ABSTRACT The Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTI) aboard AstroSat has good sensitivity to gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), with close to 600 detections including about 50 discoveries undetected by other missions. However, CZTI was not designed to be a GRB monitor and lacks localization capabilities. We introduce a new method of localizing GRBs using ‘shadows’ cast on the CZTI detector plane due to absorption and scattering by satellite components and instruments. Comparing the observed distribution of counts on the detector plane with simulated distributions with the AstroSat Mass Model, we can localize GRBs in the sky. Our localization uncertainty is defined by a two-component model, with a narrow Gaussian component that has close to 50 per cent probability of containing the source, and the remaining spread over a broader Gaussian component with an 11.3 times higher σ. The width (σ) of the Gaussian components scales inversely with source counts. We test this model by applying the method to GRBs with known positions and find good agreement between the model and observations. This new ability expands the utility of CZTI in the study of GRBs and other rapid high-energy transients.