Google Maps Location History: 5 Useful Things You Can Do With It. What is Location History in Google Maps?.
The My Activities page on Google has a particularly useful area; the history of your location. This is useful because, if activated, it tracks every place you’ve visited since you first started using your Google account on mobile.
Read:How to set your own routes in Google Maps
If you’ve been using Android for years, this is an impressive database that can really come in handy. In this article, you will learn more about how to manage your location history on Google and how to use the information it tracks.
Ensure Your Google Maps Location History Is Active
Before you can use location history, make sure it’s actually turned on.
1. Visit Google My Activities and sign in to your Google account.
2. From the main page, select “Location History” in the right pane.
3. Make sure the Location History radio button is turned on on the Location Controls page.
Later, when you visit places with an Android phone, the phone will report your location to Google’s servers. These locations, as well as the time and date of your visit, will be collected.
While this does cause privacy concerns for some users, keep in mind that you are the only person who will ever have access to this information. You will always need to sign in to your Google account to access it.
However, if you are one of those people who are seriously concerned about Google accessing your information, you may want to reconsider enabling Location History. However, if you choose to disable it, you will not be able to use any of the ways to use it described below.
1. Be Reminded of Places You’ve Visited
To start viewing your location history, select Activity Controls on the Activity Controls page.
In the upper left corner, you will see a map with a timeline. With this timeline, you can search for as many years as you had an Android device with your Google account.
If you remember visiting a place, such as a theme park or favorite restaurant, but only remember the approximate timelines you visited, this timeline control might help.
Start with the Year drop-down list and select the year you remember.
This will create a list of the trips you have taken during that year. You can even use the “Month” and “Day” drop-downs to better guide the time frame of your visit. Or just pick a day from the list of vertical blue bars if you know exactly what day you visited the place.
After you use any of the above methods to determine and select a travel day, you will see a complete travel schedule.
This will include all the places you have stayed at during your trip. You will also see the entire route as a blue line on the map.
Scroll down the timeline until you find the place you want to remember. This could be a restaurant, a park, a hiking trail, or any other place that you really enjoy.
What is Location History in Google Maps?
The individual location marker on the timeline will give you the name of that location as well as the time on the day you arrived.
Once you find a place you want to remember, click on the three dots to the right and select Place Details to view your business or location data on Google.
Note. If you notice that Google has never logged a place you recently visited that you want to remember, you can add it to your trip details. To do this, simply select the three points to the right of the closest place you have visited and select the Add stop option. Keep in mind that this is only available if one of the areas you stayed in had multiple places or businesses to visit.
The timeline controls and your timeline history are the perfect way to go back to past trips you’ve taken. This is a great option to plan another trip to the area and visit the same places that you have visited and that you loved so much the first time.
2. Quickly Access Very Recent Trips
If you’ve recently taken a trip, you don’t even need to use the timeline controls. At the bottom of the Location Activity window, you will see the last trip you took a trip on, and a More Trips link below it to see more of your recent trips.
When you select this, the bottom line will default to the current year. You will see a list of fields for each trip, as well as a range of trip dates.
You can select any of these trips to view the details of the trip.
On the trip details page, you will see a list of each day of the trip in the bottom row below the map. You can select any of them to view the details of the trip for that day.
This is really useful if you have just started a trip and need to contact any of the businesses you have visited to ask for a receipt or otherwise follow up. It’s also a fun way to share your trip with your family and remember all the fun things you did together.
3. See All Most Recent Places You’ve Been
There’s also a quick way to access not only the most recent places, but all the places you’ve sorted from most recent to oldest.
You can access this list by selecting the red box on the left of the bottom row, where you can see the total number of locations in your timeline.
If you choose this option, you will first see a list of the places you have recently visited. Use the scroll bar at the bottom to move to the right and scroll through these locations.
If you continue scrolling to the right, you’ll see a section titled All the Places You’ve Been. This is a list that goes back a lot. The further you scroll to the right, the further the trip list returns.
This bottom scrollbar list is perfect if you’ve been traveling in the last year or two and want to save time instead of using a timeline control box. With a quick scroll, you can easily find the trip you took to Yellowstone National Park a couple of years ago.
4. Set Up Location Highlight Emails
There is a feature in the Google Maps Location History settings that allows you to receive regular email updates. These updates will arrive in your inbox in the form of notes about your recent trips and the places you have visited.
If you want to keep this kind of overview on your email account, you can easily customize these email highlights.
In the location history window, click the gear icon at the bottom of the map. Select Timeline Settings from the pop-up menu.
A window with several options will open.
Google Photos. Any photos you take during your trip and saved to Google Photos will appear in your timeline whenever you view that trip timeline. Timeline emails: Each time your timeline is updated with a new trip, you will receive an email listing the highlights of that trip.
The timeline emails option is also a great way to be reminded of any new content that has been automatically updated in your timeline. That way, if there is something about that trip that you don’t really want to log, you can go in and delete the individual stops you made.
5. Using Saved Places
You will also notice an option in the settings pop-up menu to manage your personal spaces. You will be taken to the Google Maps window where you can manage all your saved locations.
This includes all map lists you create, places you have assigned shortcuts to, and maps that you have saved or downloaded.
The Visited tab displays a short list of the places you have visited recently. These are the same locations listed in your Google Location History.
This is a great place to view your most recent timeline entries from Google Maps. It’s also a quick way to access your location’s timeline from Google Maps without having to remember the link to your My Activities page.
Google Maps Location History Is Useful
Many people are concerned about the privacy implications of allowing Google to store every location you’ve ever visited with your mobile device. However, if you use a strong password for your Google account and two-factor authentication, you really don’t have to worry about anything.
Location history on Google Maps is a great way to remember information from past trips. It will be easier for you to visit the wonderful places you loved and keep records of your trips so you can travel down memory lane whenever you want.
Google Maps Location History: 5 Useful Things You Can Do With It
Google Maps Location History: 5 Useful Things You Can Do With It
What is Location History in Google Maps?