10 Phone Tracker Apps for Android: What Each One Shares

A phone tracker is one of those tools you hope you never need and then need urgently. This page compares ten of them on what a store page can prove: the price and the in-app purchase range, the Contains ads label, what each Data Safety section declares about sharing with third parties, and the rating with the date it was read. Everything here works with the consent of the person being located, and the section on the line you should not cross explains why the alternative is not an option worth having.

If you are setting up a phone from scratch, the navigation and auto apps guide covers the rest of what belongs on it.

Google Find Hub is the pick and it is free, Family Link the choice for a child's phone, Samsung Find the only one that collects nothing. Our answer, the free pick and the table ↓

Ten phone trackers for Android, compared on price and in-app range, the Contains ads label, what each Data safety section declares about third-party sharing, and the rating.

A phone you lost

1B+ installs · free to install · no in-app purchases · no ads · by Google LLC · listing updated 21 July 2026 · checked 2 September 2026

Google Play listing · 4.2 stars from 1,670,558 reviews · read 2 September 2026

This is the app for the problem most people actually have, which is a phone that is somewhere in the flat or was left on a counter. It ships on Android, it costs nothing, and it is the only entry here with no price, no ads and no third-party sharing at once.

One listing covers both jobs. Its own description says it finds your devices and items on mobile and on supported Wear OS devices, so a watch needs nothing installed separately and nothing set up twice.

• Good: Free with no in-app purchases and no ads, which nothing else here manages together.
• Good: Data safety declares no data shared with third parties.
• Good: Covers the watch as well as the phone from the same listing, so there is nothing extra to set up on Wear OS.
• Con: It finds devices, not people. For sharing your location with family there is a section below.
• Con: A 4.2 rating from 1,670,558 reviews, the lowest of the Google apps here.
• Con: It only helps if it was already set up before the phone went missing.

The capture below is of the consent notice it puts up before it lists anything, taken on our own Android emulator on 18 August 2026. That notice is the honest thing to show: using Find Hub means allowing Google to use location data, device information and connection events to locate your devices and accessories, and it states plainly that device location is approximate and may not always be accurate. It is cropped to the notice itself, because the screen behind it lists the devices on the signed-in account, which are not yours and not ours to publish.

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Sharing without an app

10B+ installs · free to install · no in-app purchases · carries ads · by Google LLC · listing updated 7 August 2026 · checked 10 August 2026

Google Play listing · 3.2 stars from 19,513,260 reviews · read 10 August 2026

The lightest way to let someone see where you are, because it needs nothing installed on either side and the sharing can be set to expire by itself.

Worth knowing before you go looking: the Play listing carries the Contains ads label, and its description does not mention location sharing at all. The feature is real and documented in Google’s own Maps Help, but nothing on the store page confirms it, which is why this entry sits on the Help documentation rather than on the listing text.

• Good: Sharing can be set to end after an hour or a day, so it does not quietly stay on.
• Good: Data safety declares no data shared with third parties.
• Good: Nobody has to install or sign up for anything new.
• Con: Carries ads, which this page did not say.
• Con: A 3.2 rating from 19,513,260 reviews, the lowest on this page by a distance.
• Con: No alerts, no history and no arrival notifications. It shows a dot on a map and that is all.

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Samsung owners

10M+ installs · free to install · no in-app purchases · no ads · by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. · listing updated 2 July 2026 · checked 2 September 2026

Google Play listing · 3.8 stars from 5,108 reviews · read 7 September 2026

If the phone is a Galaxy, this is the counterpart to Find Hub, and it reaches Samsung hardware that Google’s app does not, such as earbuds and watches signed into the same account.

It is the only app on this page whose data safety section declares no data collected at all, and its listing also carries a commitment to the Play Families Policy. On a page about tracking people, that is worth more than the rating.

• Good: Declares no data collected, the strongest position of the ten.
• Good: Free, nothing to buy, no ads.
• Good: Finds Galaxy watches, tablets and earbuds, not only the phone.
• Con: Only useful inside the Samsung account. On any other phone it does nothing.
• Con: A 3.9 rating, and from only 5,065 reviews, so it moves easily.
• Con: This page previously showed 3.8 from 4.66K reviews, both now stale.

