How to Stop Android from Tracking Your Location (2026)

I’ve always been a bit conflicted about location tracking. On one hand, I love that my phone can tell me exactly which bus to catch or where the nearest coffee shop is. On the other hand, Google's ability to recreate a literal minute-by-minute map of my life for the last ten years is a bit much. A few years ago, I looked at my Google Maps Timeline and it knew exactly which aisle I spent the most time in at the hardware store. That was the moment I decided to dial things back. You don't have to live off the grid, but you should definitely be the one deciding who gets to follow you around.

Turn off system-wide location

The fastest way to stop the tracking is the "kill switch." If you swipe down your notification shade twice, you’ll find the Location toggle. If you turn this off, your phone's GPS is effectively disabled for everything. This is a great "emergency" setting, but it has a massive trade-off. Your maps won't work, you can't find a lost phone using "Find My Device," and even your weather won't update correctly. It's too blunt for most people, but it’s good to know it's there if you really need to go dark for a while.

What a lot of people don't realize is that Android uses more than just GPS to find you. Even if GPS is "off," your phone can use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning to determine your location based on nearby routers and beacons. To truly stop the system from sniffing around, go to Settings > Location > Location Services. Inside, you'll see "Wi-Fi scanning" and "Bluetooth scanning." I turned both of these off on my Pixel. My battery life actually improved a bit, and my phone stopped constantly reaching out to nearby devices just to figure out where I was standing.

Per-app location controls

Instead of turning off location for the whole phone, it's much smarter to manage it app by app. I did an audit recently and found I had 47 apps with location permission; only 6 actually needed it. To fix this, go to Settings > Security & privacy > Privacy > Permission manager > Location. This list is your most powerful tool. You should see apps grouped by "Allowed all the time," "Allowed only while in use," and "Not allowed."

My rule of thumb is simple: Nothing gets "Allowed all the time" except maybe a safety app like Life360 or an air tag tracker. Everything else—Instagram, Chrome, your banking app—should be set to "Only while using the app." Android also now offers a toggle for "Use precise location." For 90% of your apps, you should turn this off. A weather app doesn't need to know your exact street address; it just needs to know what city you're in. By switching to "Approximate location," you still get the info you need without giving away your exact coordinates.

Delete Google Location History

Even if you stop apps from seeing your location moving forward, Google might still have years of data saved in your account. This is called "Location History" (now often referred to as "Timeline" data). To see what they have on you, go to myactivity.google.com and click on "Location History." It was honestly a little haunting to see my vacations from 2017 mapped out in such detail. If you see a long list of data there, it's time to clean house.

Newer Google accounts created in the last year or two often have this off by default, but if your account is older, it's likely "On." I recommend setting up Auto-delete. You can choose to have Google automatically wipe any location data older than 3 months. It’s a great way to "set it and forget it." To do this, in that same Activity Controls menu, look for "Auto-delete (On)" and select the 3-month option. It's a fair compromise: Google can help you find that restaurant you liked last month, but it won't remember where you lived five years ago.

Wipe Maps Timeline

There is a subtle difference between your general Google Account data and the "Timeline" in the Google Maps app. Google is currently moving Timeline data so it's stored on your device rather than in the cloud. This is a win for privacy, but it means you need to manage it inside the Maps app itself. Open Google Maps, tap your profile icon in the top right, and select "Your Timeline."

If you see a map with blue lines all over it, that's your history. You can tap the three dots in the corner and go to "Settings and privacy." From here, you can "Delete all Location History" or "Delete Location History range." I personally chose to wipe everything. One caveat: if you delete this, features like "where did I park" might get a little less reliable. But for me, not having a digital breadcrumb trail of my entire life was worth having to remember where I left my car. It's all about deciding where your personal line in the sand is.