You are at a party, a colleague mentions they keep a wishlist, and now you are both squinting at a search box trying to spell a nickname. Nearby search removes that step. Both of you shake your phones, a radar spins for a moment, and their profile appears as a bubble you can tap. This post explains how the matching works, what the app does with your location while it runs, and what to try when the radar stays empty.
Three steps, no typing
The whole feature takes under a minute when both people know what to do.
First, open the Friends tab and shake your phone. If shaking feels silly in a quiet room, the person search has a Find nearby row with the same effect. Either way you land on the Nearby screen, which explains what is about to happen and asks for location access the first time.
Second, your friend does the same at the same moment. This is the part people miss: Nearby is a handshake, not a beacon. Nobody is listed until both phones are searching.
Third, when the radar finds them, their avatar and name appear on one of the rings. Tap the bubble to open their profile and follow them. Following is one-way and instant, so there is nothing for them to approve.
What the radar shows, and what it does not
The radar is a set of rings with you in the middle. People who match land on a ring according to how close the phones think they are: here for the same spot or room, within about 25 metres, near for the same building or courtyard, about 80, and around for anything further. If you already follow someone, the bubble says so.
There is no map, no distance in metres and no direction. That is a deliberate choice rather than a missing feature. A map would show your friend exactly where you are standing, and a distance would let someone triangulate you with two or three searches. Bands are enough to find a person who is physically next to you, and they reveal very little to anyone else.
Why both phones must be searching at the same time
Under the hood the match is a combination of time and place. While the Nearby screen is open, your phone sends its position to our server every couple of seconds, and the server looks for other people whose search is active at that moment.
The precise rule puts two people on the radar when they are within roughly 300 metres of each other, scaled by how accurate both phones' locations are. Outdoors with a clear sky that gives you here, near or around, depending on the distance. Indoors it is harder: a phone in a basement or a crowded hall can report a position that is off by a kilometre, and a strict distance check would fail even though the two of you are at the same table.
So there is a second rule for exactly that case. If two people start searching within thirty seconds of each other and their rough positions are within about ten kilometres, they are matched on the around ring. A synchronized shake is a strong signal that you are together, stronger than a GPS fix taken through concrete. It is the same idea behind shake-to-pay in banking apps: the moment matters more than the metre. In a busy city it can occasionally put a stranger who shook at the same moment on the outer ring. That is why the radar shows only a profile and a band, and nothing happens until you choose to follow.
A session runs for up to ten minutes, which is long enough to find a handful of people at an event. After that the screen offers to search again.
Is Nearby search private? What happens to your location
We treat Nearby as the most sensitive thing in the app, so the rules are short and strict:
- Only while the screen is open. Your location is read while you are on the Nearby screen and stops the moment you leave it or switch apps. The app asks for permission while in use, never for background access.
- Deleted within minutes. The server keeps only your latest position, long enough to match you, and deletes it within a few minutes of your search ending. The privacy policy states this retention explicitly.
- Nobody receives coordinates. Other users get your profile and a proximity band. Your coordinates are not shown, not stored with your profile and not written to our logs.
- No discoverable mode. You are visible only while you search. People you have blocked, or who have blocked you, never appear on each other's radar.
- A switch to turn it off. If you would rather not take part at all, Settings has a Nearby search toggle. Off means you cannot search and cannot be found.
When the radar stays empty
Most empty radars have one of four causes, most common first:
- Only one of you is searching. Shake again, together, and count to three. The screen reminds you to ask your friend to shake too, because it really is the most common reason.
- Precise location is off. iOS lets you give an app only an approximate location. Nearby needs the precise kind; the screen tells you if it is off and offers the shortcut to change it.
- A weak fix indoors. The screen shows your current accuracy, for example "about 1 km", while it keeps trying. Turning Wi-Fi on helps the phone locate itself even if you do not join a network, and a window helps more. The synchronized shake usually finds your friend anyway, on the outer ring.
- Nearby is switched off. Either of you may have turned it off in Settings at some point. The screen says so if it is you.
If none of that works, the search box still takes a nickname, a phone number or the short ID from the profile. Nearby is a shortcut, not the only door.
Where it fits with everything else
Nearby does one thing: it turns a person standing next to you into a follow. Everything after that is the normal app. You see the gifts they share with you, you claim a gift before buying so nobody duplicates it, and they see only that something is In Progress. On the free plan, each follow uses one of your five. If you are new to any of that, the guide to every screen covers it, and how claiming prevents duplicate gifts explains the part that makes the follow worth having.
Try it at the next table
The best time to test Nearby is with someone who is already in the room: a partner, a flatmate, a colleague at lunch. Both open the Friends tab, both shake, and within a few seconds you will know whether it works where you are. If it does not, the hints above are the same ones the screen gives, and the support page is there for anything stranger.
Gift Buddy is free to start on iPhone. The Android version is in testing.
