How to use the Google Maps timeline to view previous trips

There’s a lot to discover on Google Maps beyond just the basics of getting directions and finding locations. One feature you may not have noticed is Timeline: a comprehensive history of all the places you’ve been and every place you’ve visited (as long as you took your phone with Google Maps with you).

This may raise alarm bells if you care about data privacy: if you don’t like Google Maps Timeline, you can turn it off. It’s also something that’s private to you, so no one else can see your movements.

If you trust Google with your data, this can be a really useful feature. It can help you remember a great restaurant or hotel you’ve visited in the past; can help you recreate stages of your favorite trips; and it can help settle arguments about when exactly the last time you took your car for repairs or visited your in-laws.

Here, we’ll show you how to make the most of Google Maps timeline and how to prepare for changes to the feature that aim to improve privacy and security by storing data on devices rather than in the cloud.

Turn Google Maps timeline on or off

Google Maps Timeline records your day through Google Maps on your phone: it records where you were, when you were there, and what you did in between (like walking or driving). That’s a lot – you’re basically trusting Google to be as discreet with this data as it is with your Gmail messages and anything you store in Google Photos.

No one else can see your timeline, but you can prevent this data from being collected. Go to the activity control page in your Google account on the web and click Turn something off under Location history heading. You then have two options: you can simply turn off location logging, or you can do so and delete all location data already collected by Google.

There is also a third option, which is to automatically delete location data after a specified period of time. Crash Select automatic deletionand data can be deleted after 3, 18, or 36 months, so your Google Maps timeline information will only be included for that period.

Each time you turn off Location History, Google will display a dialog box explaining how your data is used. The data can be used to recommend places you might like based on the places you’ve visited, as well as for Google Maps features, such as showing how busy certain places or areas are at a given time.

How to use Google Maps timeline

You can view your Google Maps timeline on the web by clicking the menu button (top left). Your timeline. Then, in Google Maps for Android or iOS, click your account photo (top right). Your timeline. Regardless of the device you use, you get the same data, but it is presented in a slightly different way.

Online, use the drop-down menus at the top to take a closer look at specific years, months or days. At the bottom you’ll find quick links to recent trips you’ve taken from home, as well as a full list of all the places you’ve ever visited – click this link and it will show you the places you’ve been there the most when Google tracked your location (your home is most likely will be at the top).

On a mobile device, you work on a smaller screen but have access to several additional functions. Open Insights for example a card and you can see how much time you spent walking, driving and flying during a specific time period. On Places Meanwhile, you can see all the locations you’ve stayed at, sorted by category—Sports, Hotels, Cultureand so on.

Jump to a specific day to get a detailed itinerary for that specific 24 hours. In addition to seeing where and how you traveled, you can also fill in any blank fields left by Google Maps or correct incorrect details. Moreover, if there is a stop that you do not want to save in your location history, you can remove it from this screen.

Changes are coming to the Google Maps timeline

Please note that the Timeline feature in Google Maps will change over the next few months. The web version will be retired – there’s no specific timeline, but you’ll see an in-app notification if your account changes. (It appears this service is already disabled for some users.) You’ll still be able to back up your timeline to the cloud in encrypted form, even if you can’t view it in a web browser.

When you turn on Location History for the first time on a new device, the automatic deletion option will be turned on by default and set to 3 months. If you want to be able to check your arrivals and departures over a longer period of time, you’ll need to go to the location options we mentioned above and change the settings.

This is done for privacy reasons. This means that the data is locked to specific devices and not to your Google account, and also means that Google cannot access this data if they request it (for example, law enforcement). Each device you use will have its own timeline – not all of them will sync with each other.
Before making the change, make sure you download your location history and Google Maps data from Google Takeout just in case. Also, make sure you’re signed in to Google Maps on your Android phone or iPhone, and when you see a notification letting you know that timeline storage will be available on your device in the future, you should see an option to keep the old data you’ve collected so far.