- Google is rolling out a new Timeline menu on Android that lets you access your Google Maps location history.
- Google announced last year that it would no longer store your location history on the web, instead storing it on-device.
- To accommodate this change, Android’s Timeline settings lets you export or delete your location history.
Last year, Google announced sweeping changes to the way it handles your location history. Instead of backing up your location history to its servers on the cloud by default, Google said that your location history would instead be saved locally on your Android or iOS device, with the option to enable end-to-end encrypted cloud backups. Ahead of Google Maps killing Timeline access on the web sometime later this year, Google is now rolling out a new Timeline menu on Android that lets you view, export, or delete your on-device location history.
If you enabled location history on your Android phone a few years ago, you can take a trip down memory lane and revisit the places you’ve been to through Google Maps on Android or the web. When location history is enabled, your Android device periodically uploads its location to Google, which then stores that data and presents it to you in a neat timeline in Maps. (Turning on location history is not required to use location services in Android, in case you’re wondering.)