Google Maps customers have lately been complaining on locations like Reddit that their Timeline information — the app’s historic report of the place they’ve been — had disappeared. Now, Google has confirmed that it by accident deleted the info and that anybody who wasn’t utilizing Google’s cloud backups is out of luck.
Google spokesperson Genevieve Park supplied this assertion in an e mail to The Verge:
We briefly skilled a technical subject that prompted the deletion of Timeline information for some individuals. Almost everybody with encrypted Timeline backups will be capable to restore their information; sadly those that didn’t have backups enabled won’t be able to get well misplaced information.
In a Reddit put up that Android Authority noticed, customers reported getting the same assertion in an e mail from Google that included directions for recovering the info for individuals who’d turned on the app’s cloud backup characteristic. 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 via it (off). You’ll be able to faucet the icon to alter your backup settings.
Google warned customers final summer time that it was switching to on-device storage for Google Maps location information. That meant you could possibly 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 historical past information to a file, Google’s directions for recovering Timeline information embody no apparent technique to reimport the info that doesn’t contain the cloud backup servers.
Replace March twenty third: Up to date with affirmation from Google spokesperson Genevieve Park.