How to share Live Location on WhatsApp

WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging service, just rolled out a major new feature in its app: 'Live Location Share' that lets you share your live location with others. Earlier, WhatsApp has a 'Current Location' sharing feature that gives you the option to share your current location with other users, but that’s a static, one-time share and others are not able to track the location of the sender as they move.

The key difference with live location sharing is that it is dynamic and updates your location in real time, even when WhatsApp is in the background.

Live location is a way to share your location in a chat and the participants in that chat will then be able to see your real-time location as it updates on a map.

It’s short-term in nature, it’s limited in duration. Your location is shared at the chat level, which means you can share your live location in a one-on-one WhatsApp conversation or a group chat. This feature is being made available on both the platforms - Android and iOS.

 How does it work?

When you try to share your live location in a WhatsApp chat, Just Follow these simple steps:

• Step 1: Open WhatsApp on Android or iOS.
• Step 2: Tap on the 'Attachment' icon on Android or the Plus icon on the iPhone.
• Step 3: Tap on the 'Location' feature.
• Step 4: Tap on the "Live Location Share" option.
• Step 5: Set up the time frame during which others in individual chat or groups can track you.

Three options are available - 15 minutes, 1 hour(default) and 8 hours and, optionally, add a comment. These durations had been picked based on the common scenarios in which people are most likely to use WhatsApp live location sharing. Users can still choose to share a one-time, static location if they prefer.

This end-to-end encrypted feature lets you control who you share with and for how long.Live location shares will show up in WhatsApp chats as thumbnails that show the initial location of the user and a ‘Live until’ time. Tapping ‘View live location’ will take you to a map view where you can see the current location of all the users who are presently sharing their location in that chat.

Conclusion:

You can switch to a Satellite/ Terrain view of the map if you desire, and even see live traffic data as an overlay, which sounds pretty convenient if you are waiting for someone. In a WhatsApp group, you can bring up the group info and see all users that are sharing their location with the group at that point in time. Multiple users can share their locations at once. This will be particularly useful in busier groups, as you won’t need to scroll up and try to find the message where the user originally shared their location.