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A child’s phone

100M+ installs · free to install · no in-app purchases · no ads · by Google LLC · listing updated 3 August 2026 · checked 2 September 2026

Google Play listing · 4.6 stars from 5,341,882 reviews · read 2 September 2026

The supervision tools that Android has built in, which is a different thing from a tracker bolted on top: the child’s phone knows it is supervised, and the arrangement is visible on both sides.

• Good: Free, no in-app purchases, no ads, and no data shared with third parties.
• Good: Supervision is visible on the child’s device rather than hidden from it.
• Good: Location comes as part of screen time and app approvals, not as a separate subscription.
• Con: Location is coarse compared with the dedicated family apps, and there are no zone alerts.
• Con: Setup needs a child account, which takes longer than installing an app.
• Con: It stops working the way you expect once the child is old enough to unsupervise the account.

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One-off sharing

5M+ installs · free to install · in-app purchases $1.49 to $199.99 per item · carries ads · by Glympse Inc. · listing updated 30 June 2026 · checked 10 August 2026

Google Play listing · 4.1 stars from 114,651 reviews · read 10 August 2026

The idea is still the good one on this page: send someone a link that shows where you are for the next twenty minutes and then stops on its own, with nothing for them to install.

Read this first. This page said Glympse "is free with no upsell", and the comparison image said "Free, no upsell". Its own listing carries the Contains ads label, sells in-app purchases from $1.49 to $199.99 per item, opens a bullet with the words free to use with powerful upgrades, and carries a headed Premium Features block. The claim was wrong on all three counts and has been removed. So has "no friend list to manage": the same description advertises Glympse Favorites and Glympse Private Groups.

• Good: A share genuinely expires by itself, which is the safest default on this page.
• Good: The recipient needs no app and no account.
• Good: Data safety declares no data shared with third parties.
• Con: Carries ads, and in-app purchases run from $1.49 to $199.99 per item.
• Con: The listing has not been updated since 30 June 2026, the oldest here.
• Con: Nothing persistent: no history, no alerts, no zones.

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Families that want alerts

100M+ installs · free to install · in-app purchases $1.49 to $249.99 per item · carries ads · by Life360 · listing updated 4 August 2026 · checked 2 September 2026

Google Play listing · 4.6 stars from 2,321,645 reviews · read 2 September 2026

The most feature-complete family app here, and the reason it was this page’s editor’s pick: arrival and departure alerts, place notifications and driving detail that nothing else on the list matches.

Read this first. It is no longer the pick, for a reason that has nothing to do with how well it works. Its Play data safety section states that Location and Health and fitness may be shared with third parties, and lists Personal info, Messages and five other categories as collected. Of the ten apps here, four declared third-party sharing on 5 September 2026, and this one and Phone Tracker by Number both list Location among the shared categories. The listing also carries the Contains ads label, which this page did not say.

• Good: Genuinely the richest feature set: zones, alerts and history in one place.
• Good: 4.6 stars from 2,321,645 reviews, the strongest combination of rating and volume here.
• Good: The free tier does cover the basics, which its own listing sets out.
• Con: Declares that Location and Health and fitness may be shared with third parties.
• Con: Carries ads, and in-app purchases run to $249.99 per item.
• Con: What the money buys is not driving reports, as this page said, but emergency dispatch, identity theft protection, roadside assistance and stolen-fund reimbursement.

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Parents who accept the trade

50M+ installs · free to install · in-app purchases $0.39 to $999.99 per item · no ads · by Find My Kids · listing updated 1 September 2026 · checked 5 September 2026

Google Play listing · 4.6 stars from 2,042,296 reviews · read 5 September 2026

Popular, well rated and much more invasive than this page previously admitted, which is the whole reason it needs its own warning rather than a line about battery level.

