To share your live location with family continuously on Android, the app needs the location permission set to “Allow all the time”, not “While using the app”, and it needs to be excluded from battery optimisation. Those two settings are where almost every “it stopped working” complaint comes from. Here is the whole setup, in order.

1. Understand the three location permissions

Since Android 10, a location prompt has three answers, and they mean very different things:

  • Only this time: the app gets location until you leave it. Useless for sharing.
  • While using the app: location only while the app is on screen. Your family sees you until you switch to WhatsApp.
  • Allow all the time: location continues with the app closed. This is the one a family tracker needs.

Android deliberately doesn’t offer “all the time” in the first dialog. The app has to ask for foreground location first, explain why it needs background access, and then send you to a second screen where “Allow all the time” appears. If an app never shows that second screen, it can’t track in the background, whatever its listing says.

2. Turn on background sharing in the app

In Traxl this is the last page of the intro, or Home → Finish setting up → Share location in the background. Tap Turn on, accept the first location prompt, read the explanation, then choose Allow all the time on Android’s screen. Notifications come next; allow them, or SOS and place alerts can’t reach you.

3. If “Allow all the time” never appeared

You probably denied location once before, and Android stops asking after two refusals. Go to Settings → Apps → Traxl → Permissions → Location and choose Allow all the time there. Traxl’s checklist notices this state and shows an Open Settings button that lands on that page.

4. Exclude the app from battery optimisation

This is the step people skip. Android, and especially the battery managers on Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, Realme and Samsung phones, will suspend a background app within minutes to save power. Traxl asks for the exemption the moment you turn sharing on; say yes. If you said no, Home → Finish setting up → Keep Traxl awake asks again. Brand-specific steps are in our battery guide.

5. Check that it works

Close the app fully, put the phone in your pocket, and walk around the block. On another family member’s phone, your dot should move and your day’s route should draw. If the dot freezes after a few minutes, it is the battery manager; if it never moves, it is the permission.

What about privacy?

“All the time” sounds alarming, and it should be granted carefully. In Traxl, location goes only to members of a Circle you joined, never to anyone else and never publicly; you can pause sharing or leave a Circle any time, and Android shows a persistent notification whenever an app is using location in the background. If a tracker hides that notification, be suspicious of it.