How to Disable Location in Facebook Messenger

It turns out, Facebook Messenger can tell others your precise location. Here’s how to prevent that from happening.

By default, Facebook Messenger tracks your location and embeds that information into any messages you send over the service on your mobile device. That is, unless you manually disable the app from using your location.

By using a Google Chrome extension called Marauders Map, you can look at the location from where any message was sent from, as long as the sender still has location enabled on their device.

To use the extension, just install it and then open up your messages on the Facebook web interface. From there, you can cover over the timestamp of a message and get a map pop-up that pinpoints the sender’s location.

Again, this only works if the sender has location enabled within the Facebook Messenger app, which is highly likely as it’s a default setting that can only be turned off if the user manually goes in and turns it off themselves.

If you’d rather not have your location tracked while you’re chatting away in Facebook Messenger on your iPhone or Android device, here’s how to disable location tracking and prevent others from knowing your location.

On iPhone

Luckily, it’s pretty simple to disable location tracking for Facebook Messenger. On iPhone, all it requires is going into the settings and flicking a toggle.

Simply navigate to Settings > Privacy > Location Services. Find Facebook Messenger in the list and flip the toggle to the off position so that it’s gray and not green.

This will prevent Facebook Messenger from sending your location with any future messages, but one thing to be aware of is that it won’t delete old location information, so keep that in mind.

On Android

If you have an Android device, here’s how to disable location tracking in Facebook Messenger.

While in the Facebook Messenger app, tap the Menu icon and navigate to Settings > Location Services. From there, simply uncheck the box that enables location services.

It’s also a good idea to go through your apps and disable location services for apps that don’t really need your location in the first place. It makes sense for navigation apps, but for messaging apps, not so much.

While many people may look at this as yet another reason not to use Facebook products, we still think Facebook Messenger is one of the better messaging apps around. It’s a terrific app that’s available for both iPhone and Android devices, and it makes it possible for users to chat with their Facebooks friends while on the go. Of course, if you’re near a computer, you can still use Facebook’s web chat interface and message platform, but we find the mobile app to be a lot more intuitive.

One thing I love about Facebook Messenger is the user interface; it’s simple, clean and easy to use. The same really can’t be said for the web interface. It seems like Facebook changes constantly every few months, and consistency is hard to come by when using the Facebook website. Plus, the separation between Facebook Chat and the Messages platform can be confusing for a lot of users. Facebook Messenger simply combines both platforms to make it easier to use.

Facebook Chat on the web is also full of bugs. Plenty of times I’ll mark a message as read, but it still shows up as unread whenever I come back to Facebook later on. I’ve never had this issue on the mobile app, and I’ve never come across any kind of bug on the app in the first place, making it a great app to use without a lot of aggravation.