The day Google (almost) lost my timeline data…

On the morning of 22nd March 2025 I received and read an email from Google giving me an “update” on my “Google Maps Timeline”, little did I know this was actually telling me they had just lost some of my data…

The email read…

We briefly experienced a technical issue that caused the deletion of Timeline data for some people. We’re reaching out as your account may have been impacted.
If you have encrypted backups enabled, you may be able to restore your data. Make sure that you have the latest version of Google Maps, then go to your Timeline. Tap the cloud icon near the top of your screen, and choose a backup to import your data. If you did not have backups turned on, unfortunately you will not be able to recover lost data.
We understand that this can be frustrating if you use Timeline to remember places that you’ve visited, and we are taking steps to improve our systems for the future.

I have heard of Google loosing data before (drive files and or photos disappearing and such), or making it inaccessible for people, and so far I’m glad to not have been affected, and have never really dived into these cases before to see if it has happened.

However, it was easy to see in a matter of minutes that ~10 years of location data was indeed gone from my phone… With data only showing from the 6th or 7th of March.

It’s only been a few months since Google made the change to shift this location data from the cloud to devices only, with the final switch date maybe being around the end of 2024 (see Android Police- Google Maps Timeline now stores your location data on-device).

For those lucky enough to turn on the new, and separate switch to backup this now local only location data back to the cloud, the data can likely be retrieved, as mine has been.

For those lucky enough to turn on the new, and separate switch to backup this now local only location data back to the cloud, the data can likely be retrieved, as mine has been.

However, for those less lucky, or that got annoyed by the request for the Google password when trying to turn the backup on, and who decided they would turn it on another day, that data is probably all gone…

When I was looking at the news on Saturday and Sunday, I thought this was fairly unreported, but I’m glad to see that since Monday morning, there are a few more articles covering this data loss.

• CNET – Google Maps Timeline Data Was Lost for Some People. Here’s How to Restore It
• The Verge – Google confirms it deleted Maps Timeline data for some
• Forbes – Google Confirms User Data Deletion Error—Who Is Impacted, What To Do
• Android Police – The lost Google Maps Timeline history is finally back, but not for everyone

Cause? Who knows?

Looking around the internet, the first report I see of timeline data going missing is in the early hours of the 7th March https://old.reddit.com/r/GoogleMaps/comments/1j5bjps/timeline_deleted/ (archive) and there are many people in that thread that have totally lost this data.

On the 15th of March, it looks like Google say the issue was caused by a “recent update” and that users still needed to wait for updates regarding what to do. (source, original screenshot)

But if you have an old phone that may still have some of this data on it, you might be in luck? https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleMaps/comments/1j5bjps/comment/mgkieki/?utm_name=GoogleMaps&rdt=49065 (archive)

To echo some of the pain…

• All my years of travel are gone. I am devastated. Wtf google
• I lost absolutely everything, this is awful. Years of history which I wanted to use to chart my favourite restaurants in the future. I can’t believe this.
• It is gone 😤😫
• it’s a fucking decade i have lost

There then also seems to be a pattern, where even once restored, there is some permanently missing recent data. For me this is on the 18th and 19th of March, and for a friend (potentially at the bleeding edge of an app update) this is the 6th 7th and 8th of March, so perhaps even around the 18th / 19th this app update was still rolling out to people?

Ultimately, I’d guess this is just an app update gone wrong that accidentally nuked the storage for timeline data somehow. Seemingly, this was an untested case or managed to slip past any tests that did exist, took multiple days, possibly more than a week to get rolled back and around 2 weeks to have a coordinated response.

Frankly, I’m glad they managed to recover the backups, which I can only assume were being overwritten by user devices that believed none of the old timeline data mattered any more, but it’s really got to suck for those that have totally lost data, and I know how that feels, as I was feeling it on Saturday morning when I thought I also had backups off…

Export / backup for the future

For a moment I thought that historic data might still be stored within a current Google takeout export. However, if I do a timeline takeout today, I only get 2 files, one full of settings, and another called Encrypted Backups.txt which reads You have encrypted Timeline backups stored on Google servers.

Interestingly, the settings file does include an element called timelineDeletionTime which I guess is the point in time that the switch was made from cloud to on-device timelines, for me around 2024-12-18T22:57:00Z.

For the future, though, there is now an on device way to export your timeline data. On your android phone…

android settings > location > location services > timeline > export

For me, this export is a 66MB JSON file with 3 main sets of data:

• semanticSegments: contains “segments” representing periods of movement or travel. Each segment records key details such as the start and end times and includes a timelinePath—a series of GPS points that track your route during that segment. Essentially, these segments break your day into chunks of travel or activity.
• rawSignals: holds the lower‐level sensor data captured by a device (for about a month?). Includes items like “activityRecord,” “position,” and “wifiScan” data. These raw signals are the building blocks that Google uses to infer your higher‐level activities and to construct the semantic segments. (A shame it doesnt record what WIFI it is inferring your location from)
• userLocationProfile: provides an overview of your habitual locations. It typically lists frequently visited places with associated details such as a unique placeId, the geographic coordinates (often labeled as placeLocation), and a human-friendly label such as WORK or HOME.

I haven’t tried it, but there is already at least one parser for this data that can be used to export it into other tools. https://github.com/prasann/google-timeline-parser.