Stalking or cyberstalking is illegal and immoral behavior. However, there are scenarios in which we would like to find someone’s address or location history. Find a long-lost friend, know where your kid has gone, or track down a scammer, to name a few. This post will offer hints on how to find someone’s address legitly and quickly.

Method 1 Google Maps location sharing

The easiest way to find your friend’s location will be to ask them directly. In the past, you can get your friend’s location in Google Maps without knowing once they have shared it with you before. But not anymore. Nowadays when you ask for your friend’s location, he/she will get a notification and decide whether to share it with you or not.

But it’s still worth a try since you can get a real-time, precise location once they agree to share it. All you need to do is just send a request to your friend’s phone. Check this Google Maps guideline to see how to get your friend’s location.

Method 2 Find location by Google account

If you have ever saved any Google account (e.g. Gmail) on your friend’s phone, try this method.

You are supposed to use the Find My Device function to locate a phone that you use to log in to your Google account. But there’re also some requirements for that phone:

• Be turned on and connected to Internet
• Be visible on Google Play
• Have Location turned on
• Have Find My Device turned on (automatically)

Once the above prerequisites can be guaranteed, check this official document to see how to find the phone’s location. Pay attention that your target’s phone will get a notification about that. If that’s not what you want, skip this method and move on to the next one.

Method 3 Use apps to locate someone

If you’re trying to figure out a way to track your kid or lover’s real-time location, give a shot to professional parental control apps.

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Parental control apps enable parents to monitor all messages, GPS locations, and phone calls. You’ll also find yourself accessible to chats on some social networks such as Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Kik, Line, Tinder, and so on. mSpy and uMobix are our top recommendations for tracking your under-age children’s location and monitoring his/her online activities.

Method 4 People search engine

If you don’t have your friend’s contact information but want to find their address history, this option may be the best and most efficient one for you — reverse name lookup.

People search tools are nothing new to many groups since they have helped a lot of people reconnect with loved ones, background check neighbors, and investigate property and vehicles.

Note that people search tools don’t provide real-time location as a phone tracker that uses GPS (which depending on the situation, could be illegal). On the contrary, people search sites use available public records and social media information as well as other public forum websites for their data. This is totally LEGAL.

Founded in 2007, BeenVerified is one of the industry leaders in this field. Its 7-in-one tool enables people to run a search by name, phone number, username, email, address, vehicle license plate, and VIN. It will render a detailed report containing your target’s address history.

Step 1. Visit the BeenVerified website. Fill in the information and click Search Now.

Step 2. Wait while the site compiles the information. Apart from the address history, you can also have a look at the contact info, social media, criminal or traffic record, and assets on the report.

Method 5 Search on Google and social media

To locate someone, you can utilize search engines and social platforms.

If your target is a member of a company or group, you are expected to find his/her information on the organization’s website. After that, you can try to contact the group staff for address info. Here are some tricks you can try when looking up someone in search engines:

• Quotation mark — Use quotation marks on both sides of your search term (e.g. “John Smith”), so that you get search results that exactly match what you enter.
• Plus sign — Search as much information as you know and use a plus sign to link them (e.g. “John Smith” + “California”), which will help narrow down your search list.

Popular social networks are also a good place to run the search. Try to enter your target’s name in the search box of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, or other platforms. If they have shared posts with the location mentioned, you can get closer to what you want.

Similarly, make full use of their tricks. For example, search since:2022-01-01 from:@CNN on X, and you’ll get tweets and replies CNN sent after January 1st, 2022.

Method 6 Hire an investigator to locate someone

Still no luck? The last resort will be to hire an investigator to do the research.

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If possible, try to ask your friend for recommendations on an investigator and check their license before making financial decisions. Though hiring a private investigator may cost you a fortune, the result is not guaranteed.

If you’re desperately and eagerly looking for someone, try to use all the above methods in combination. Or, try to make full use of all the info you get, and run a corresponding search. Thanks to advanced technology and big data, now you can look up someone’s location records by their phone number, email address, and social media username.

Investigator icons created by Freepik – Flaticon
Map icons created by Freepik – Flaticon

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