One of the latest updates to Google Maps has brought a very useful feature: an option to share your location in real time with other people over the app. Plus it can be viewed over the web version as well. Here we explain how to use it.
If you’re going to use the Android app you need to make sure you’ve updated the client to the latest version beforehand. That done, you should have a new option available in the left pullout menu to share your location in real time by activating the device’s geolocation system in the process.
Obviously it’s not a great idea to share this info too widely, but you can set a maximum time to share it plus specify exactly who can see it. This system of limits also lets you share and receive location information from several people at the same time, who can decide if the location display should be reciprocal or not. All this info gets shown on the map in bubbles with the profile pics for each person.
By tapping on each contact you’ll get a set of options that let you pause or resume sharing your geolocation at any time, plus create a shortcut on your device’s home screen for a particular person so you can automatically see his or her position at any time if you tap the icon.
The other cool thing about this service is that it works the same way on any of the Google Maps apps, so you can both share and receive geolocation information from any laptop or desktop computer with a web browser through the Google Maps site.
Google Maps for Android on Uptodown [APK] | Download
