Find your friends and family with Find Hub

To find your friends and family, you can use the Find Hub app to:

  • Share your real-time location with others
  • Find others’ location on a map
  • Manager privacy actions for those shares

Set up your Find Hub app

To set up your Find Hub app on your device:

  • Sign in to the Find Hub app.
  • Grant app location permissions to see your location on the map and calculate friends’ distance from you.
    • You can still find devices and share your location without granting the Find Hub app permission, if Google Location Sharing is enabled in your device settings. To view your own location on the map, grant the Find Hub app location permissions.

Start & stop a share

Start a share
  1. If you don’t have any shares, to get started, tap Start share.
    • You can find a preview of the information that you can share with your recipient, like:
      • Location
      • Name
      • Avatar
      • Address
      • Battery percentage
  2. Choose the duration of the share you want to start from either:
    • One hour
    • Until the end of the day (ends at 11:59 PM user’s time)
    • Until you stop the share
    • A custom duration
  3. Choose one or multiple people from your recipients by:
    • Using the suggested list: To start your share, tap Create share.
      • You can search for specific contacts with the magnifying glass within the pre-populated list.
      • If the recipient's device has the Find Hub app or Google Maps installed and notifications on, they’ll receive a notification to let them know that you shared your location with them. If they don’t, they’ll receive an email.
    • Sharing with a link: Choose your selected duration and tap Get link to share.
      • This opens up a way for you to choose commonly used apps, message threads, and other groups to send the link with.
      • Anyone with the link can see your location and other personal information.
      • “Until you stop” shares can’t be created as a link share.

Tip: If you already have shares on your account in other Google apps, like Maps, Family Link, or Personal Safety, you can view them in Find Hub automatically.

Stop a share
  1. Tap on the user you’d like to stop sharing with.
  2. Tap the “Stop sharing” button.
  3. From the confirmation dialog, you can either:
    • Cancel: Your share stays and you go back to the details page.
    • Confirm:
      1. If the user is also sharing with you, you’ll stay on the contact detail page and the button will no longer be blue. You can start a new share if you want.
      2. If you’re the only one sharing, you’ll be sent back to the list of shares.

On your device, you can also manage your location shares through Find Hub.

  • Under “Location Sharing” tab, on the top right, select your profile and then Location Sharing settings.

Tips:

  • Location shares are associated with your account.
  • If you stop a share, it stops for your account, and for all apps using Google Location Sharing, including Find Hub.
  • You can also manage your shares in other Google location sharing apps, such as Google Maps.
  • You can also manage your locations shares in your Google Location Sharing settings page:
    1. On your Android device, open Settings.
    2. Tap Location and then Location Services and then Google Location Sharing.

Actions you can take per share

Get directions
  1. Tap on the user you’d like to get directions to and then Get directions.
  2. Google Maps will open with a route to that person’s location.
    • If the user keeps moving, the route won’t continue to update since this is a one-time direction only.
Hide a user
  1. Tap the user you’d like to hide and then More .
  2. Select Hide from map.
  3. On the confirmation dialogue pop-up, confirm if you want to hide the selected person.
    • You can also stop sharing with that person or not with the checkmark.
    • You’ll be sent back to the list of shares with a confirmation.

To find the people you hid from your map:

  1. Scroll to the bottom of your list of shares.
  2. On the right of “Hidden from Map,” tap Arrow down .

To unhide someone from your map:

  1. Scroll to the bottom of your list of shares.
  2. On the right of “Hidden from Map,” tap Arrow down .
  3. Tap the user you’d like to unhide.
  4. Tap More .
  5. Select Unhide from map.
Block a user
  1. Tap the user you’d like to block.
  2. Tap More .
  3. Select Block.
  4. From the confirmation dialog, select “Confirm” if you want to block the person.
    • You’ll be sent back to the list of shares with a confirmation afterwards.
    • If you want to unblock someone, on your Google account, visit your Blocklist.

Tip: When you block a person, it also applies to a variety of Google apps and services, like Photos and Maps. Learn how to block or unblock people’s accounts.

Refresh

You can manually refresh a person’s location. To do this:

  1. Tap the user whose location you’d like to refresh.
  2. Tap More .
  3. Select Refresh.
  4. The dropdown menu will collapse and you’ll find a progress indicator until:
    • Timestamp changes to “now”: The person’s location is updated.
    • Timestamp didn’t change: The person’s location wasn’t retrieved possibly due to:
      • Their device was either offline or turned off.
      • Location services were turned off.
      • Location sharing was turned off.

Tip: The person’s location will also be automatically refreshed while you use the app.

Get location notifications
You can set up notifications for when people who share their location with you arrive at or leave specific places. Learn how to get location notifications.
Add to home screen
  1. Tap the user you want to add to your home screen.
  2. Tap More and then Add to home screen.
  3. Touch and hold the widget to move it to your home screen.
    • Or, tap Add to home screen.

How to use and understand your list of shares

Manage your list and map

To manage your list and map, you can:

  • Use Filtering.
    • Sharing with you: See people who are currently sharing their location with you.
    • You’re sharing with: See who can currently see your location.

Tip: You can’t select both filters at the same time.

  • Center your location within the map.
    • If you grant Find Hub access to your location, you can center your location within your map view. At the bottom right corner of the map, tap the My Location My location.
  • Use the + button to start a new share.

Read the list

You can identify the status of friends and family on your map and list:

  • Map: Shows people who share their location with you and aren’t hidden.
  • Hidden list: Shows users you’ve hidden in a collapsible list at the bottom of the shares list.
    • To unhide a user: Select their name and then More and then Unhide.
  • User details: Displays information based on sharing status.
    • General info: You can find the name and avatar.
      • If a user is hidden, their avatar is grayed-out.
    • Location details: You can find current address, last-updated timestamp, and distance from you.
      • You can check the location only if the user shares it with you.
      • You can also share your location with other users.

Location sharing settings

You can stop your device from sharing your real-time location without needing to stop a share in the Find Hub app. Learn how to manage your location sharing settings.

Tip: You can still use other device location services, like navigation in Maps, when you turn off location sharing in the settings.

Related resources

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