10 Best Apps to Track a Cell Phone Location for Free

By Hannah Smith , Parent Herald Aug 17, 10:25 am

Thanks to technology, you can keep an eye on your loved ones when they're out and about. Knowing they're safe can do much to put your mind at ease.

There are several ways to track a cell phone for free. We recommend you use a good tracking app for the purpose. Apps are convenient to set up and use.

A good tracking app can do all of the following:

● Give you a loved one's real-time location.

● Notify you when they've reached their destination safely.

● Send you an alert if they go somewhere they shouldn't.

There are apps out there that can track your child's phone location for free such as Spyic, once installed. In this article, we give you an introduction to Spyic, which is amongst the most popular phone tracking apps on the planet.

10 Best Cell Phone Location Trackers

#1 Spyic - A Tracking Phenomenon in 190+ Countries

If you don't want to waste time and just want a real tracking solution that works well, Spyic is it. The app is capable of tracking an iOS or Android device in real-time. You don't need any technical knowledge to use the app.

Spyic is used by over a million people around the planet to track their various charges and loved ones. Employers use it to keep an eye on their employees. Parents use it to track their children. You can trust the app to work as advertised.

Why is Spyic #1 on our list? The app works invisibly in the background, a feature not many parental control apps have. Your charge will never know you're keeping an eye on them. Also, Spyic happens to be a full-fledged parental control utility with 30+ features.

The app is top-rated, highly trusted, and packed to the brim with useful features, making it a shoo-in for the number 1 spot!

How to track a cell phone location online

Step 1: Sign up for a free Spyic account. Your email ID will be your username.

Step 2: Choose your target platform: iOS or Android. Then follow the setup instructions. For iOS, you can set up Spyic remotely. For Android devices, you'll need to install a 2MB app on the device you want to track.

Step 3: Congratulations! After you have successfully installed Spyic, you'll have access to the dashboard. You can immediately start tracking the device. Look for the "Location" option in the selection menu to the left of the dashboard.

See where the cell phone is on a 3D-capable map

Spyic allows you to pinpoint your target's location with little trouble:

See the present location: Spyic gives you the real-time location of your target on a virtual map. You can see the building, street, and general neighborhood where the cell phone was last seen at.
Check location history: Apart from the last-seen location, Spyic also shows you the target's location history. You will see all the places they visited in the past few weeks. You get details like the location's exact address and its geographical coordinates.
3D Google Street View: Interested in getting a close-up look of any building or street your target visited? You can use Google's Street View feature, which is built-into Spyic.
View timestamps: Finally, every location entry will be accompanied by time and date information. That way, you'll know when the target arrived at a particular destination and track their movements.

As Spyic was designed to be a parental control and employee monitoring app, it also has a nifty geofence feature:

Set up a Geofence: You can set up virtual perimeters on a map with Spyic. If the target phone leaves or arrives inside this perimeter, you will be sent an alert.

When you're done using Spyic, you can uninstall it remotely with a single click!

#2 Find My iPhone

The second app on our list is Apple's official app Find My iPhone, which can track iPhone, iPads, Macs, and Apple Watch for free. The only catch is that you need to enable the Find My app on the iDevice you want to track first. Also, you'll need to know the iCloud credentials.

Once Find My iPhoneis set up, you'll be able to track the target iDevice from any browser. Here are some of the most useful features of the app:

Find your target device on a map and track its movements.
Play a sound on a misplaced device.
Remotely erase all personal information from the device if it's stolen.

The downside to using Find My iPhone is that it's not discreet. The target user will know you're tracking them. They can turn off the tracking feature at any time. Also, the app is limited to iOS devices.

#3 Find My Device

Find My Device is Google's answer to Apple's Find My app. The Find My Device service allows you to keep track of any Android smartphone, tablet, or smart accessory. You'll need a Google Account to use the service. You can access the service from any browser.

What can Find My Device do for you? It's a useful app with several noteworthy features:

You'll see the last-seen location of the target device on the map. Location history is also available.
It has a "Play Sound" feature, which causes a device to ring for 5 minutes even if it's set to silent.
You can use the "Secure Device" feature to lock the device remotely or the "Erase Device" feature to erase all the data from the device.

A drawback of this service is that you need to know the Google Account credentials of the target Android device. Additionally, a notification is sent out to the target device whenever you track it.

