Google Maps customers have just lately been complaining on locations like Reddit that their Timeline information — the app’s historic document of the place they’ve been — had disappeared. Now, Google has confirmed to Android Authority that it unintentionally deleted the info and that anybody who wasn’t utilizing Google’s cloud backups is out of luck.
Right here is the assertion that Google gave to the outlet:
We briefly skilled a technical subject that induced the deletion of Timeline information for some individuals. Practically everybody with encrypted Timeline backups will have the ability to restore their information; sadly those that didn’t have backups enabled won’t be able to get well misplaced information.
In a Reddit post noticed by Android Authority, customers reported getting an analogous assertion in an electronic mail from Google that included directions for recovering the info for individuals who’d turned on the app’s cloud backup function. To see if it’s on for you, faucet your person icon within the iOS or Android Google Maps app, then “Your timeline,” and search for a cloud icon with both an arrow within it (on) or a line by way of it (off). You may faucet the icon to alter your backup settings.
Google warned customers final summer season that it was switching to on-device storage for Google Maps location information. That meant you can maintain monitor of your Maps location historical past with out having it tracked on Google’s servers, which is nice for privateness, however comes with the danger of it abruptly vanishing, as Google’s “technical subject” reveals. And sadly, whereas Google Maps enables you to export location history data to a file, Google’s instructions for recovering Timeline data contains no apparent approach to reimport the info that doesn’t contain the cloud backup servers.