How To Turn OFF Location Services On Galaxy S8 And Galaxy S8 Plus

Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, with all their modern technologies, can be both a bless and a pain. If you think of it, it is pretty cool that you can use the location services to track down a lost or stolen device; that you can look back and see where you’ve been on the map for the past days, weeks and so on; that you can get suggestions of places to visit and things to do, no matter where you are; or that you can use the popular Google Maps and its directions.

But how about the fact that you don’t really feel comfortable with Google accessing your location and getting to know every single move that you make? You don’t like it, you can’t help it, and you don’t have to. If you’re determined to put an end to this tracking mechanism, here is what you will have to do.

Turn off the location tracking on Galaxy S8/S8 Plus

The location feature can be accessed in two different ways:

You either go to the App Drawer and tap on Google Settings, where you will find the Location menu;
Or you access the general Settings and you tap directly on Location.

Once in there, you can have a look at all the apps that have recently accessed the location of your Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus. If you see anything in there that wasn’t supposed to be – like an app that had no business to track your location but still did it, you should probably spend more time investigating this and making sure you have no security issues.

All these left aside, it’s time to focus on your two main options:

Use the battery saving mode and only disable the GPS – in which case, the mobile networks and the Wi-Fi connections will still be able to put you on the map as long as you are connected to the internet (go to Mode and just tap on Battery Saving);
Completely turn off the location services on your Android phone, in which case you only have to tap on the top-right corner switch and toggle it from On to Off.

That’s how you prevent Google from monitoring your moves. But even if you have disabled the location function, it doesn’t mean you’re done. You still need to disable the location reporting service!

Disable the Google Location Reporting service

That’s right, Google isn’t simply collecting your location data on your Samsung Galaxy S8 or Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus. It sends it further away, storing it on its own servers and rest assured, Google already stored a surprisingly amount of information on you by now. Feel free to check this page and make yourself a better idea of what you’ve sent to Google through your Android phone until now – it’s mostly about the places you have visited and when it happened.

To bring this to an end and prevent Google from collecting your data and storing it away from your smartphone, go to the dedicated Google Location Reporting settings. Once in there, disable both the Location Reporting and the Location History.

Only now you can say that you have officially turned off all the nasty location services. If you’ve come this far, we take it you already pondered the pros and cons and decided what’s best for you. You have earned the privacy and potentially made yourself less capable of tracking down your smartphone if you will ever lose it.