How to tell if the person you’re seeing is still using Tinder

You can listen to the Tinder episode of “Is it in Yet?”, The Tab’s sex podcast. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or in right here in the player below.

Recently, my friend told me her boyfriend had gone to visit a friend at uni. After then, she was told her boyfriend had come up on someone’s Tinder swipes. He used the typical “oh no I definitely deleted the app” excuse. BUT – his location on the app was his friend’s uni town?? So does Tinder still have access to your location when you’re not active? Or are these guys straight up lying? How can you tell if the person you’re seeing is still using Tinder? Is there a way to know if their dating profile is still active?

If you’ve heard rumours their bio is changing, or they’ve got really recent photos on there, or maybe your friend told you they swiped past them last week even though they promised they’d “deleted the app” – you need answers. But what is the truth? How can you avoid this dating horror story?

Here is the one, concrete way of knowing if someone is still active and using their Tinder account.

How to tell if someone is active and using Tinder

There is a definitive way to see if the person you’re seeing is still using Tinder. The answer is all in their location.

The question people have long wanted to know the answer to is if Tinder continue to update a user’s location if the app is closed, or only when the user is active.

The answer is- you have to open the app and trigger the location services within it, for the location to be updated.

You have two options for how Tinder is able to access and change your location: either never, or while you are using the app – this can be changed in settings.

There is no way Tinder can see your location always.

Tinder will update your location and check for matches around you only when you open the app and start swiping.

In short, if a person’s location changes, they have been on the app.

So even if they haven’t updated anything on their profile, and it might look like they haven’t been online – you can still catch someone out.

If they’re dumb, then the person you’re seeing might update things like their photos or bio – but if they’re that stupid and open about still using the app, they’re really not worth your time anyway.

This isn’t the only secret of Tinder, the app also has a secret “desirability” ranking, that might be stopping you from seeing all the fittest people.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• This is what happens to your Tinder profile when you delete the app

• Here are the exact words you need to include in your Tinder bio to get hundreds of matches

• Things boys should not do on Tinder, by disappointed girls

• How to use Tinder to find a relationship, by people who have done it