Live Location sharing has been a longstanding feature on the iPhone for several years. Whether you’re a concerned parent and want to stay updated about your kidโs location or youโre someone who wants to stay updated with your friend or family about their current location, you can do it easily on iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
In this guide, we will take a look at how you can share your current location in iMessage with your friends or family.
By default, iMessage shares your location curated from Apple Maps, however, you can also utilize the Google Maps location-sharing capabilities with iMessages. We will take a look at both methods later in this guide.
Letโs dive right into the methods.
How to Enable Location Sharing on iPhone and iPad
First things first, you need to turn on location sharing inside the iMessage settings. If you are sharing the location for the first time, then the app will prompt you with location sharing privacy settings, in case you disabled the setting in the past, you need to enable it manually, here are the steps you can follow to enable location sharing.
- Open Settings on your iPhone or iPad.
- Select Privacy & Security.
- Select Location Services and turn the toggle on for Location Services.
- Scroll down and tap Messages.
- Grant access to location sharing.
- Thatโs it.
How to Enable Location Sharing on Mac
The steps are different on Mac; you can easily turn on location sharing on your MacBook or iMac. Simply follow these steps.
- Select System Settings from the Apple Menu in the address bar.
- Click on Privacy & Security from the side menu and then select Location Services.
- Now enable Location Services and find Messages to grant location access to the app.
- Thatโs it.
How to Share Live Location on iPhone and iPad
With the Location Services enabled, you can easily share your current location in iMessage with your friends and family. There are multiple ways to share location in iMessage on iPhone and iPad, letโs take a look at the first method.
Share Live Location in iMessage using Default Method
- Open iMessage and select the chat or conversation in which you want to share your live location.
- Tap the + icon on the right side of the text field.
- Select Location app from the list.
- It will prompt you with location sharing privacy settings, simply select Allow Once or Allow While Using App.
- Press and hold the Share button, now choose the timing for how long you want to share the live location.
- You have three options to choose from – For One Hour, Until End of Day, or Indefinitely.
- For One Hour: As the name suggests, will share your live location for an hour.
- Until End of Day: The location will keep sharing for the entire day.
- Indefinitely: If for some reason you want to get live location alerts all time, you can choose Indefinitely option.
- That’s it.
Share Live Location in iMessage from Google Maps
Before moving ahead, make sure you install the Google Maps app on your iPhone or iPad. The app is freely available on the App Store. Grant the location access to the app in the Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Google Maps.
If the app is already available on your iPhone, you can follow these steps to share your current location using Google Maps.
- Open iMessage and go to the chat/conversation in which you want to share the location.
- Tap + icon on the right side of the text field.
- Tap More and find Google Maps.
- Select Google Maps, it will show your current location, Simply tap on Send your current location.
- That’s it.
When you share your location using Google Maps, the recipient will be able to view your current location for 1 hour. You can stop sharing location easily when you want by pressing the stop button.
How to Share Live Location in iMessage on Mac
The steps of sharing live location are not the same as for iPad or iPhone, you can follow the below steps to share your current location in iMessage on Mac.
- Open Messages from Launchpad, Spotlight, or applications.
- Select the conversation in which you want to share the location.
- Click on the info (i) button at the top right corner and select Send My Current Location option.
- Send the message by pressing the enter key or send button from mice.
- That’s it.
How to Stop Sharing Live Location in iMessage
You can change the current location settings easily after sharing the live location in Messages. Here’s how you can stop sharing location.
- Open the conversation in which you share the live location.
- Tap on the shared location, then select Stop Sharing My Location.
- That’s it.
Request for Location Sharing
You can always request location sharing to your friends or family in Messages, you can do it easily by opening the conversation, then tap the + icon and select location, tapping the request button, it will notify the recipient. Once granted access, you will get access to the live location.
If you still have any queries on sharing live location in iMessage, then leave a comment in the comment box. Also, share this article with your friends.
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