Seeing just how much information you’re sharing with Google about your location can be jarring. With Google’s Timeline feature you can easily view all this information.
Also, with the Timeline, you can view your Google Maps location history, including additional data like how much time you spent in a place and even the place you went to.
Fortunately, Google Maps now allows its users to turn off location-saving features, delete their location history, and download a copy of all their Maps data whenever they want to. All these are what we’ll show you in this guide.
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How to View Your Saved Location Data in Google Maps
All thanks to the Google Timeline feature, you can easily see where you were and all the places you’ve been on Maps.
You also can access Google Maps Timeline on various platforms, which includes the dedicated apps for Android and iOS, or directly in your browser. We’ll show you how to check your location history in Google Maps on your mobile phone and web.
How to View Google Maps Location History on the Web
To view all your saved Google trips on a map imported from your phone, you must access the Timeline by visiting maps.google.com while logged in.
Then open the Menu by clicking on the three horizontal lines, then select Your Timeline. Otherwise, you directly can access your timeline by visiting timeline.google.com/maps.
Google Maps will display all the places you’ve been to in the past. Your latest trip will be also shown adjacent to the total number of trips, and you can see more by clicking on More Trips.
For more information on the number of trips on a specific day or period, simply use the date filter at the top.
Choosing your total number of trips will show you all the places you’ve been to, including the most popular locations. Each location has details on the last time you visited the place as well.
When you click on a date at the top, it will show your saved trips and locations for that day.
Clicking on specific trips will show you a lot more information, like your mode of transportation and the distance, and the trip duration.
Also, Maps will show you additional details like your arrival and departure time, including the amount of distance you covered the entire day.
How to View Google Maps Location History on Mobile
Here we’ll outline the steps to use the Google Maps app for both Android and iOS. To view your location history, simply follow these steps:
- Launch the Google Maps app and click on your profile icon or picture in the top right.
- Then click on Your Timeline and wait for a few seconds to load.
- Once it’s on the next page, you can see your trips, places, cities, and countries by navigating to their tabs.
As long as your location history is enabled, Google Maps will keep adding up places to your account automatically by tracking your movements.
How to Delete Location History in Google Maps
However, if the amount of data Google has about you makes you worry, there’s a simple way to delete your location data within Google Maps.
However, you must download a copy of all your location data before taking this step. To download all your data saved to Google Maps, follow these steps:
- Go to Google Maps and click on your profile picture or icon at the top.
- Click on Your data in Maps.
- Scroll down and select Download your Maps data. This will open Google Takeout in your preferred browser.
- Choose the data you’d like to download and click on Next.
- Then, select how you wish to download a copy of your data. Also, you can adjust your frequency of export, file type, and file size first, or just click on Create export if you’re okay with the default settings.
Exporting your Maps data can take a few minutes, sometimes hours, or even days to complete. When it’s done, Google will email you. Click on Download your files in the email to save offline.
Don’t forget that the data will be available to download for seven days from the exportation day.
With that done, the next step is to turn off your location, which is quite simple:
- Navigate to your Google Activity Controls.
- Under Location History, turn the feature off.
- Within the window that pops up, scroll down and tap the Pause button.
How to Wipe Your Location Data in Google Maps
In case you’d like to wipe the location information saved in Google Maps, follow the steps below.
In the Google Maps app on Android or iOS:
- Go to Google Maps, and click on your profile picture or icon at the top.
- Click on Your Timeline and select any tab apart from Day.
- Then, click on the three-dot menu at the top right side and click on Settings and privacy.
- Scroll down to Location settings and tap Delete all Location History.
- Tick the checkbox in the pop-up window and click on Delete.
Also, Google Maps gives you two other options for deleting location history on mobile (You can either delete Location History for a range of days or Automatically delete the history after a given period), choose them if they suit your needs.
How to delete location history on the web
To delete your location history on the web, follow the steps below:
- Open timeline.google.com/maps in your web browser
- Tap the Settings icon at the bottom of the map and click on Delete all Location History.
- Tap the confirmation checkbox then click on Delete Location History.
You can delete individual trips or days if you don’t want to wipe all your location history. Choose a day you wish to delete from the date picker in the top left then tap the trash icon.
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Viewing and deleting location history in Google Maps
As long as your location is on, Google Maps tracks your movement every day. The interesting thing is that the app allows you to view your location data.
And if you’re worried about your privacy, Google Maps lets you delete your location history, and you can do this by following the outlined steps in this guide. Also, you can disable the Location History feature and prevent the app from saving your locations.