HEADING
Find your north
Allow motion access, then hold your phone flat.
What is an online compass?
It reads your phone’s compass sensor and shows which way you are facing, in degrees and by name. Nothing to install.
How do I use the compass?
Hold your phone flat, screen up, with the top of the screen pointing the way you are going. Turn slowly and let the reading settle. North is 0°, east 90°, south 180°, west 270°.
Which way is north right now?
The sun rises roughly east and sets roughly west, so face the sunrise and north is on your left. At midday the sun sits due south north of the equator, and due north south of it. Quicker still: turn until the red marker at the top of the dial meets the N.
Does my phone have a compass sensor?
Almost certainly — nearly every phone and tablet of the last decade has a magnetometer, and this page reads it directly. Computers do not have one, so the dial stays empty there.
Magnetic north or true north?
The dial shows magnetic north, where the needle points. True north is the geographic pole your map is drawn around, and the gap between them — declination — runs from a couple of degrees in Europe to more than fifteen in parts of North America and Asia. Add your local figure when you work from a paper map.
Compass not working? Fix it here
The compass needs a phone with a magnetometer and permission to read motion. Find your browser below.
iPhone and iPad — Safari
- Open Settings › Apps › Safari and turn on Motion & Orientation Access. On iOS 16 and earlier the same switch lives under Settings › Safari, near the bottom.
- Come back to this page and reload it.
- Tap Enable compass and choose Allow when Safari asks about motion and orientation.
- If no prompt appears, close the tab and open the page again — Safari only asks once per tab.
Android — Chrome
-
1 Tap the padlock to the left of the web address. -
2 Choose Permissions in the panel that opens. -
3 Switch Motion sensors on, then reload this page.
chrome://settings/content/sensors
Chrome will not open a link to its own settings, so paste this into the address bar.
- No Permissions entry in that panel? It only appears once a site has asked, so tap Enable compass first and answer the prompt.
- The address above opens the same setting for every site, if you would rather start there.
- A heading that jumps around means the sensor needs calibrating: hold the phone flat and trace a figure eight in the air a few times.
- Cases with magnetic mounts or card holders sit right on top of the sensor. Take the phone out of the case and try again.
Android — Samsung Internet, Firefox and others
- Samsung Internet: tap the padlock, then Permissions, and allow motion access.
- Firefox for Android reads motion sensors without asking, so if the dial stays empty the phone itself is the limit.
- Some budget and rugged phones ship without a magnetometer. A quick check: if the manufacturer’s own compass or map app cannot show a heading either, the hardware is missing.
Windows, macOS and Linux computers
- Desktops and laptops have no compass sensor, so no browser can show a heading on them.
- Open this page on your phone instead — the address is the same.
- A tablet with a magnetometer works too, and follows the same steps as a phone.