Using FriendTrack

These pages are about the FriendTrack app on your phone: sharing your Position (what other apps call your location) with a Group of people for a length of time you choose, and seeing where they are on a map of the place you are all in.

Nothing you do here makes you visible by accident. You are on nobody’s map until you start Sharing, and only for the Group and the length of time you picked.

Getting started

What the app is for, signing in with your phone number, and the two things that most often go wrong on the very first screen.

• What FriendTrack is, and what it is not
• Signing in with your phone number
• The code didn’t arrive
• Which countries can sign in
• Your display name and photo

Groups

A Group is the set of people you can share with. Creating one, inviting people to it, joining one you were invited to, and who is allowed to change it.

• Create a Group
• Invite someone to a Group
• Join a Group you were invited to
• The invite code doesn’t work
• Who runs a Group
• Leave a Group
• Remove someone from a Group

Sharing

The core of the app. Starting, choosing how long for, checking whether it is still running, stopping, and what it does to your battery.

• Start Sharing with a Group
• Share with one Group and not another
• Am I still sharing?
• Stop Sharing
• What happens when the time runs out
• What your friends can and cannot see
• Does it keep sharing in the background?
• What Sharing costs your battery

Seeing your friends

Reading the map and the Friends list, and what to do when somebody is sharing but is not where you expect them to be — or is not on the map at all.

• Reading the map
• The Friends list
• My friend is sharing but isn’t on the map
• My own Position is not updating
• Sharing · not sending
• Which map a friend is on
• Which floor a friend is on

Meeting Points

One agreed spot per Group, so nobody has to describe where they are standing.

• Set a Meeting Point
• Pick an Area, or drop an exact spot
• Pin a Meeting Point to a floor
• Clear the Meeting Point

Maps

FriendTrack draws you on an image of the venue rather than on a street map. Finding one, installing it, choosing which one you are on, and what happens when a map changes underneath you.

Using a venue’s own branded FriendTrack app? Your app carries the venue’s name and shows a Powered by FriendTrack note, and it is locked to that venue’s Map — so this whole section does not apply to it. Every other section here does.

• Why FriendTrack shows a venue image
• Find and install a map
• Install the map a friend is using
• Pick your Current Map
• A new version of this map is available
• The map I installed has disappeared

Notifications

What the app tells you about, how to turn each kind off, and the six reasons a notification you expected never arrived.

• What FriendTrack notifies you about
• Turn notification categories on and off
• I didn’t get a notification
• Notifications are blocked on this device
• Arrivals, but not departures

Safety, privacy and your account

Reporting something that worries you, getting a copy of your data, deleting your account, and what happens when the phone or the number changes.

• Report a concern
• Download your data
• Delete your account
• I got a new phone
• I changed my phone number
• Where your position data goes

FriendTrack Pro

What a subscription adds, what the free allowance is, and what happens to the Groups and Maps you made if you stop paying.

• What Pro gets you
• The free allowance
• Subscribe, restore, cancel
• I can only make one Group
• If your subscription lapses

Building a Map is a different job

If what you want is to make the map itself — upload a venue image, line it up with the real world, draw Areas on it — that happens in a browser rather than in the app, and it has its own set of pages: Building a Map.