Every dot here is stamped with the minute it arrived.
A location tracker that tells you how fresh the dot is.
Every position on the map carries the time it was reported. That one habit is what separates a map you can act on from a map that merely looks alive.
Start trackingAndroid · iPhone · the browser, where a closed tab counts as a quiet phone
Reading a row
Four things a row can say, and what each one does not mean
A location tracker app that reported every second would flatten the battery before lunch, so this one reports when there is something to report and writes the time beside it. Eighteen minutes ago is an answer, not a fault — the third column is the one most maps leave out.
| The row says | It means | It does not mean |
|---|---|---|
| No location yet | The phone has not reported once since it joined. | That they refused. Often they simply have not opened the app yet. |
| Updated 12m ago | The last position arrived twelve minutes ago, and a phone that is not moving reports less. | That something is wrong. A phone on a table has nothing new to send. |
| Quiet since 08:12 | Nothing has arrived for three hours, and that is the hour it stopped. | That we know where they are now and are holding it back. |
| Paused sharing | They switched sharing off and stayed in the circle. | That their last position is still on the map. It is not. |
The two things a location tracker has to answer for
Accuracy belongs to the phone, and the wording follows it
Outdoors a phone is good to a few metres; indoors and among tall buildings it is looser. So a row names a saved place when the position falls inside one, gives a distance from the nearest place when it does not, and stays deliberately vague rather than claiming a street corner it cannot defend. That is where a gps location tracker app earns trust or loses it.
The battery, before anyone asks
Background location costs power on every platform, and an app that implies otherwise is not describing your day. This one reports at intervals, tells the circle when somebody drops low, and how current "now" can honestly be has a page to itself.
Where the record ends, and who it belongs to
The day is kept as stays and trips rather than a line drawn across the city, and the switch that ends all of it sits on your own name — not in an admin screen belonging to whoever created the circle.
- A scheduled task deletes location history after 30 days. Nobody has to remember to ask.
- Turn your own sharing off and everyone sees Paused sharing where your position was, within the minute.
- Whoever set the circle up has no extra view of anybody, however they were added.
- What differs between an Android phone, an iPhone and a browser tab is on the phone tracker page.
Questions about accuracy and updates
How often does the map update?
At intervals — more often while a phone is moving, less often while it sits still. Every row carries the age of its reading, so you are never left guessing how current it is.
How accurate is the position?
As accurate as the phone reports: good outdoors, looser indoors or among tall buildings. When accuracy is poor the row shows a place name or a distance from one instead of pretending to a street corner.
What happens if someone turns off location permission?
They stop appearing and the circle can see that they are not reporting. Nothing is estimated in the meantime, and no old position is passed off as current.
Can I stop sharing without leaving the circle?
Yes. Pause sharing and you stay in the circle with a Paused sharing label instead of a position. Turn it back on and you reappear within a minute.
Is the iphone location tracker different from the Android one?
No. Both show the same circle, the same rows and the same ages. A location tracker for iphone needs the app installed for background updates, and so does Android; a browser tab keeps up only while it stays open. The phone tracker page goes platform by platform.
Does everyone see the same thing I do?
Yes, with you on the map too. A location tracker app for family only means anything if it is one list everybody is on, so there is no view that shows one person more than the others.
Where this page continues