Importing Google Maps Timeline

Google Maps Timeline keeps a history of where you’ve been. Google now stores Timeline on your phone rather than in your Google account, so you export it from the phone itself, not from Google Takeout. Android and iPhone export it from different places, and name the file differently.

Export From an Android Phone

On Android, the export is in the phone’s settings, not in the Google Maps app:

1. Open your phone’s Settings app.
2. Tap Location, then Location services, then Timeline.
3. Tap Export Timeline data, then Continue.
4. Choose where to save the file, such as Downloads, and tap Save.

A notification says Export complete when it’s done, usually within a minute. The file is called Timeline.json; if you export more than once, later files are numbered, such as Timeline (1).json, so pick the newest.

Export From an iPhone

On an iPhone, the export is in the Google Maps app:

1. Open Google Maps and tap your picture at the top right.
2. Tap Settings, then Location & Privacy.
3. Tap Export Timeline data.
4. In the share sheet, tap Save to Files, choose a folder, and tap Save.

The file is called location-history.json.

Pitfalls

• Each phone has its own Timeline. Edits and deletions don’t carry between devices, and a phone you stopped using keeps what it recorded. Export from each phone you want history from.
• Timeline may delete old history. If Auto-delete Timeline is set to 3, 18, or 36 months, older history is already gone. Export before it’s deleted, or choose Don’t auto-delete activity.
• A reset phone loses it. A factory reset, or clearing Google Play services’ data on Android, deletes Timeline from the phone. Google’s encrypted Timeline backup, turned on from the cloud icon in Timeline, can restore it to a new phone, and you can then export it there.
• Takeout no longer has it. A new Google Takeout export doesn’t include your current Timeline.

An Older Takeout Export

If you downloaded your Location History from Google Takeout before Timeline moved to your phone, Kaizora also imports Takeout’s Records.json, from its Location History folder.

Import It

1. Copy the file to the device you’ll import on.
2. Open Data Sources, from the account menu at the bottom of the sidebar.
3. Under Imports, find Google Maps Timeline and choose Import from file.
4. Under File, choose the file, and select Import.

The file’s times say their time zone, so there’s nothing else to choose. A file of several years can be tens of megabytes; it’s read on your device and never uploaded or kept. A file over 256 MB is too large to import.

What Comes In

Every position in the file with its time becomes a location in your Location History, with its accuracy, altitude, and speed when the file gives them:

• from Android’s Timeline.json, its raw positions and the points along its paths;
• from the iPhone’s location-history.json, the points along its paths;
• from Records.json, its locations.

Timeline’s visits and activities (“Walking, 2.1 km”) are Google’s own summaries of those positions, so they’re skipped: the positions they’re made from come in instead.

Importing a newer export updates the positions you already have and adds the new ones.

What Your Locations Are For

Your location history shows where you spent time, on a map. Name the places that matter (see Add Your Places) to label your stays, and to measure your time at home and at work. See Read Your Location History. Your locations are also how Kaizora works out the air you breathed: wherever you were, the newest reading from one of your air monitors within 100 m in the hour before counts as your exposure.