The Find My Device app for Android is getting an update: The new Find My Device app is now split up into two tabs, one for Devices, and one for People. With it, you can easily coordinate meet-ups with friends or check that your kids have safely arrived home.
You’ll find the app preinstalled on Pixels, and it’s a free download for other Android devices. It’s also available on the web, but there’s no iPhone app. Despite that, you can still keep tabs on the real time locations of your contacts if they have iPhones—more on that in a moment.
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This is the same Find My Device tool that received a pretty major upgrade last year. While it’s existed in some form for a long time, showing you Android phones and other gadgets on a map if they were ever lost and stolen, the new and improved version added a bunch of features to make it more useful.
Whereas before you would need your phone to be on and connected to wifi to be able to find it, the 2024 improvements mean you can now enlist the help of all the other millions of Android gadgets out there to (securely and anonymously) track down missing devices (Apple’s Find My Network works in the same way).
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There’s also now support for third-party Bluetooth trackers, and recent Pixels can even be located when they’re powered off. Phones and tablets you track down with the app can be made to play a sound to help you find them, plus you have the option to lock them or even wipe them remotely to keep your data safe.
All those upgrades were already in place, and now people finding is the latest one to arrive: Contacts who trust you can let you see where they are on a map, and you can opt to share your own location with them in return. If you’re thinking that sounds a lot like the functionality that was already built into Google Maps, that’s because it is—it’s just that now you’ve got another screen to access it from.
Use Find My Device to find people
Open Find My Device on your phone and you’ll see the People tab has a little Beta label next to it, indicating that this feature is a work in progress. There’s also a sticker on the map, showing you that the location sharing feature is powered by Google Maps, even though you’re accessing it through Find My Device.
If you’ve already set up sharing through Google Maps, you’ll see your contacts listed and their current locations shown on the map. Tap the + (plus) button to share your location with someone new: The default option is to share your whereabouts for an hour, but you can tap this to change it to Today only, Until you turn this off, and Custom duration.
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You can then pick a contact from the panel below, or generate a link to send to someone in an app of your choice. They’ll be able to see the location of your phone for the time you’ve specified, as well as the battery level of the device, and they’ll get the opportunity to share their location in return—though they don’t have to.
This is functionality that’s been in Google Maps for some time: If you’ve never used it, you can find it in the Google Maps app by tapping your profile picture (top right) then Location sharing. As it works through Google Maps, contacts with iPhones can be added as well, and see your location—as long as they’ve got Google Maps installed.
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Back in Find My Device, tap on any contact in your list to see where they are on the map. The next screen enables you to get directions to their current location (via Google Maps, of course), and to stop sharing your location with them. Tap the three dots next to a name to hide them from the map, if you only want to check up on them occasionally.
Head to Find My Device on the web, and you get the same Devices and People tabs, though you can’t add new contacts in the web app. You’re always in control when it comes to who can see where you are and for how long, and given the tight integration with Android, you might find it preferable to location sharing tools in apps such as WhatsApp.
