Google’s Find My Device is arguably the best way to track down a lost Android device or supported accessories like a smartwatch. If your phone never got lost, chances are you were never really interested in Find My Device, but a new feature may change that.
The new feature grants you the ability to track a contact’s location in real time through the app. Google announced the new feature as part of its March Pixel Drop announcement.
“The new location-sharing feature in the Find My Device app lets you share and receive live locations with trusted contacts, providing a sense of security for both everyday check-ins and emergencies,” the company said in the announcement.
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Sharing your location with a trusted contact in Find My Device works about how you would expect. Once you and your loved one enable the feature, you’ll be able to open Find My Device and it’ll show you where they are located. You’ll also be able to share your location with multiple contacts at once.
There appear to be multiple configuration options as well. For example, you can share your location for “today only” if you’re keeping track of a friend during a day trip or even as low as one hour for shorter excursions. There is another option to customize the longevity of the sharing as needed.
Once it’s configured, it works almost identically to the location-sharing feature already available in Google Maps. Admittedly, the version in Find My Device is much easier to find and use since the Find My Device app is not nearly as complex as Maps. As Endgadget notes, this allows for a more streamlined location-sharing experience versus Google Maps, which isn’t set up as well to handle this sort of thing.
It also pairs well with Find My Device’s other features. In 2024, Google added the ability to share tracked items with your friends, along with support for tracking tags and other useful functions. Google and Apple both worked rather hard to reduce the risk of being tracked with tags through these same apps.
