Explainer · September 2026

Temporary location sharing: what it is, and why the link should expire

Temporary location sharing means showing someone your live position for a window you choose — the next 15 minutes, the next hour — and having the share end by itself when that window closes. Not paused. Not “hidden until you turn it back on.” Ended, with the location data deleted.

It sits between the two ways phones have always offered: dropping a pin (a snapshot that is out of date the moment you move) and always-on sharing (a live feed that keeps going until someone remembers to stop it). This page is about what makes the middle option different, and what “temporary” has to mean before it is worth trusting.

Three kinds of location sharing

Glympse has offered the third kind since 2008, Google Maps and Apple Find My have timers on their account-based sharing, and Life360 added a temporary mode to its family-safety app in 2026. The differences are real but specific: MyLoco vs Glympse, MyLoco vs Google Maps, MyLoco vs Apple Find My and MyLoco vs Life360.

Why the timer is the whole point

Most location sharing doesn’t end when the need ends. You share so a friend can find you at the festival, and three weeks later you are still a dot on their map. Nobody decided that; nobody decided to stop it either. The failure mode of always-on sharing isn’t malice, it is forgetting — and forgetting is the default outcome of any setting you have to remember to turn off.

A timer flips the default. Ending is what happens if you do nothing. That is a different privacy model from “you can turn it off whenever you want”: the safe state is the one you fall back into, not the one you have to reach. Even Life360, the always-on family tracker, added a temporary mode alongside its Circles in 2026, which tells you how many people wanted exactly this.

What “temporary” has to mean

A timer on its own is not enough. Five things have to be true before a share deserves the word, and each one is a design decision in MyLoco:

1. It ends on its own. A timer you set before you share, not a toggle you have to remember afterwards. MyLoco offers 15, 30 or 60 minutes, or “until I stop” — and the timer counts down on your screen the whole time.
2. It is visible while it runs. No silent mode, no background sharing you can forget about. If a share is active, you can see it, and you can end it with one tap.
3. Nobody signs up. The person watching opens a link in a browser. No app to install, no account to create, no contact request to accept. On the sharer's side there is no account either — nothing to breach, nothing to sell.
4. Nothing is kept. When the share ends, the position is erased and the share is deleted within a day. There is no history for personal use — not for you, and not for us.
5. The link can't be found by accident. Share links are random, server-generated and unguessable. They are blocked from search engines, don't leak to other sites through the browser's referrer, and can't be embedded in another page. Only the people you send it to can open it — so send it to the right people.

How it works in MyLoco

Tap Share my location, pick how long, and send the link into any chat. Whoever opens it sees your live pin in their browser, with a route and ETA if they share their own position back. When the timer hits 0:00, or you tap Stop, the link dies and the data goes with it. A group can do the same on one shared map, each person on their own timer, with a watch link for friends without the app. The step-by-step guide walks through it, including what each side sees.

Temporary by design, for businesses too

The same idea works when the person on the way is a courier or a technician. A business creates a link per job through the MyLoco API, the customer watches the van approach with the company’s name on the page, and the link expires when the job is done. Retention is off unless the business turns it on for proof-of-delivery, is capped at 90 days, and belongs to the business — the customer’s tracking page says so. The consumer promise doesn’t change: MyLoco for Business is temporary by default, exactly like the app.

When temporary is the right choice

• Meeting up: friends, a date, a marketplace pickup, a first meeting with anyone.
• Pickups and arrivals: kids, parents, a friend at the airport, a guest who can’t find the door.
• Being on the move alone: a run, a ride, a walk home, with someone watching until you’re back.
• Groups heading to one place from many directions.
• Deliveries and service calls, where the customer wants an ETA, not an app.

When it isn’t

If you want to see where a family member is around the clock, with their knowledge and consent, a family-tracking app is the right tool and MyLoco isn’t. It deliberately has no always-on mode, no location history and no way to watch someone who hasn’t just sent you a link. That is a limitation, and it is the feature.

Fair questions