A phone tracker for the phones whose owners said yes.
Two different problems arrive at this phrase. One of them we solve well, and the other one is solved better by something already on your device — so we will start by telling you which is which.
Start trackingIf the phone you are looking for is your own
Use what the manufacturer built. Find My on an iPhone and Find Hub on Android already know where your device is, can make it ring, and can lock or erase it. No phone tracker app from anyone else has that reach into your own hardware, and any page that tells you otherwise is selling you something. Come back here when the phone you are worried about belongs to somebody else in your family.
If the phone belongs to someone in your family
That is what this is for. A phone location tracker only makes sense inside a group that agreed to be one, so everyone joins by invitation — usually by phone number — and everyone appears on the same map. The person you are looking for can see that you can see them, and can pause at any time.
- Live position while the app runs, with the age of the reading on every card
- Arrival alerts for places the circle has saved
- Check in, for the times someone wants to say they are fine without being asked
- Low battery alerts, because a dead battery is the usual reason a dot stops moving
A gps phone tracker is only as honest as its worst moment
Any map looks fine when everything works. What separates one from another is what it does when a phone is off, offline, or has location permission switched off. This one says No location yet, or Paused sharing, or gives you the time of the last reading, which the location tracker page explains in full. It does not move a dot a little closer to where you would like it to be.
A phone tracker for android, and an iphone phone tracker, in one circle
The family rarely runs one brand. The best phone tracker app for a household is the one everybody can actually join, so the circle works the same whether someone uses a phone tracker app for android, a phone tracker app for iphone, or no app at all and just opens a link in a browser.
What a parent phone tracker app should never have
Everyone on the map can see everyone else. There is no mode that takes one person off the map while leaving them able to watch the rest, and that rule has no exception for whoever set up the circle. A teenager in the circle knows exactly who can see them, because the list of people who can is the same list they can see. If you need something that works differently, this is honestly not it.
Questions about phones and platforms
Can I find a phone that has not joined the circle?
No. Every phone on the map accepted an invitation first. There is no way to add a device without the person holding it agreeing.
My own phone is lost. Can this help?
Only if it was already sharing with your circle, in which case someone else in the circle can see its last position. For your own device, Find My and Find Hub do more — they can ring, lock and erase it.
Does it drain the battery?
Background location costs something on every platform. The app reports at intervals rather than continuously, and it will tell the circle when someone is running low.
What happens when a phone goes offline?
The card shows the time of the last reading and stops there. Nothing is estimated, and no position is invented to fill the gap.
Can my teenager tell when I look?
They can see that you are in the circle and that you can see them, which is the part that matters. The app does not send a notice each time a map is opened — no app in this category does, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.