Google Maps’ Your Timeline knows where you have been

After a wild night out, retracing one’s steps can feel almost impossible. But Google Maps may now have a solution. Today, the Google Maps team launched a feature called “Your Timeline” which is available on desktop and as an update on Google Maps on Android mobile devices.

Your Timeline lets users to view the places they have been to on a given day, month or year. The feaure allows users to visualise their real world routines, making it easy to the trips they have taken and the places where they spent their time.

The feature works if a user has chosen to store their Location History with Google. It is Google using the data it has on people and not just letting it pile up.

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The feature is also private and visible only to the user.

It also offers control over the locations a user chooses to keep. Users can easily delete a day or their entire history at any time.

Furthermore, if one uses Google Photos, Google’s new photo app, Timeline will show users the photos they took on the day of their visits. All of this is a great to jolt one to some happy memories.

The problem, though one can easily dismiss the locations, is that Your Timeline does not differentiate between locations one would rather forget or ones one wants to remember. It however could be helpful when one has either lost something and needs a precise recall of their journeys over a certain price.

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An interesting feature, which helps with locations one would rather forget, is that users can edit or remove their locations. If one, for example, frequents a place, they can remove the location name and store it as ‘Favourite night club’ or ‘My son’s creche’. These edits to locations are reflected in Google Maps when the users logs in again.

The feature is only available if one has chosen to Location History with Google.

Your Timeline can be accessed from the slide out navigation menu on the left side of the Google Maps app. The date is shown at the top of the feature with a month view calendar, from which one can select any day’s history.