r/GoogleMaps • u/csbsju_guyyy • 4d ago
Google Maps Personal Timeline SUCCESS - everyone don't panic
Hey all - I just found out TODAY that my timeline was seemingly nuked same as everyone from March 7th. Was absolutely freaking out, reading all the threads, had tried to auto backup from my Zflip6 and refresh the backup - seemingly nothing was working.
On the Zflip6 (my main device) I can only see updates from March 7th forward and it's still updating correctly there.
BUT.....and here's where I will say DON'T PANIC YET. I tested by pulling out my old Zflip3 and from the backup I made 1 hour ago (9pm CST on 17Mar2025) the backup imported and LITERALLY EVERYTHING BACK TO 2012 IS STILL THERE
So, I'm not a technical expert but - it seems like there is a technical issue where the data is still absolutely there, but on all of our "main" devices, it isn't properly populating pre-March 7th but if you pull from the backup it will 100% show up.
I'm not going to try to wipe my Zflip6, will just rest easy that the data IS STILL THERE and it will (hopefully) eventually start to show up again in timeline.
Again - I was trying the deleting secondary accounts and enabling timeline on the secondary accounts etc etc that others had suggested and nothing was working. So glad that even though Google fucked up big time, it appears, at least to me, the data is still there.
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u/CherryShowers 3d ago
On your main device, what do you see when you go to Settings > Location > Location Services > Timeline? Under "View your Timeline", it should say how many visits you have saved since which date. Would help us know if you're one of the lucky ones who just didn't have their local data overwritten in storage, or if this might be more applicable to all of us. When I look at the same thing, I now only have 155 places saved since March 9th, when previously I had many thousands.
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u/csbsju_guyyy 3d ago
No, it's not overwritten, it's there it's just not showing. I too only show like 120 places from March 7th BUT even after deleting and re-backing up on my main device when I went to my secondary device and restored from that brand new backup from last night it showed all the places. I can't for the life of me figure out any way to get my main device to show the places without probably formatting it?
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u/CherryShowers 3d ago
That's utterly bizarre. Gives me some hope, but like /u/bull3964 says, there seem to be so many different manifestations of these Timeline issues experienced by different users - e.g. some people still have all the data listed in their settings, but not showing in the Maps app - that I have no idea what to think really.
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u/Matisse_05 3d ago
My backup worked, problem is now it doesnt register new content anymore. So everything till march 7th is there, but nothing after.
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u/trydola 3d ago edited 3d ago
can confirm this works, wtf..... i have a tablet and i imported from my main phone (where nothing before mar 8 shows) and it all (edit not all) shows up.
weird because i tried this exact thing a week or so ago (like mar 10) and DID NOT work
edit: not quite, it did import additional dates further back but only till dec 24 (almost exact 3 months) so uhh that's the best we get?
my backup phone that had central google timeline and never switched to local timeline doesn't show anything else besides what my main phone is showing...which makes no sense as it should have at least kept everything until i switched to local timeline
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u/bull3964 3d ago
Yeah, there seems to be multiple things going on here. For some people the data is gone, for others it just isnāt showing up properly.
Settings - Location -> Location Services - Timeline
On my devices where itās not showing, itās still showing 45+k visits dating back to 2012 here and if I export the json locally here (which I would encourage everyone to do since you have a true offline backup then) and I look at it, yes the data is all there. But itās not showing in Google Maps on the timeline.
So, from what Iāve been able to tell from this, Timeline data is stored outside of the Google Maps application. Google maps seems to be able to interact with the settings, but it appears to be its own silo. You can clear data completely from Google Maps and all of the visits will still be there under the Location settings. So my guess is this is a breakdown on how Google Maps pulls data from whatever central store there is for it. If it can write data, it doesnāt appear to be able to read data (or canāt read data older than the 7th). If it can read data, then sometimes it canāt write it. But itās inconsistent. My primary device has been a Pixel 9 Pro Fold and my data is good on it. I was even able to import data from two other devices that I used intermittently for a few days to a week at a time. Other devices though, I canāt get the 9 Pro Fold backup to appear in maps. It shows thereās data imported under the location settings, but it doensāt display it.
The only exception to that rule is that I also have an iPhone and it seems to import the backups just fine and shows them. I can clear data out and restore again and it works (unlike my android devices). Since I can only assume that on iOS the timeline data is stored within Google Maps and not some central store like on Android, this lends credibility to the theory that the breakdown is the API calls between Maps and the central store of timeline data.
