How to share your location with friends — privately

Sharing your location with friends should feel safe, not like posting your address on a billboard. Most apps ask you to create an account, find friends by email or username, and trust that the platform won't surface your profile to strangers. My Location takes a different approach: private invite links, no user directory, and you stay in control of exactly who sees you and when. Here's how it works — and when to use which sharing mode.

Two ways to share your location

• Private friend share — you send a specific person an invite link. Only that person can use it. You can turn their access on or off at any time, independently of everyone else.
• Public follow link — anyone with the link can see your current location. Useful for "meet me at the festival" situations where you don't know in advance who'll need it, but it's not private in the same way.

This post focuses on the private friend share, which is the right choice when you want ongoing, trusted access for specific people — family, a travel partner, a close friend.

How the invite-link model keeps you private

When you add a friend in the app, it generates a unique, unguessable invite link just for them. Think of it like a long random password in a URL. You share that link however you like: a text message, a chat, an email.

There is no user directory. Nobody can search for your name, email address, or phone number and find your profile. The only way someone can see your location is if you personally hand them your invite link. If you never give it to someone, they simply cannot find you. This is a meaningful difference from apps where your profile exists in a searchable database.

If you want to understand how your device calculates position in the first place, how accurate phone GPS actually is is worth a read.

Per-friend control: turn sharing off without a confrontation

One of the most practical features is the per-friend share toggle. Each friend you've added has their own on/off switch. If you want to stop sharing with one person — maybe you've stopped travelling together, or you just want a day to yourself — you can flip that toggle without affecting anyone else on your list.

You don't have to delete the friendship or revoke your own link. Just turn it off, and turn it back on later if you want. No notification is sent to the other person either way.

When to use a public follow link instead

The public follow link is the right tool when the audience is fluid. For example:

• You're the navigator for a group hike and want anyone in the party to check your position without setting up individual friendships.
• You're meeting a large group at a venue and want to drop a "here's where I am" link in a group chat.
• You're doing a one-off ride or run and want your household to track you without the friend setup.

Be honest about the tradeoff: a public link is convenient, but anyone who gets hold of the URL can see your location. Use it for short, bounded situations, and you can rotate the link to a fresh one afterwards. For people you trust on an ongoing basis, the private friend invite is the better choice.

What sharing does and doesn't require

The viewer (your friend) doesn't need an account or any install — they open the link in any modern browser and see your position on a map. The sharer (you) broadcasts your live position from the app. Browsers only support foreground sharing (the tab must stay open), so for continuous background sharing — your family seeing you even with the phone in your pocket — the Android app handles that. The browser is best for active, "I'm on my way, watch me arrive" sharing.

There's no subscription for any of this, and no account needed for the basics. Your saved places and notes stay in your browser — learn more about saving and organizing places.

The bottom line on privacy

Location data is sensitive. The right tool is one where you decide who has access, you can revoke it without drama, and there's no hidden directory where strangers might stumble across your profile. If you also want arrival notifications, geofencing explained covers how those work. Ready to try it? Open the map and share your location on your own terms.