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 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 situation that brought on the deletion of Timeline information for some individuals. Practically everybody with encrypted Timeline backups will be capable to restore their information; sadly those that didn’t have backups enabled will be unable to recuperate misplaced information.
In a Reddit post noticed by Android Authority, customers reported getting an identical 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 consumer icon within the iOS or Android Google Maps app, then “Your timeline,” and search for a cloud icon with both an arrow inside it (on) or a line by it (off). You possibly can 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 observe of your Maps location historical past with out having it tracked on Google’s servers, which is nice for privateness, however comes with the chance of it abruptly vanishing, as Google’s “technical situation” exhibits. And sadly, whereas Google Maps permits you to export location history data to a file, Google’s instructions for recovering Timeline data consists of no apparent approach to reimport the info that doesn’t contain the cloud backup servers.