You’re meeting a friend downtown in a new city, and he asks you where you are. Be honest: you have no clue. Luckily, Google Maps can help you both out.
This relatively new feature shows your location right on your friend’s map—and his on yours—even if you’re both moving around. And if you’ve got Google Maps open, it’s easy to start sharing your location, assuming the person you want to share locations with is also a Google Maps user.
You know that blue dot that shows you where you are?
Tap that blue dot and you’ll see a bunch of options, including sharing your location.
You can choose how long to share your location—the default is one hour.
Once you decide how long to share your location, you can then choose specific contacts to share your location with using the “Select People” button. You can scroll through your contacts and choose someone to share with. The list will be populated with Google users in your contacts list. If the person you want to share your location with is not on the list, you can also send a link via SMS or any messaging app.
The person you share your location with will get a notification.
When they click through, they will see your location on their map.
The other user will also have the option to share their location with you, making it much easier for you to find each other. It’s like Harry Potter’s Marauder’s Map in real life.
Well…almost. In our tests, updates didn’t come in real time, at least not if the other person isn’t actively using Maps. But even then, updates are frequent enough that you’ll see occasional updates, giving you more of an idea of how close you are to each other. It’s a simple feature, but one that can solve a pretty common problem. You just have to remember it exists the next time you’re trying to meet up with someone!
