and sources.
Sources
- Google Maps: Share Location in Real Time (Official Help)
- Mi Estela: Comparison with Google Family Link and Maps (Oct 14, 2026)
