Exporting your Google Timeline

2026-09-05

The main input for Life Map is Google’s Location History (Timeline) export. This post covers how to get that file. Once you have it, you can see your time by country and region as a grid.

Why the process changed

Location History used to live in your Google account, and you exported it straight from google.com/maps/timeline. Since 2024, Google stores this data on each device instead. So there are now two places to export from. Exporting from the device is the most current and complete; Google Takeout is for older data still held in your account.

First check one thing: Timeline has to have been switched on in Google Maps for any history to exist. If you never enabled it, there is nothing to export.

Method A — from your phone

Same flow on Android and iOS

Open the Google Maps app.
Tap your profile picture (top right).
Settings → Personal content / Location history (sometimes shown as “Location history” or “Timeline” depending on version).
Tap Export Timeline data (or Export Location History).
Choose where to save. A Timeline.json (or location-history.json) file is created.

On Android it lands in your Files app or Downloads; on iOS, in the location you picked in the Files app. This single file is all you need — no unzipping.

Menu names shift between Maps versions. If you cannot find it, search “Timeline” or “Export” in the app’s settings.

Method B — Google Takeout

Use this for older data in your account, or to grab several services at once.

Go to takeout.google.com.
Under “Select data to include”, click Deselect all, then check only Location History (Timeline).
Scroll down, click Next step, choose the format (.zip), size and delivery, then Create export.
You get a download link by email when it is ready — anywhere from minutes to a day for large accounts.
Unzip the archive.

Inside you will find one of:

A Semantic Location History folder — JSON files split by year and month, with visits and trips as segments. This is what you want. If there are several files, upload the ones for the period you care about.
Records.json — raw GPS points every few seconds, with no visit or trip segments. Time-by-place is hard to compute from this. Life Map does not support this format yet. Prefer the Semantic option, or use Method A.

Formats Life Map reads

Three of them:

New on-device array — the latest Timeline.json from Method A. The top level is an array like [ { "startTime": …, "endTime": …, "visit": … } ].
Takeout semanticSegments — the files in the Semantic Location History folder above.
Legacy timelineObjects — a Takeout file you saved years ago in this format still works.

Records.json (raw location history) is not supported.

Where people get stuck

No “Export Timeline data” option — Timeline is off, or Maps is out of date. Update the app and enable Timeline / Location History first. History only accumulates from then on, so older data has to come from Takeout.
The file is huge — several years can be tens of MB. Life Map processes it in the browser, so this is usually fine; for very large files, upload a single year’s file from Takeout.
The grid is nearly empty — Timeline was probably off during that period. Open the file in a text editor and check whether visits are actually there.
Worried about coordinates leaving your device — Life Map does not send the file anywhere. Even the place lookup runs against pre-downloaded boundary data, in the browser. More on this in How much your location history reveals.

With the file in hand, go to the tool, open the Google Timeline tab, choose the file, and press Visualize. Use the Country / Region buttons to change the grouping, and Unit / Columns / Cell size to shape the grid. The full walkthrough is in the guide.

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