“Tracking” covers more than location: it also takes in which apps your child uses, how long they spend in each one and who they talk to. For the basics — where they are, what they install, how many hours — Google Family Link is free and it is enough for a lot of people. A supervision app is justified when you need to see the content of the conversations, which is exactly what Family Link does not show. We are always talking about an underage child in your care: on an adult's phone, without their consent, it is a crime.
When a parent looks up how to track their child's phone, they are almost never looking for a map. They are trying to answer something harder — what is happening on that phone — and they do not yet know which tool they need or whether they have to pay. This page sorts out the options, the free one included, and says where each one ends.
“Tracking the phone” means four different things, and the same tool does not solve all of them. One is location. Another is usage: which apps they have, how long they spend in each one, at what time of day. The third is content: what is said in the chats, who writes, which photos go around. The fourth is new contacts. A free tool covers the first two; it does not cover the last two. Knowing which one worries you is almost the whole decision.
Family Link is Google's parental control: free, for Android, no catch. You install it on your child's phone, link it to their Google account, and from yours you see where the device is and how much each app was used; you can set a daily limit, block apps, approve Play Store downloads and lock the phone remotely. For a lot of people that is everything they were looking for. Its limits are just as clear: your child knows it is installed, it does not show the content of messages or of WhatsApp, and from the age of 13, in most countries, the teenager can end the supervision from their own account.
If your child is under twelve, or if what worries you is screen hours, the games they download and confirming they got where they were supposed to get, Family Link is enough for you and you do not need to pay anything. We say so even though we sell the other thing. Start there: if in a few weeks something is missing, you will be able to name it, and only then is it worth looking at another tool.
The limit always shows up in the same place: the content of the conversations. A parent who suspects an unknown adult is writing to their child, who sees signs of harassment or who notices that conversations have been deleted solves nothing with a tool that only reports how many minutes an app was open. Family Link tells you WhatsApp was used for two hours; it does not tell you with whom. That gap — and not location — is the reason most parents end up looking for something else.
CatWatchful records the activity on your child's phone and shows it in a panel you open from any browser. There are 26 features — among them messages and chats, calls, apps, photos and location, which has its own page — and each plan includes some of them; the full list is on the features page. You install it once, with the phone in your hand, on Android 8.0 or higher and without root. It is Android only: if your child uses an iPhone, this is no use to you, and we would rather tell you up front. It also does not recover anything from before the installation. And not everything is in every plan: Medium, 29 USD, does not include WhatsApp; for WhatsApp you need Gold, 49 USD, or Platinum, 99 USD. There is a three-day free trial with no card.
Either of the two options works better if your child knows it is there. Our recommendation is always the same: tell them, explain what is visible and why, and agree on until when. Supervision that has been talked about sustains trust; supervision discovered by accident breaks it and stops being useful as well, because from that day on the conversation moves somewhere else. Keeping a teenager under watch permanently is not a good plan either: it makes sense while a specific risk lasts, and it is worth reviewing. On an adult, without their consent, it is a crime.
Yes, within certain limits. Google Family Link is free and covers location, usage time, limits and app blocking. It does not cover the content of messages. If that solves what worries you, do not pay for anything.
No. No app reads a phone's activity from the number: something has to be installed on that phone, with physical access, once. Any service that promises otherwise cannot deliver it.
No. The record starts the day you set it up and does not go back. That holds for any tool of this kind, not just ours.
Our recommendation is that you tell them yourself, in which case the question should barely come up. On the phone, the app works in the background: it does not add an icon to the home screen, it does not show notifications that interrupt, and it is protected so that it cannot be uninstalled without the account holder's password. That does not make it something designed to hide from your child.
Then this is not the tool. Installing something like this on an adult's phone without their consent is a crime in almost every country. Company phones have specific conditions and we publish a separate guide on that. CatWatchful is made for mothers and fathers supervising an underage child in their care.
Keep reading: How to see my child's location in real time · Setting up parental controls on Android · Is it legal to monitor my child's phone?