- Google admitted it had a Maps timeline-erasing bug, but there’s a way to get it back.
- These are the steps you should follow to restore your deleted timeline (with one major caveat).
- And there are measures you can take to always make sure your timeline is backed up.
Earlier this month, Google made one extra blunder on top of an already-annoying situation with Maps timeline. After hindering timelines (for privacy reasons, I should add) by tying them to one phone and un-linking them from our Google accounts, Maps suffered a bug that effectively deleted the entire timeline history for many people.
I was affected. Years and years of countries, cities, and places just gone from my phone, with seemingly no way to get them back. I had signed up to keep it all backed up, but I didn’t want to risk applying it while the bug was active and potentially lose all my data altogether. This contains everywhere I’ve been and everything I’ve done in the last decade or so, and I often refer to it to remember that one restaurant I went to on vacation or where that €70 charge on my credit card last week came from. So I waited. On Friday, Google sent me and other affected users an email admitting the bug and telling us it’s safe to restore now.