Check your Google Maps NOW: the navigation app is permanently deleting important data from your account. Here’s how you can save it

Google Maps users are urged to take action now to prevent their important data from being permanently lost.

Starting next year, the popular navigation app will start removing users’ personal timeline from its servers.

Originally known as Location History, this feature tracks every move of Google Maps users and keeps a record of places visited and routes taken.

However, according to emails received by Google Maps users, this feature will disappear starting June 9, 2025, along with nearly a decade of user data.

Google says it will move users’ movement history from the cloud to a more secure option on the device.

While this gives users more protection against hackers, it also means that any unsaved location history will soon be lost.

Once the change is made, Google Maps will only keep the last 90 days of timeline data unless users back it up to their personal device.

So if you don’t want to lose your location history, here’s how to prevent your data from being deleted.

While you may not have even known it was on, Google Maps’ timeline feature has likely been recording your location the entire time you’ve been using the app.

When the feature is activated, Google Maps uses GPS data to record routes you take and places you visit when your phone’s location services are turned on, even if you’re not navigating at the time.

Timeline turns this data into summaries that will help you remember where you went for a walk last week or remember a great pub you came across three years ago.

The feature was introduced on Android in 2015 before being introduced on iOS in 2017, meaning you can save almost a decade’s worth of travel on Google’s servers.

But Google now says this data will be permanently deleted unless users specifically save it to their phone.

Google has been toying with the idea of ​​abolishing Timeline since last year, when it announced that user data would disappear from the cloud by the end of 2024.

Then, in June this year, the tech giant said that Timeline would close on December 1.

However, with this deadline long past, the feature has now been given a six-month extension.

As outlined in emails sent to some Google Maps users, the biggest changes will be moving users’ data to a more secure storage option.

Instead of Google storing users’ location data in the cloud, routes and locations visited are now stored locally on the device itself.

This means that the app will take up more storage space on your device, but should have better privacy and data security.

Under the new system, trips older than three months will also be automatically deleted unless the user specifically saves them to their device for future use.

This new storage system also means that you will no longer be able to access your timeline data from any device other than the one you actually completed the route on.

While it is still available in the Android or iOS app, the Timeline option is already unavailable via the web browser.

Google said in a message: “Because the data shown on your Timeline comes directly from your device, the Timeline will not be available on Maps on your computer after you move your data.”

But the most pressing change for Timelines fans is that older data is at risk of being deleted when Google migrates to their new system.

After June 9, 2025, only 90 days of timeline data will be stored on your device, meaning everything else will be permanently deleted.

To preserve your data, make a local backup on your device before this deadline.

Fortunately, the process for doing this is very simple.

On your iOS or Android device, open the Google Maps app and tap your profile photo or initial in the top right corner of the screen.

At the top right of the page you will now see an icon that looks like a cloud.

Once you select this, you may be asked to log in with your password, but you will then be taken to the ‘Backup’ page.

If you have not enabled backups, first tap the button to enable this option.

Then select the device you want to backup and press the ‘More’ option, which looks like three dots.

Choose ‘Import’ from the menu and select ‘Import’ again on the ‘Import Timeline Form Backup’ screen.

This will download a copy of your Timeline data that you can access even after Google deletes your data from the cloud.

Please note that since this data is stored locally, you will need to repeat this process for any other devices you want to see your timeline on.

A Google spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘As we shared in our blog post, this update is being rolled out gradually. This means people will see different deletion deadlines approximately six months from when they were first notified of this change to their account.”