Read this first. Its own listing advertises live listening to the sound around the child, meaning remote ambient audio from the child’s phone. It also monitors which apps are used and for how long, and it asks for an accessibility service grant on the child’s device. This page described battery level and a loud sound. Whether that trade is acceptable is a decision for the family, not something to discover after installing, and the caution this page already applied to AirDroid applies here at least as much.

• Good: 4.6 stars from 2,042,296 reviews, the joint-highest here.
• Good: No ads label on its listing.
• Good: The paid tier starts at $0.39, the lowest entry price on this page.
• Con: Remote ambient listening, app monitoring and an accessibility grant on the child’s phone.
• Con: In-app purchases reach $999.99 per item, the highest figure on this page.
• Con: Its Data safety section, which declared no sharing when read on 10 August 2026, stated on 5 September 2026 that data may be shared with third parties.
• Con: Nothing about it is subtle for the child, which is the point, but expect the conversation.

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Supervision, not location

10M+ installs · free to install · in-app purchases $5.99 to $89.99 per item · no ads · by SAND STUDIO · listing updated 2 July 2026 · checked 2 September 2026

Google Play listing · 4.3 stars from 154,769 reviews · read 2 September 2026

A supervision app that happens to include location, rather than a location app with extras, and this page was right to be careful about it. It was not specific enough about why.

Read this first. "App usage insights" understates it. Its declared permissions cover live mirroring of the child’s screen and syncing of Facebook, Instagram and Messenger notifications to the parent’s phone. That is a monitoring tool. It is legitimate software, sold openly, and it is also the most far-reaching thing on this page.

• Good: No ads, and data safety declares no data shared with third parties.
• Good: 4.3 stars from 154,769 reviews.
• Good: Honest about being a supervision product rather than presenting itself as a family map.
• Con: Screen mirroring and notification syncing go well beyond location.
• Con: The paid tier starts at $5.99, the highest entry price here.
• Con: Location alone is better served by anything else on this page.

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A Life360 alternative

10M+ installs · free to install · in-app purchases $2.99 to $89.99 per item · no ads · by GeoZilla Inc · listing updated 22 July 2026 · checked 2 September 2026

Google Play listing · 4.2 stars from 741,842 reviews · read 2 September 2026

The closest thing to Life360 on the list, with zones and arrival alerts, and it is where people usually land after deciding Life360 costs too much.

Read this first. Its data safety section declares that Personal info, Financial info and five other categories may be shared with third parties. Financial info is a category no other app on this page declares as shared, and that belongs in the decision alongside the price.

• Good: No ads, which Life360 cannot say.
• Good: Zones and arrival alerts on the free tier.
• Good: 4.2 stars from 741,842 reviews.
• Con: Declares third-party sharing of Personal info, Financial info and five other categories.
• Con: This page printed 704K reviews, now stale.
• Con: Fewer people use it, so a family switching to it usually has to bring everyone along.

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Friend groups

50M+ installs · free to install · in-app purchases $1.99 to $14.99 per item · carries ads · by One Locator · listing updated 29 July 2026 · checked 10 August 2026

Google Play listing · 4.3 stars from 1,015,204 reviews · read 10 August 2026

The name is misleading and worth clearing up first: it does not find a phone from a number. Both people install it and agree to share, exactly like everything else on this page. The developer’s own site brands it One Locator.

Read this first. Its data safety section declares that Location, App activity and two further categories may be shared with third parties. On a page about location apps, an app that shares location is the one to read twice, and this page said nothing about it.

• Good: The cheapest ceiling here: in-app purchases stop at $14.99, not $199.99 or more.
• Good: 4.3 stars from 1,015,204 reviews.
• Good: Includes chat, so the sharing does not need a second app to be useful.
• Con: Declares third-party sharing of Location and App activity.
• Con: Carries ads, which the page did state, to its credit.
• Con: The name invites exactly the search that brings people here looking for covert tracking.

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The ten split into three jobs, and picking the wrong job is the most common mistake on this subject.

