“How can I turn off location services on my Android? I don’t want Google Maps to track my whereabouts, but can’t find any way to turn off Google location on my phone!”
As a friend of mine asked me this question about disabling the Google location services on his phone, I realized that a lot of people encounter a similar issue. Well, just like any other smart device, Android phones also come with an inbuilt location feature. While the Google location services are pretty resourceful, it can invade your privacy at times. That is why a lot of people would like to turn off GPS on their Android. Well, in this guide, I’m going to tell you every possible way to turn off location on Google easily.
Part 1: Why is it important to turn off Google Location Services sometimes?
Before we learn how to turn off location services on Android, let’s quickly get to know why users choose to disable the feature.
- Some users don’t like Google to track their location as it can invade their privacy.
- Sometimes, Google can share your location with third-party apps that you might not like.
- Any other user can access your Google account to track your whereabouts or check your past location history.
- Google keeps a track of our whereabouts and send target ads or restricts certain geo-based features, which a lot of users don’t like.
- If someone has installed a device tracker on your phone, then you should consider turning off your Google location to safeguard your privacy.
Part 2: Turn off Web & App Activity on Android (Most Radical)
The first thing that I would recommend you doing is turning off the web and app activity for your Google account. Ideally, this is the most radical solution as it will stop Google from tracking your activities in all the related mobile apps and web as well (like Google Maps). While most of the users are aware of the location services feature on their devices, they find it hard to navigate to the option of web and app activity. Don’t worry – you can easily turn off Google location for the web or mobile by following these steps:
Step 1. To start with, just unlock your Android phone and launch the inbuilt Google application on it. Tap on the hamburger icon from the top-left corner to visit its settings.
Step 2. Now, browse to its Settings option and from the provided list, tap on the “Account & Privacy” feature.
Step 3. This will list several settings about your Google account that you can customize. Just browse to Google Activity Control > Web & App Activity and toggle off the “Web & App Activity” option from here.
Part 3: Turn off Location Services (Easy & Direct)
If you are looking for the easiest solution to turn off location on your Android device, then just head to its settings and disable the location services. In this way, no other application, including Google would be able to record your location history or know your whereabouts. All you got to do is visit your Android’s Settings > General > Location Services and toggle off the GPS feature. In some Android phones, it is listed under Settings > Security & Location > Location Services as well.
Later, if you wish to use the GPS feature for navigation or other purposes, then you can enable it from here. There is also an option for GPS on Android’s Control Center that you can tap to enable/disable whenever you want.
Part 4: Turn off Bluetooth, Cellular Data, and WiFi
You might not know this, but the location service is not the only feature that can give away your whereabouts. For instance, some applications can obtain your IP address to track your local area as well. To avoid that, you can just disable the network connections on your device. You can get the options for Bluetooth, WiFi, and cellular data from your phone’s Control Center that you can tap to toggle off. Besides that, you can also go to your phone’s Network Settings to switch off its WiFi, Cellular Data, and Bluetooth connectivity.
Part 5: Clear Location History to Protect Privacy
By now, you would be able to turn off location on Google to stop it from tracking your real-time whereabouts. Though, if the location service on Google was already enabled, then it can keep track of your location history as well. If you are concerned about your privacy, then you can clear the location history on Google manually by following these steps:
Step 1. Firstly, launch the Google Maps application on your Android and tap on the hamburger icon from the side to enter its settings.
Step 2. From here, just navigate to Settings > Maps History to check how Google stores your location history. Here, select the feature to delete location history automatically so that the app will not record your past whereabouts.
Step 3. If you want, you can get rid of selected spots from the history as well. As you would go to Settings > Maps History and scroll down, you can view different check-in and check-out details.
Step 4. Tap on the three-dot icon adjacent to any location detail and from here, choose to delete it. In this way, you can selectively delete your location history without turning off the entire feature.
Part 6: Turn off Location Permissions for Specific Apps
There are times when we don’t want to turn off Google location entirely, but only disable certain apps from tracking our location. For instance, you might still want to use Google Maps for navigation but would not like Uber to track you. In this case, you can go to your device settings to selectively turn off location features for the apps of your choice.
Step 1. Unlock your device and go to its Settings > App Permissions to get a list of various features on your Android accessed by other apps.
Step 2. Tap on the Location Services here to view all the apps that can access this feature on your device. You can just toggle off the feature for any app from here to revoke the location services permissions.
Step 3. Besides that, you can also go to your device’s Settings > Apps or Settings > App Info to get a detailed list of all the apps installed.
Step 4. Just tap on any app from the list and go to its Permissions feature to view what it can access on your device (like GPS, storage, microphone, and more). You can simply turn off the location services feature from here.
There you go! I’m sure that after reading this guide, you would be able to turn off GPS on your Android. Besides that, I have also provided some smart ways to turn off Google location entirely or for selected apps. If you want, you can just disable the app activity on your phone or remove the past location history as well. Feel free to try these solutions to disable GPS on Android and protect your privacy without any trouble.
