One my account, I can see the occasional commute or trip to the store, but there's more emphasis on trips that span several days and took me at least 50 miles from home. In my experience, Google doesn't seem to record data from every single day, instead it focusing on trips where you leave your normal area. On the left side of the page, you can browse various dates to see your available timelines. You can zoom into particular cities to get a more detailed view and click on dots to see the address or point of interest. There you'll see a world map with dots on the places you've gone. However, you'll get the most features from browsing on a computer.
Click to enlarge.Īll of that information appears on the Your Timeline page on desktop and in the latest version of the Google Maps Android app. Your Timeline shows the locations you've paid a visit to, day by day. If you use Google Photos, pictures you took at the particular place, date and time will show up in your timeline too. True to its name, Your Timeline shows a daily record of every place you've been, the time you arrived and departed, as well as the approximate route you took between locations. Click Manage Activity below the slider to view Your Timeline.If the slider is blue, Location History is on and you're good to go.
Click Personal info & privacy and scroll to Places you go.Sign into your Google account on a computer.If at any point you turned on Location History in your Google account, such as setting up Google Now to remember where you parked or commute alerts, then the company is already tracking you.Ĭheck if Location History is enabled for you with these steps: To protect your privacy, you first need to consent to have Google follow your travels.
However, if you're intrigued by this automatically recorded log of the places you go, read on to learn how to make the best use of Your Timeline. If this weirds you out and you don't want Google following you, check out CNET's guide to stopping Google Maps from tracking your location.
While the prospect of Google tracking your every move is sure to bother some people, I've found that Your Timeline is a really neat tool for keeping track of my trips and vacations, or simply remembering a random day in my life. Using a handy new feature called Your Timeline on the Web and Android, you can see all of the places you've visited to plotted on a map, plus detailed itineraries of your travels. Google Maps has been tracking everywhere your phone has gone, and now it's ready to share that data with you, and only you.