What you need to know
- Some users are seeing their Google Maps Timeline history vanish without warning.
- The issue is blowing up on Reddit, with more users confirming their data is missing.
- Some affected users can’t access their cloud backups either, making things even worse.
- It is possible that Google Maps' shift to on-device storage is behind the problem.
Some Google Maps users are running into a weird issue where their entire Timeline history is disappearing. No one’s sure why, but many suspect it has something to do with Google’s recent move to store location history directly on devices instead of in the cloud.
Google Maps' Timeline feature has undergone a major shift in how it handles location history. For years, all that data was stored centrally, tied to your account. But starting in December of last year, Google made a big switch, meaning your movement history now stays on your phone instead of Google’s servers.
The company is giving users until June 9, 2025, to switch over to on-device location history. After that, anything still stored in the cloud will be gone for good.
Google’s push to decide what to do with years of location history left a lot of users sweating. With a deadline looming, people had to figure out how to save their data before it was too late. Now, some users are finding their Timeline history has vanished into thin air even before the deadline arrives.
Users are sounding the alarm on Reddit (1, 2) about disappearing Google Maps Timeline data, and the issue is picking up steam, as spotted by 9to5Google. In just the past day, tons of people have chimed in, saying their Timeline history has mysteriously vanished too.
People are reporting that years of their location history have suddenly vanished without a trace. Even though their Timeline is enabled, Google Maps is showing the same frustrating message across the board: "No visits for this day."
To make matters worse, some users can’t even access their cloud backups anymore.
Some are pointing fingers at Google Maps’ shift to move location history from the cloud to your device as the likely culprit. The change was supposed to beef up privacy, but it might be causing this mess instead.
So far, the problem hasn’t popped up on our devices, which suggests it might not be hitting everyone. We’ve reached out to Google for answers and will update this story as soon as we hear back.
