The Google Maps Timeline has lengthy been a helpful although barely uncomfortable function that maintains an entire file of all over the place your telephone goes (and possibly you with it). Google just lately modified the way in which it saved timeline information to improve privacy, however the firm now confirms {that a} “technical situation” resulted in lots of customers dropping their timeline historical past altogether, and there may not be any technique to get well it.

Timeline, beforehand referred to as Location Historical past, could be very helpful if you’ll want to work out the place you had been on a specific day or when you simply cannot keep in mind the place you discovered that neat bar in your final trip. Many Google customers grew fairly keen on accessing that information. Nonetheless, Google had entry to it, too. Beginning in 2024, Google transitioned to storing Timeline information solely on the consumer’s particular person smartphone as an alternative of backing it as much as the cloud. You possibly can in all probability see the place that is going.

Customers began piping up over the previous a number of weeks, posting on the Google support forums, Reddit, and different social media that their treasured Timeline information had gone lacking. Google has been investigating the issue, and the information is not good. In an e mail despatched out over the weekend, Google confirmed what many already feared: Maps has by accident deleted Timeline information on numerous units.

A Google spokesperson confirmed that is the results of a technical situation and never consumer error or an intentional change. It is unclear how this occurred, however we might wager on a botched Maps replace. Google normally rolls out updates in waves, and it is potential that the faulty construct on this case made it to numerous units earlier than it was stopped.

You could have precisely one potential repair for this situation, however provided that you deliberate forward. When Google started the total change-over to native storage of Timeline information, it added a number of settings to regulate the function. Whereas the information is saved regionally by default, you may have the choice of making encrypted backups within the cloud. If you happen to did that, you must be capable of restore the information.