WhatsApp has become one of the most popular messaging apps, allowing users to easily communicate with friends, family, colleagues, and more. One useful WhatsApp feature is the ability to share your live location or send your current location to contacts. While this is easy to do on your smartphone, you may want to view a contact’s shared location on your desktop or laptop PC. Here’s how to see WhatsApp location on PC.
Prerequisites for Viewing WhatsApp Location on PC
Before you can view live locations or sent locations in WhatsApp on your computer, there are a few prerequisites:
- You need to have WhatsApp installed and set up on your smartphone.
- You need to have a WhatsApp account linked to your phone number.
- Your phone needs to have location services/GPS enabled.
- Your phone needs to be connected to the internet to share live locations.
- You need to install the WhatsApp desktop app on your computer.
- Your phone and computer need to be on the same WiFi network.
As long as you meet these requirements, you will be able to view real-time and sent locations through WhatsApp on your PC. The WhatsApp mobile and desktop apps sync together using your phone number, allowing you to access the same messages and features across devices.
How to View Live Locations
Here are the steps to see someone’s live location on your PC using WhatsApp:
- Open the WhatsApp desktop application on your computer.
- Make sure your smartphone is connected to the internet and location/GPS services are enabled.
- Open the individual or group chat with the person whose live location you want to view.
- Ask them to share their live location with you through WhatsApp on their phone.
- Once they share it, you will get a notification on your PC. Click on the notification.
- This will open a map interface showing you their real-time location on your computer screen. It will move as they move.
- You can zoom in and out on the map to adjust the view. Their profile picture will display on the map at their current location.
- The live location sharing will automatically stop after a set time limit chosen by the sender (15 min, 1 hour, 8 hours).
As long as the contact keeps their location sharing active from their phone, you will be able to track their live movements and location on your PC. This makes it easy to stay updated on where they are in real-time.
How to View a Sent Location
If someone sends you a specific location rather than sharing live location, here is how to view it on desktop:
- When in an individual or group chat in WhatsApp desktop, the contact will send a location pin via their phone.
- You will receive this as a location attachment in the chat.
- Click on the location attachment to open it.
- A map interface will pop up, zoomed into the sent location pin.
- You can zoom in and out and move the map around to adjust the view.
- A blue location pin will show the exact coordinates of the sent location.
- Below the map, the name of the location will also be displayed if available.
This allows you to quickly open a sent location on a map view right from your computer screen. It’s handy for receiving recommendations for places to meet up, restaurants, retail stores, etc.
Troubleshooting WhatsApp Location on PC
If you are having issues viewing WhatsApp live or sent locations on your desktop, here are some troubleshooting tips:
- Make sure your phone and PC are connected to the internet.
- Check that your phone’s location services are enabled and GPS is turned on.
- Confirm your phone and computer are on the same WiFi network.
- Restart both devices and check your internet connection.
- Update the WhatsApp apps on both devices to the latest version.
- On your phone, re-share your live location or re-send your location pin.
- Force quit and relaunch the WhatsApp desktop application.
- Clear the app cache and data on both devices.
- Unlink and re-link your WhatsApp account on the desktop app.
- Contact WhatsApp support if issues persist.
Following this troubleshooting guide should help resolve any problems getting live or sent locations to show properly on your PC through WhatsApp.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a WhatsApp web version to view locations?
Yes, WhatsApp Web which is accessed through your computer browser also has the capability to display live locations and location pins shared from phone contacts. As long as your phone is connected to the internet, locations will sync to WhatsApp Web.
Can I share my location on PC?
Unfortunately, you cannot initiate sharing your live location from the WhatsApp desktop app. This can only be done from your smartphone. However, any locations shared from desktop will automatically sync and be viewable on linked phones.
Do both devices need to be on the same WiFi?
For optimal performance, your phone and computer should be connected to the same local WiFi network. However, it is possible to sync locations over mobile data as well. This may have slower refresh rates though.
Can I track someone’s location without them knowing?
No, for privacy reasons you can only view someone’s live location on WhatsApp if they intentionally choose to share it with you. They will get notified when they are sharing their live location.
Can I save or export someone’s shared location?
There is no built-in way to save or export a live or sent location from WhatsApp desktop. You can take a screenshot to capture the map view and coordinates. But there is no method to download the location data itself from WhatsApp.
Conclusion
Viewing live locations and shared location pins from your WhatsApp contacts on your computer is simple with the desktop app for Mac or PC. Just make sure your phone and desktop apps are synced to the same account, connected to the internet, and your contacts share their locations from their smartphone. With these few steps, you can conveniently track and view locations right through your computer. Whether you need to monitor someone’s whereabouts in real-time or want to pull up an address they sent, WhatsApp desktop has you covered. So next time you need to view a contact’s location on a bigger screen, now you know how to see WhatsApp location on PC!