Every time I pull out of a driveway, my mother’s “text me when you get there” rule comes with me. It has outlived a flip phone, a cracked Galaxy, and the one I dropped in a lake (long story, entirely my fault). I’m an adult with a lease and a dentist, and I still obey it, usually from a parking lot with the engine running and my seatbelt on, thumbing out “here” before I’ve even found my bag.
She replies with a thumbs up. Always.
The rule works, and it’s also a little absurd when you think about it. A text answers exactly one question (did she make it?) and only after the fact. Until that text shows up, the person on the other end has nothing to go on.
A friend was driving home alone late one night, a 40-minute stretch of highway she knows better than I know my own street, and she stopped answering. I texted. Then I called. After that I called her roommate, which I’m still a little embarrassed about, and I was halfway through looking up the highway patrol number when a message came in from her couch: “phone died lol, home.” That was the whole story. A dead battery on her end, and me spiraling on mine with my car keys already in my hand.
If you’ve ever tried to fix this with regular location sharing, you know the catch. The other person usually needs the same app, an account, or some setup they’ll put off until tomorrow. I’ve complained before about how awkward sharing your location while driving still is, and the complaint stands for most tools.
Konvoyage, an Android app that puts friends driving together on one live map with turn-by-turn directions, now has a live view link for this exact gap. You send a link. The person opens it in a browser on their phone or laptop and watches you drive, with no app to install and no account to make. (I’ve used it from both ends now, mostly the waiting end.)
Who actually wants to watch you drive?
More people than you’d guess, and almost none of them want to be in the car with you.
The obvious one is whoever is waiting on you somewhere. My friend Priya is mine. She is always early, which means she is always the one sitting alone with a menu she has memorized, at the kind of restaurant that won’t seat you until the whole party shows up. The first time I sent her the link, she texted me afterward: “I watched you circle the block three times looking for parking.” No hello. Just that. (In my defense, that block had a hydrant on every side, and I do not parallel park well with an audience.) She also admitted she ordered my drink the moment my dot turned onto the street, which is the most useful thing a dot has ever done for me.
The drive home is the one I think about, because of that night with my friend. Had she sent me a link, I would have watched her dot keep moving toward her apartment, and when her phone died I’d have seen it fade to “no signal” a few minutes from her door. I probably still would have called her. I would not have called her roommate.
It also helps when one of you drove up to the cabin a day early and wants to know when to start the grill, since they can follow everyone coming in, a dot and a first name each, instead of asking the group chat where you are.
Share my drive or Share live view?
Which button you use depends on whether you’re already in a trip.
Driving alone? Tap + and pick the “Share my drive” card (it says “Send a link. They watch you arrive, no app needed.”). You’ll be asked for your name and “Where to? (optional)”, then you tap “Start sharing”. That starts sharing your location and opens Android’s share sheet with a message reading “Watch me drive live:” followed by the link, so you can send it through whatever messaging app the other person actually checks. Pick a destination and turn-by-turn navigation starts too. Skip it and the app just shares where you are, which is fine for an “on my way home” drive where you don’t need directions.
Already in a group trip? Tap the trip pill at the top of the map and choose “Share live view”. Any member of the trip can do this, not only the person who created it.
There’s also an in-between case. Sometimes you create a trip, send the code, and nobody joins (people are in the shower, people are slow, people forget). After a couple of minutes a card shows up asking “Just you today? Share my drive instead”, and tapping it switches you to the solo version.
You need to be signed in to the app to create a link. The person watching doesn’t.
What the person watching sees, and what stays private
The viewer gets a live map with moving dots labelled with first names, your destination as a pin, and an arrival time shown as a time on the clock rather than a countdown. On a solo drive, the line at the top reads something like “Anna is driving to Lakeview Diner · arrives” plus the time, or just “sharing live” if you didn’t set a destination. Once you get there, it changes to “Anna has arrived at Lakeview Diner”. On a group trip, there’s a list with each person’s status: arriving at a given time, on the way, arrived, or no signal. Anyone who loses signal shows up faded with “no signal” next to their name. Your speed isn’t shown anywhere. (My mother would love to see my speed. She will not be getting it.)
Now the part to say out loud before you share during a group trip: the viewer sees everyone in the trip by first name, not just the person who sent the link. So if you’re about to send live view to your aunt, mention it in the group first.
Viewers can’t send anything, can’t read the group chat or any messages, can’t see the trip code, and can’t join the trip. The page also isn’t indexed by search engines, so it won’t turn up if somebody searches your name. I went through what your friends inside a trip can see in this post, and the live view is a narrower window than that.
A handful of people can watch the same trip at once.
When does the link stop?
Mostly, you don’t have to remember to turn it off (good, because I would forget). If you’re on Share my drive and set a destination, it ends when you arrive. If you didn’t set one, it keeps going until you stop it, and if you forget about it entirely, it stops by itself after four hours and shows “Sharing stopped after 4 hours”. If you shared from a group trip, it runs until the trip ends, whether someone taps End trip or everyone arrives, and it also stops if the person who shared leaves the trip. And if you want it off right now, any trip member can tap “Stop live view”, which cuts off every link for everyone watching. On Share my drive you tap “Stop sharing” instead and get “People with your link will no longer see you.”
After a trip ends, the viewer’s page says the trip has ended and offers “Watch the replay” for as long as the replay is available.
Next time someone is waiting on you, tap + before you pull out, choose Share my drive, and send them the link.