How to review or turn off your Google Maps “Timeline” location history

Google Maps location history is simultaneously extremely revolutionary and extremely controversial. One one end of the equation, you gain many benefits from toggling it on your phone. For example, many Google products and services personalize your experience using it, giving you recommendations based on places you’ve visited, it helps you locate your phone if you’ve lost or misplaced it (or if it was stolen), and you can even get real-time traffic updates about your commute as well as more useful and tailored advertisements.

On the other end of the equation, you have a large, vocal majority (including Texas Representative Ted Poe) who are vehemently against the technology either because they’re conspiracy theorists or because the conspiracies are true (the jury is still out or it’s closed depending on who you ask). You may have noticed I’m being a bit dodgy, and that’s because I fall somewhere in between.

As a millennial, I’m all in on the benefits of mass location tracking and data aggregation, but I know at the same time that it will likely come back and bite us in the rear. Despite this, I and the rest of the thirty-somethings and under will continue to use it and focus on the checks and balances of power to control the situation instead of shunning its use entirely.

Today, I’m going to show you how to check out Google’s super secret tracking program called “Timeline” in Google Maps, and how you can turn off your location history in the service. Okay, I’m being completely facetious, and your Maps Timeline isn’t secret at all. Most of the time when I tell someone about this though, they’re completely blown away and freaked out, but Google makes it very clear both in the terms of use that no one ever reads, and in its Support forum that this is a thing. With that being said, grab your tinfoil hats, because it’s time to turn this thing off and save the world.

Reviewing your Google Maps Timeline

To view your Timeline history and see your literal digital footprint of where you’ve traveled, just open the Google Maps app on your Android phone or the Maps web app on your Chromebook. From there, just tap the hamburger menu at the top left of your screen to reveal the slide out options on your laptop. On your phone, you’ll be tapping your profile image at the top-right of the display to get the same options.

Alright, go ahead and tap on “Your timeline”. You’ll then be redirected to another Chrome tab. On mobile, it will simply open right up and reveal a dated timeline (hence the name) of everywhere you’ve visited while your location history was active.

Pro Tip: You can also navigate to your Google Maps Timeline by visiting using its direct url at https://timeline.google.com

Here, you can click on each bar in the graph and see a date with a line connecting it to the location name and address, as well as any Google Photos you’ve taken while at that location. If you’re missing any location history, Google will then have red text in that spot on that day asking you to fill it out. As much as I joke about conspiracies, I sure as heck don’t see the direct benefit in filling in these missing locations, especially after the fact, but hey, you can if you wish. Nobody? No? Okay.

Rediscover the places you’ve been and the routes you’ve traveled in your timeline.
Your Timeline is based on your Location History, which also gives you automatic commute predictions, improved search results, and other useful information.
To help you remember moments in your life, Timeline will show your Google Photos of the places you’ve visited. You can control it in settings.

About Google Maps Timeline

All in all, this is really neat, and it can even help you gather some insights about your habits. As someone who loves the idea of journaling and “Life logging” – an idea that’s most certainly outlived its name – I love being able to have all of this automatically done for me so that I don’t have to write it out manually. Let’s pretend just for a moment though that you’re not as retentive as I am about reflective practices and disable all of this so you no longer have to concern yourself with it.

I just want the steps!

1. Open Google Maps
2. Tap the profile image at the top right (Hamburger menu on a Chromebook)
3. Tap “Your Timeline”
4. Gawk at Google’s data collection practices or enjoy seeing your travel journey prior to the pandemic

Disabling your Location history

Because Google Maps location history is only collected via the Android app (because phones have GPS built-in whereas laptops generally do not), you can disable the tracking directly from the app on your phone. Another way to do it is to visit your Google Account settings and do it via the Location History section.

To toggle it off via Maps though, just tap that profile image once more at the top right of the screen and then go to “Your data in Maps”. After being redirected to your Google account settings, tap “Location History” and then tap “Turn off”. As you can see, the process is largely the same despite the device you’re attempting this from. You can always navigate directly to these settings by visiting accounts.google.com as well, but I wanted to show you the process from the Maps app since that’s where you’re likely accessing your Timeline from.

Pro Tip: Google Maps Location History and Location Sharing are two different services! The former is used to personalize your experience across Google services while the latter is used to help you and your family or friends see each other’s location on the map for a limited or permanent amount of time. This can be used with consent by families who want to make sure the other members are safe or to locate them during an emergency.

Turning off your Location History may not be enough for you though. Did you know that you can delete any and all data Google has collected on you via the Google My Activity Dashboard? You can even filter out data collected per app or service. In this case, you’ll want to go and delete any location history Google Maps has collected so that you can complete the process and have true peace of mind. You can also turn off Location History tracking directly from the My Activity screen.

I just want the steps!
1. Open Google Maps
2. Tap your profile image at the top right
3. Tap “Your data in Maps”
4. Tap “Location History”
5. Tap “Turn off”
6. Clear Maps data from “Google My Activity”
7. Take a deep breath