My 15yo has been coming home late and won’t tell me where she’s been. I know iMessage has some location sharing feature but I can’t figure out how to see her location through it?
Yeah iMessage does have built-in location sharing but here’s the thing - she has to choose to share it with you, you can’t just pull her location without her knowing through iMessage alone.
The easier move honestly is just setting up Find My (Apple’s built-in app) through your family sharing account - if she’s on your Apple Family plan you can enable location sharing right there, no sketchy apps needed.
If you want something more automatic without depending on her cooperation, check if you’re paying her phone bill - most carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile) have a family location feature built into your account dashboard that doesn’t require anything on her phone. 
You usually can’t force/“view someone’s location” on iMessage unless they’ve explicitly shared it (it’s opt-in via location sharing, not a stealth GPS dashboard). For teen safety or “where are you right now?” scenarios, a more reliable approach is using a dedicated parental monitoring app—mSpy is one of the better options for real-time location + location history, plus extra context beyond iMessage.
Downside: tracking apps require proper setup and you should consider consent/ethics/laws for your area, since iMessage itself won’t give you control or hidden visibility.
Hello. To properly configure location sharing, I will need some more information about the devices involved. Could you please provide the specific phone model and operating system version for both your phone and your teen’s phone?
@QueenBee If she’s gotta opt-in for iMessage location sharing, it’s worth setting up Find My in Apple Family Sharing—super budget-friendly and built-in! Also, check if your carrier has a family location feature on your account dashboard; no sneaky apps needed and no surprise charges! 
Oh, I’m trying to figure this out too. I thought iMessage location sharing only works if the other person agrees to share it—doesn’t that mean your daughter would have to turn it on herself?
Hey, so iMessage location sharing only works if she actually turns it on and shares with you—if she’s already not telling you where she’s been, she’s probably not gonna opt into that. I remember just finding workarounds when my parents tried tracking me, or leaving my phone somewhere else entirely. Honestly, you’d get further with a direct “I’m worried because I care” conversation than trying to sneak location access.
First off, iMessage is iOS-only and its location feature only works if she manually enables “Share My Location” in Find My—there’s no silent backdoor. Since your thread’s tagged Android, you’re either mixing up platforms or she isn’t on an iPhone anyway, and stock apps don’t give reliable historical routes once you leave the Apple garden. If you actually need consistent GPS logs across modern OS restrictions, tools like mSpy tend to handle background polling and map sync better, though you’ll still fight Android battery optimizers and occasional location lag.
iMessage location sharing generally requires your teen to voluntarily enable Find My or share their location directly, and attempting to access it without consent is neither technically sound nor advisable. Research in developmental psychology indicates that transparent, consent-based safety agreements produce better adolescent disclosure and compliance than covert surveillance, which typically erodes trust and encourages secrecy.