To turn off location on Android, pull down from the top of your screen and tap the Location tile in Quick Settings to toggle GPS off entirely. For per-app control, go to Settings > Location > App permissions and set individual apps to “Deny” or “Only while using.” Turning off the main Location toggle stops all apps from accessing your GPS until you turn it back on.

That two-second toggle handles most situations. But if you want to stop specific apps from tracking you in the background while keeping Maps and navigation working, you need the per-app approach. This guide covers both, plus Google’s location history system that keeps recording even when your phone’s GPS is off.

This is the nuclear option. Every app loses GPS access until you switch it back on.

1. Swipe down from the top of your screen to open the notification shade.
2. Swipe down a second time to expand the full Quick Settings panel.
3. Find the Location tile (it looks like a pin or map marker). Tap it once.
4. The tile turns gray and the icon dims when location is off.

Alternatively: go to Settings > Location and tap the toggle at the top to switch it off.

When you do this, any app that needs your location, including Google Maps, ride-share apps, and weather widgets, will show an error or ask you to re-enable location. Turn it back on the same way.

This is the smarter approach. You keep navigation working while stopping social media, shopping, or ad-network apps from tracking you.

1. Open Settings on your Android phone.
2. Tap Location.
3. Tap App permissions.
4. You will see a list of every app on your phone organized by permission level: “Allow all the time,” “Allow only while using the app,” and “Ask every time” or “Denied.”
5. Tap any app you want to restrict.
6. Select your preferred setting:
   • Allow all the time means the app can track you 24/7, even when the app is closed. Reserve this for apps that genuinely need it, like Find My Device or a running tracker.
   • Allow only while using the app is the right default for most apps, including Maps, Uber, and food delivery.
   • Deny cuts off location access entirely for that app.

The apps most worth checking are the ones you did not consciously think about: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, retail apps, and anything you downloaded once and forgot. Many of these request “Allow all the time” and get it by default when you first install them.

Android 10 and later adds a separate permission category for background location. An app set to “Allow only while using” cannot track you once you close or switch away from it. This matters because many apps request “Allow all the time” during setup and most people tap Accept without reading it.

To audit which apps have background access:

1. Go to Settings > Location > App permissions.
2. Look at the “Allowed all the time” section at the top.
3. Any app in that list can track your location even when the app is closed. Decide for each one whether that makes sense.
4. For most apps, switch “Allow all the time” to “Allow only while using the app.” You will not notice a difference in normal use.

This is the part most Android guides skip. Google maintains a separate location history that continues to record even if your phone’s GPS toggle is off, as long as you are connected to Wi-Fi or mobile data. Google uses Wi-Fi positioning and cell tower triangulation to estimate your location without GPS.

To turn it off:

1. Open the Google Maps app.
2. Tap your profile photo in the top right corner.
3. Tap Your data in Maps.
4. Under “Location History,” tap Turn off if it is currently on.
5. Google will ask whether to delete your existing history or keep it. Choose based on your preference.
6. Confirm your selection and exit the menu.

You can also manage this through your Google Account at myaccount.google.com under Data & Privacy > Location History.

Separately, Web & App Activity also records location signals from searches and apps. To disable it: Google Account > Data & Privacy > Web & App Activity > Turn off.

One setting worth knowing: Android has an Emergency Location Service that sends your location to emergency services when you call 911, regardless of your Location toggle setting. This is intentional and cannot be disabled on most devices. It is not used by apps and does not share data outside an active emergency call.

Android 12 introduced a Privacy Dashboard that shows you exactly which apps accessed your location in the past 24 hours.

1. Go to Settings > Privacy > Privacy Dashboard.
2. Tap Location.
3. You will see a timeline showing every app that accessed your location and when.

If you see an app you did not expect, go back to App permissions and restrict it. This dashboard is available on stock Android 12+ and on Samsung devices running One UI 4 and later.

Once you have your location settings tightened, the other two privacy-adjacent settings worth checking are stopping apps from running in the background on Android, which also prevents background data collection, and reviewing Bluetooth device permissions, since Bluetooth scanning is a secondary location method some apps use when GPS is unavailable. If your phone is running slow after these changes, a force restart clears pending processes and is worth doing after any major settings change.

No. Turning off GPS stops apps from accessing your precise coordinates, but Wi-Fi scanning, Bluetooth scanning, and cell tower data can still estimate your location. Google’s Web and App Activity also continues recording location signals from searches unless you turn it off separately in your Google Account. For the strongest privacy, disable GPS, turn off Wi-Fi scanning in Location settings, and pause Google Location History.

Yes, to a limited degree. Apps with access to your Wi-Fi network list or Bluetooth can infer rough location without explicit location permission. Android 10 and later requires apps to hold location permission before scanning for nearby Wi-Fi networks, which closed the most obvious gap. Apps can also use IP-based geolocation, which is accurate to the city level and requires no permission at all.

Turn-by-turn navigation requires GPS access. If you turn off the main Location toggle, Maps will stop tracking your real-time position and ask you to re-enable it when you open the app. A better approach is to keep Maps set to “Allow only while using the app,” which gives it full GPS access when you have it open but stops it tracking you the moment you switch to another app.

Android 12 and later shows a green dot in the top-right corner of your screen when any app is actively accessing your location (or camera or microphone). If you see the green dot on an app you did not expect, open the Privacy Dashboard under Settings > Privacy to identify which app triggered it.