While Google Maps helps you find new places and find the best routes, Google Maps also saves these to your Location History. You can use the Google Maps Timeline feature to keep track of every place you’ve been. However, you may want to remove some hits from your history.
Of all the neat tricks Google Maps has available, Timeline has to be the most useful. It can help you get your steps back easily. Whether it’s the name of the gift shop you visited last month or the photos you took on your previous trip, Timeline can help you relive all those memories.
See how you can view, edit, or delete your location history in Google Maps.
The Google Maps app works pretty much the same on both Android and iOS. So for this post, I’m using an Android device.
How to view Location History on Google Maps
To view your travel history on any particular day, week or month, follow the steps mentioned below.
Step 1: Open the Google Maps app on your phone and tap your account circle in the top right corner. Then select your Timeline option from the list.
Step 2: Swipe down the bottom half of the screen to see detailed information about each trip, including location, distance traveled, travel time and mode of transportation. In case the information is incorrect or missing, Google Maps also allows you to edit or remove the trip from your timeline.
With the Timeline feature, you can also view your location history on any given day by selecting a date from the calendar at the top.
In addition, It also keeps a list of all types of places, cities and countries visited throughout your history.
How to turn off Location History on Google Maps
While the Timeline feature can be useful in certain situations, the idea of Google tracking your location might give some people shivers. Thankfully, you can turn off the timeline feature in a few easy steps.
Step 1: Open the Google Maps app on your phone and tap your account circle in the top right corner. Then select your Timeline option from the list.
Step 2: Now click on the three-dot menu icon in the top right corner and go to ‘Settings and privacy’. Swipe down to the Location settings and tap ‘Location History is on’.
Step 3: In the Activity Control window, disable the Location History button. The app will then notify you about what will work and what won’t after shutting down. Finally, click the Pause button to turn off location history.
Note: Disabling the timeline feature does not remove Google’s access to your location data as long as you use it to navigate and search on Google.
If you’re worried about saving your map activity, Google Maps also has an incognito mode like the one on Google Chrome and YouTube.
How to delete Location History on Google Maps
If you don’t intend to use your previous location data, Google Maps also has the option to delete it. Here’s how to do it.
Step 1: Open the Google Maps app on your phone and tap your account circle in the top right corner. Then select your Timeline option from the list.
Step 2: Click on the three-dot menu icon in the top right corner and go to ‘Settings and privacy’.
Step 3: To delete all location history, tap on ‘Delete All Location History’. Then, select the checkbox that says ‘I understand and want to delete’ and press the Delete button.
Alternatively, you can choose to clear the location history of a specific time period by tapping ‘Clear Location History Range’ and entering a start and end date.
Alternatively, you can also set up auto-delete to delete the history periodically by selecting ‘Automatically delete Location History’.
Bonus: How to Create a Heat Map with Google Location History
By combining your location history with third-party tools and APIs, you can create your own heatmap of all the places visited during your trip. This is the way.
Step 1: Go to Google Takeout to download your location data. In the ‘Select data to include’ section, click Deselect all. Now scroll down and tick the checkbox that says Location History then click Next Step.
Step 2: Select Send Method, File Type & Size, and Frequency, then click Generate Export. Once the export is created, click the download button and a compressed file will be downloaded to your device.
Note: The download may take a while depending on the size of your Google maps data.
Step 3: Now extract the downloaded file and open the Location History folder inside.
Step 4: Go to the heat map feature on the Location History Visualizer and upload the LocationHistory.json file.
And there you have it! Your own heatmap created from your location data. You can navigate the heat map just like Google Maps and take a screenshot of it.
A look back and flashback to the past
You can revisit old memories by viewing your location history, and it’s also helpful to pass the same route on to friends and others. In case you do not want to leave traces on Google Maps, you can also delete those routes. Let us know how you plan to use the Timeline feature in the comments below.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
