If you have gone looking for the OS Locate app and found nothing, you are not imagining it. Ordnance Survey withdrew the OS Locate app from the app stores in 2024. If you already have it on your phone it carries on working, but you cannot download it fresh, and sooner or later a phone upgrade will take it with it.
The short answer is that the job it did now lives in two places. The feature was folded into the main OS Maps app, where it is called Locate Me. And there is now a free web page that does the same thing with one button and no app at all. This article covers both, the other grid reference apps, and why the number they give you still matters.
What happened to the OS Locate app
OS Locate was a small free app from Ordnance Survey that did one thing well. It read your phone’s GPS and showed your position as an OS National Grid reference, with a compass and your height alongside. For years it was the standard advice from instructors, rescue teams and magazines, and plenty of that advice is still online.
In 2024 Ordnance Survey moved the feature into OS Maps and took the standalone app out of the app stores. Their own OS Locate support page says it plainly: the app is no longer available, existing installations continue to work, and the functions have been added to the OS Maps app.
So if an article or a course tells you to “download OS Locate”, that advice is out of date. It was my advice too, in an earlier version of my free course, and I have rewritten it.
The quickest replacement: a web page with one button
The simplest replacement is not an app. It is a page on this site: the Grid Reference Finder. Open it on your phone, press the button, allow location, and a few seconds later you have your six-figure grid reference in large type, with the accuracy your phone reports beside it. It shows lat/long underneath as well, which some call handlers can work with if a grid reference is not possible.
There is nothing to install and no account. Your position is read by your phone and converted on the page, and it is never sent anywhere, which I mention because people are rightly careful about location data.
The one honest caveat is that a web page has to be loaded while you have signal. GPS works without signal, so once the page is open it keeps working, but it cannot open itself in a black spot. Open it before you set off and keep the tab there, or add it to your home screen.
It also converts the other way. Paste in a grid reference from a guidebook, or the coordinates from a Google Maps pin, and it gives you the matching reference and a map link.
Locate Me in the OS Maps app
If you already use OS Maps, the feature you want is inside it.
Never Feel Lost Again: The Free UK Navigation & Safety Pack
Stop relying solely on a fragile phone battery. Download the exact tools a professional outdoor instructor uses to stay safe in the British hills.
Enter your email below to get instant access to:
- NEW: The Hike Planning & Safety Checklist: A comprehensive pre-walk checklist to ensure you never leave a critical item behind or rely purely on a smartphone.
- The Emergency Protocol Guide: A highly structured, zero panic system detailing exactly what to do if lost on Dartmoor/Scottish hills, including when and how to call Mountain Rescue.
- The OS Map & Navigation Cheat Sheet: A quick reference guide to decoding complex map symbols and plotting grid references when your mind goes blank.
- The Route Card Template: The exact, logic-driven framework I use to plan foolproof expeditions and identify safe escape routes before leaving the house.
- The Timing Crib Card: Never misjudge daylight again. Master the mathematics of measuring pacing distance and timings for steep ground.
Finding it
From the map screen, open the top menu, the three dots, and choose Locate Me. You get a compass, your height, and your grid reference, which is the part that matters. It needs the phone’s own location services switched on for the app, so if it shows nothing, that setting is the first place to look. When I checked, it did not need the paid Premium subscription. The app is free to download and Locate Me worked on the free tier.
Does it need signal?
No. The app is already on your phone, so it reads the GPS and does the conversion itself. In my free course I ask people to prove this to themselves: switch on aeroplane mode, open Locate Me, and watch it still give you a position. Having seen it work once, you will trust it when it counts.
That is the one real advantage an installed app has over a web page, and it is why I still recommend OS Maps to anyone who walks regularly.
Other grid reference apps, honestly
Search the app stores for “grid reference” and you will find several small apps that do what OS Locate did. Some are good. I am not going to name one, because they change hands, gain adverts and vanish, which is exactly what this article is about.
If you want one, check three things before you rely on it. It should work in aeroplane mode. It should show you the accuracy of the fix, in metres, not just a confident-looking number. And it should not need an account to show you where you are.
What you should not do is download an old copy of OS Locate from a site offering the installer file. Those sites are not Ordnance Survey, and a navigation tool is a strange thing to get from somewhere you cannot vouch for.
Why your grid reference still matters
Whichever tool you use, the number it gives you is for one purpose above all others. If you have nothing installed, the grid reference finder gives you it in one press. If someone is hurt, or you are lost and the light is going, you call 999, or 112, ask for the police, then ask for mountain rescue. The first thing the call handler will want to know is where you are.
“Near a big rock on the left side of the valley” gives a team a search. A six-figure grid reference gives them a 100 metre square. Read it exactly as it appears: the two letters first, then three figures, then three figures. The letters are not optional. The six figures on their own repeat every 100 kilometres across Britain, and SH 609 543 is a different hill from NY 609 543. Say the letters as words, Sierra Hotel rather than S H, and say each digit on its own, so nothing is misheard over a bad line.
Six figures is enough. Your phone can show ten, and the finder shows the accuracy of the fix beside the number for exactly this reason, but the fix is rarely good to the metre and the team does not need it to be.
The team may also text you a link. Tap it and allow location: it sends your phone’s position straight to them, which is why it is worth having mobile data switched on once you have made the call.
Two things to do before any of that is ever needed. Register your phone to text 999, because a text will often get through where a call will not. And write the grid reference down on paper once you have it, so it survives a dead battery.
Learn to find it from the map
The phone is a shortcut, and a good one. Bookmark the finder for the day you need the number now. But it is not a skill. Every walker should also be able to read a six-figure reference off a paper map, because a cold morning that kills the phone at 20 percent does not get to decide whether you know where you are.
It takes about ten minutes to learn and a little practice to make routine. The grid reference practice tool drills it on a real British hill with instant feedback. If you want the full picture, the phone side and the map side together, my free Digital Safety Net course covers how to set your phone up so it is genuinely reliable on a hill, how to read your grid reference from it, and what to do when it fails. It is free, and it is the course I wish every walker did before their first solo day out.
OS Locate and grid references: common questions
Is the OS Locate app still available?
No. Ordnance Survey withdrew it from the Apple and Google app stores in 2024. If it is already on your phone it keeps working, but it cannot be downloaded again and it will not survive a move to a new phone. The feature now lives inside the OS Maps app as Locate Me.
How do I get my grid reference from OS Maps?
Open OS Maps, tap the three-dot menu at the top of the map screen, and choose Locate Me. It shows your six-figure grid reference, a compass and your height. Your phone’s location services need to be on for the app. It reads the GPS directly, so it works with no mobile signal once the app is installed.
Is there a free OS Locate alternative without an app?
Yes. The Grid Reference Finder on this site runs in your phone’s browser. Press one button and it gives you your six-figure OS grid reference from the phone’s GPS, with the accuracy beside it, and nothing is sent to a server. It needs signal to load the page the first time, so open it before you set off.
Does a grid reference app work without signal?
The GPS in your phone works anywhere it can see the sky and needs no mobile signal at all. An installed app, such as OS Maps, can read it in a black spot. A web page can too, as long as it was loaded before you lost signal. What does need signal is the call or text to 999 itself.
What is my grid reference if I am lost?
Call 999 or 112, ask for the police, then mountain rescue, and read out the reference exactly as your phone shows it: two letters, three figures, three figures. If you cannot get a grid reference, the call handler can usually work with the lat/long your phone’s compass or maps app shows, and the team may text you a link that sends your position to them.