#4 Zenly

Zenly is a popular location-sharing app made by a small team of developers based out of Paris, France. It runs in the background without using much battery, making it easy to recommend. The app is free and compatible with both Android and iOS devices.

Here are some of Zenly's top features:

You can share your current real-time location with someone or ask for theirs. You can also share an ETA.
Get directions to anywhere your friend is on the map.
See someone's current battery level.

The app has many useful features. Location tracking requires the other person's consent every single time, however. Also, the other party and you will both need to have the app installed for it to work. It's not browser-based.

#5 Kidgy

Kidgy is a well-known parental control app for iOS and Android. It was designed to allow you to keep an eye on your child remotely. The app offers a variety of features you may find useful as a parent, in addition to location tracking.

Here's what you can do with Kidgy:

Find out where your child is in real-time. Set up a virtual geofence so you know when they leave a certain area.
View your child's internet and social media activity.
Sent your child tasks remotely.

Kidgy is a good app, but it's not discreet. A wily child will have little trouble finding their way around the app's restrictions. Also, while the location tracking feature is useful, it's not as feature-rich as some of the other apps on this list.

#6 Glympse

Glympse is a location-share app more than it is a tracking app, but it's effective for location tracking nonetheless. Glympse allows you to send a "glimpse" of your current location to someone else, or ask for their location instead. Only you need to have Glympse installed.

Glympse offers a variety of useful features:

Share a live location update with someone on a virtual map.
Send someone your ETA.
Ask for emergency roadside assistance.

Is there a drawback with the app? You'll need permission every single time you want to know someone's live location. The app also doesn't have child-safety features like geofencing, seeing as it's a location-sharing app.

#7 Life360

Life360 is a great app for coordinating locations with friends and family. You can see where anyone you're interested in is at presently. The app also sends you notifications when a person visits a place they've been to before.

Life360, once installed, offers the following features in addition to location tracking:

Send private messages to your friends and family.
Receive emergency roadside assistance.
Get a 30-day free trial.

Once the free trial is up, you will have to pay a monthly fee to use Life360's premium features. Note that the premium version is only usable in the US. Users in the rest of the world will get a limited version of the app.

#8 Mama Bear

Mama Bear, like the name suggests, is a location tracking app for parents. It allows you to keep track of your children, whether they're at school or hanging out with their friends. The app works with both Android and iOS devices.

Mama Bear offers a variety of useful features:

See where your kids are at currently and receive notifications when they arrive safely.
Kids can ask you for emergency help.
See your child's location history.

A major drawback of this app is that it can't provide location updates in real-time. Every time you want to know where your child is, you need to ask them to send you a location update manually. Also, you have to pay to unlock some of the added features.

#9 Mobile Tracker

Mobile tracker is a simple, to-the-point location tracking app. It does exactly as the name suggests - allow you to track anyone's movements on a map. The app also has a nifty lost phone finder feature, which may come in handy during emergencies.

The Mobile Tracker app currently only works with Android devices. Here are some notable features:

View anyone's location with the GPS tracker.
Track lost phones.
Send notifications to friends and family.

Bear in mind that if you want to track someone on a map, they need to have this app installed on their device. Also, you'll need to ask them to share their location with you. It's not meant to be a parental control app.

#10 FollowMee GPS Tracker

FollowMee GPS Tracker rounds up our list of the 10 best apps that can track a cell phone for free. The app is compatible with both Android and iOS platforms. The most noteworthy feature about this app is that it can track multiple devices at the same time from a single account.

Once you set up FollowMee, here are some of the features you can access:

You can view someone's last-seen location on a map.
Your data, including present location, is protected.
Send out an SMS during emergencies.

What are the drawbacks of the app? You can only see someone's last-seen location for free. Also, it's not discreet. Finally, while the app can track anyone's movements continuously, it can eat up a lot of battery.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed our list of the 10 best apps to track a cell phone's location on iOS and Android. While any app on this list will do in a pinch, we recommend you pick Spyic. It's effective, reliable, and offers several features in addition to location tracking.

With Spyic, you can remotely track your loved one's location from any PC or smartphone browser. The app works discreetly, if necessary, without the user's awareness. You can see real-time movements, with 3D street view, on a virtual map.