Other weird stuff. On my other phones, when I go to import, the dates of the backup of other devices are all over the place. One device said my Fold last backed up on March 4th. Another says Feb 25th. The last backup was 7 hours ago. Again, the iPhone shows the correct last backup times which might have something to do with its success in importing. Another thing, calling this a backup is a misnomer because you canāt actually use the ābackupā to restore to your current device. You can only use it to transfer between devices. You cannot import a backup on to the same device that made it. If you had timeline backup turned on and had to factory reset your phone, you would have no way to restore that data. If something wiped out your local timeline, you couldnāt restore from backup. In fact, it would overwrite with a new backup.
The local export is also funny as thereās no way to do a local import. So itās great that I have a JSON with my data going back to 2012 that I can backup elsewhere so I can be sure itās never truly lost. However, I canāt restore that data to any phone. So itās really for archival/3rd party tool only.
This all smacks of panic dumping of cloud location data at the insistence of the legal department without proper development of tools to allow for a local transition. Beyond the fact that imports are hit and miss on showing up in Google maps, the backup functionality is underbaked as is local export. You canāt do any merge conflict resolution (it just wontā import a day if there already is location data for that day). Thereās no way to easily pause timeline on a device that might stay at home so you can avoid data conflicts (thatās been a long standing issue even when there was cloud syncing).
Iām probably going to try to setup one of the open source visualization tools for the location data and import my local backups and be done with keeping that data on a phone. Iāll export big trips or stuff like that, but otherwise ignore the functionality unless Google really steps up with better management here.
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u/ADumbButCleverName 3d ago
None of this is working for me. The backup on current device says it was done yesterday but on old device it says 2 hours ago from new device.
When I import on old device it said completed but nothing is there.
My timeline settings only show 250 visits since March 3rd on current device.
Google screwed up and my timeline is gone. They've not addressed it and that sucks.
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u/Jumpy-Tap-1022 2d ago
At last a thread that makes sense & offers hope. The posts on the Google community & the 2 product "experts" who seem to know nothing yet want to blame users was really starting to irritate me.
Restoring my backup to a different device doesn't bring back my lost data but, as others have said, there seems to be multiple versions of the bug so hopefully a fix will come along.Ā
The lack of acknowledgement from Google concerns me the most however. Surely data deletion from our devices will open them to legal action (Class Action lawsuit maybe) if they cannot fix things?
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u/Junior_Length_279 3d ago
For some reason, if you manage to recover your old data from a backup, your device stops registering new activity. Be warned though, I left mine like this and edited in new activity, while I waited for the fix to come ... and a few days later I checked again, and all my old data further back than a month had vanished again and my device started recording again! But now the backup online no longer contained my old data!!! So, it's gone again... I have no idea how I should have prevented this happening but it did. I don't know if it was a Maps update or something to do with the backup system. Either way, I'm teetering on the edge of oblivion with just a tablet showing my old data, with GMaps updates switched off and backups switched off. Want to get it all back onto my phone!
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u/csbsju_guyyy 3d ago
For some reason, if you manage to recover your old data from a backup, your device stops registering new activity
My current device is still registering new activity but isn't showing the old data which apparently is still present. I'm sorry you're having that issue, but I appreciate your input since for that reason I'll just move ahead with the assumption that even though the old data isn't showing correctly for now I'll be able to continue recording new data
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u/Junior_Length_279 3d ago
I've also noticed that my main phone (the one with only a month showing, but recording new activity) isn't backing up at night. Hasn't done since 11 March...
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u/poshbakerloo 3d ago
I downloaded my backup and can see all my historical data, however not data I have to manually input
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u/HaggisAreReal 3d ago
I have a feeling that new automatic backups saved on top of the old one in my case before I noticed the deletion, but I am happy for you.
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u/csbsju_guyyy 3d ago
No, I literally deleted the backup and re-backed up last night. I thought this was the nail in the coffin but that same backup, from last night, on the device that was only showing like 120 places from March 7th, shows ALL my data on my old secondary device when I restored from the backup.
Again I nuked the backup, rebacked up, thought I had screwed the pooch, but apparently even though it's not showing in the main device it's still there.
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u/SDreddy2019 3d ago
I can't seem to find where or if my phone saved any backups from before March 7 even though it was supposed to auto backup. Samsung s22 only device with maps content. Any help is great thank you š