• Finding your own phone. Find Hub on any Android, Samsung Find on a Galaxy. Both free, neither with anything to buy. Set up before you need them or they are no help at all.
• Sharing where you are, with adults. Google Maps for a standing share, Glympse for a link that expires by itself. Both free to install and both carrying ads.
• Supervising a child’s phone. Family Link first, because supervision is visible on the device and there is nothing to pay. The dedicated apps go further, and how much further is the part to read before installing.

Then read the sharing column. Four of the ten declared on 5 September 2026 that data may go to third parties: Life360 shares Location and Health and fitness, GeoZilla shares Personal info and Financial info among seven categories, Phone Tracker by Number shares Location and App activity, and Findmykids, whose section read no sharing on 10 August, now declares sharing too. That is not a reason to rule them out, but it is the trade being made, and a family app that shares your location is a different proposition from one that does not.

Battery is the other question people ask. No listing on this page publishes a battery figure, so anyone quoting one for these apps, this page included until today, is quoting something they cannot show you. What is safe to say is structural: an app reporting a position continuously costs more than one that answers a request, which is why an expiring share is cheaper than a permanent one.

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Everything on this page requires the other person to install something, or to agree, or both. That is not a limitation. It is the whole category boundary, and it is worth being plain about what sits on the other side of it.

The pattern to recognise. Software sold on the promise that the other person will not know is stalkerware, whatever the marketing calls it. The tells are consistent: it hides its own icon after installation, it shows no persistent notification on the phone it runs on, it needs physical access to that phone to be set up, and it is billed monthly to the person doing the watching. None of the ten apps here does any of that. If a guide recommends one that does, that is the point to close the page.

Installing that kind of tool on an adult’s phone without their knowledge is a criminal offence in many jurisdictions, and it is not a grey area in most of them. On a child’s phone the law is usually more permissive and the argument is a different one: Family Link and the supervision tools work because the child knows, and covert monitoring reliably ends the conversation you wanted to keep open.

There is also the practical point. Covert tools are the ones that get pulled from stores, break on Android updates and leak the data they collect. The apps on this page are ordinary, maintained software, and every claim about them above can be checked against a public listing in the time it takes to open it.

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Checked 10 August 2026: a column for third-party data sharing was added, read from each app’s own Play Data Safety section, and it changed the recommendation. Life360, which this page presented as the editor’s pick, declares that Location and Health and fitness may be shared with third parties, alongside collection of Personal info, Messages and five other categories; Find Hub is now the pick, being the only entry that is free, sells nothing, carries no ads and declares no third-party sharing at once. GeoZilla declares sharing of Personal info and Financial info among seven categories, and Phone Tracker by Number declares sharing of Location and App activity; neither was stated before. Ads were undisclosed on three apps and are now labelled: Life360, Google Maps and Glympse all carry the Contains ads label. Glympse was described as free with no upsell, in the prose and in the comparison image; its listing carries ads, sells in-app purchases from $1.49 to $199.99 per item and has a headed Premium Features block, so the claim is gone, along with "no friend list to manage", which its own Favorites and Private Groups features contradict. Find Hub, called the number-one pick with no store link and no rating, now has both; the separate "Find Hub (Wear OS)" entry has been removed because it was the same package listed twice, which is also why the page counted eleven apps and showed ten. Find My Kids is now described as it describes itself, including remote listening to the sound around the child, app-usage monitoring and an accessibility grant on the child’s device; AirDroid’s "app usage insights" is now stated as live screen mirroring and notification syncing. What Life360’s paid tier buys was corrected to emergency dispatch, identity theft protection, roadside assistance and stolen-fund reimbursement. Ratings were refreshed: Life360 4.6 from 2,321,645 reviews rather than 4.4 from 2.24M, Samsung Find 3.9 from 4,880 rather than 3.8 from 4.66K, Family Link 5,271,565 reviews rather than 5.21M, GeoZilla 724,183 rather than 704K, AirDroid 151,862 rather than 149K. The comparison that used to be a PNG, which also served as the social preview, is now a real table, and the battery comparison in the FAQ was removed because no listing here publishes such a figure. The guidance on choosing and the section on covert tracking, both previously buried inside the last app entry, are now sections of their own.