If someone might be watching this device, read this on another one. Quick exit

Before you read on. Quick exit sends you straight to the weather. It does not clear your browser history, and it cannot undo anything monitoring software on this device may have already recorded. If you think someone can see what you do on this device, please read this on a different one. A friend's phone, a work computer or a library computer are all good options.

If you are in immediate danger, call 000.

Digital Safety & Recovery Australia

They know where I have been: check what is sharing your location on Android

If someone repeats details of where you were, and you did not tell them, there is usually a specific reason. Most of the time it is a setting rather than a hidden app, and settings can be found.

Work down this list in order. The items near the top are the most common by a wide margin, and none of them require anything to have been installed on your phone.

Using iPhone instead? Read the iPhone version of this page.

Before you change anything, please read this

If someone is monitoring you, the moment they lose that access is often the moment things get more dangerous. Family violence services see this pattern often enough that it shapes all of their advice.

So, three things before you touch a setting:

  1. Do not uninstall an app you suspect, and do not factory reset your phone, as your first move. It can tell the other person that you know.
  2. Removing it also removes the proof. If you might ever want to go to the police, that proof matters.
  3. Talk to someone first. 1800RESPECT is free, confidential and open 24 hours, on 1800 737 732. Call from a phone you trust, not from the one you are worried about.

None of this means you have to keep a phone you do not trust. It means the order matters, and the safest order starts with a plan and a person, not with a delete button.

One more thing worth knowing now. Talking about this near the phone can be enough. If monitoring software is running, it may be able to hear the room. Have this conversation somewhere else, or on another device.

1. Location sharing you turned on once

Sharing that made sense during a relationship often keeps running long after it stops making sense.

Open Google Maps, tap your profile picture, then Location sharing. You will see everyone you currently share with.

Also check the sharing built into messaging apps. WhatsApp, Messenger, Snapchat and Instagram all have their own live location features that are completely separate from the one above, and turning off one does not turn off the others.

2. Your Google account, signed in somewhere else

If someone is signed into your account on their own device, they may be able to see your location through it without ever touching your phone.

Go to myaccount.google.com, then Security, then Your devices. Do this from a device you trust if you can. Look for anything you do not recognise, or a phone you sold or gave away.

2b. If you have a Samsung phone, check your Samsung account too

This is easy to miss, because a Samsung phone has two accounts on it. Your Samsung account can share your location through Samsung Find and Find My Mobile, entirely separately from your Google account.

Check Settings, then your name at the top, or sign in at account.samsung.com from a device you trust and look at the device list there.

3. Find My Device and family accounts

Check Settings, then Google, then Find My Device. Family arrangements are managed at families.google.com, and Family Link can share location, so both are worth checking.

4. Your location history

Android can keep a timeline of where you have been. On newer phones this lives on the device itself, under Google Maps, your profile picture, then Your Timeline. Older phones may still call this Location History. Anyone who can unlock your phone or get into your account can read it.

5. Which apps can see your location

Settings, then Location, then App permissions (some phones call this App location permissions). Go through the list. Anything set to Allow all the time that does not need to be is worth a second look.

6. Accessibility settings

This is the one that matters most on Android and it is not on most checklists. Monitoring apps very often work by using Accessibility, because that permission lets an app read what is on your screen.

Settings, then Accessibility (on some phones, including Oppo and Xiaomi, it sits under Additional settings, so search your settings for Accessibility if it is not there). Look at what is switched on. If something is enabled that you did not turn on and do not recognise, that is significant, and it is worth more than any of the signs above.

Two more, whatever phone you have

Your car. Modern cars share location too. Check the car's app, its driver profiles, its digital key sharing and its Bluetooth pairings for anyone who should not be there. If your car came from, or was set up by, the person you are worried about, treat this as a likely answer rather than an unlikely one.

Your phone plan. If you are on someone else's plan, the account holder can usually see call and message records. That is not hacking, it is how the plan works, and it is worth knowing.

If your phone has warned you about an unknown tracker, or you think a small tag may have been slipped into a bag or a car, that has its own page.

Before you switch anything off

Turning off location sharing is visible to the other person, and some apps notify them directly. If that could put you at risk, please read the warning above again and talk to 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 first, from a phone you trust.

If you decide it is safe to change things, change them together at one planned moment rather than one at a time over weeks. A slow trickle of changes is easier to notice.

What this page will not do

We will not tell you your phone is clean. Nobody honest can.

Monitoring software that is any good is built to hide, and the reliable way to find it is a forensic examination of the phone, usually done by police. Any website or app promising to scan your phone and give you a yes or no answer is overselling what it can do, and most of them are selling something. We are a not-for-profit and there is nothing to buy at the end of this.

Next: what to do, in a safe order

Back to all safety guides

Where to get real help

  • In immediate danger: call 000.
  • 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732. Free, confidential, 24 hours, by phone or online chat. For anyone affected by domestic, family or sexual violence.
  • Police assistance line: 131 444, for threats to your safety that are not an emergency.
  • WESNET Safety Net Australia: techsafety.org.au. Specialists in technology and family violence. If you use an Android phone and you think spyware may be on it, they ask people to contact them from a safe device.
  • eSafety Commissioner: esafety.gov.au. The national regulator. It has legal powers to help with serious online abuse, including image-based abuse.