How long does Google Maps Timeline keep location history?

Google Maps Timeline keeps your location history until auto-delete removes it or you delete it yourself. Auto-delete has three settings: 3, 18 or 36 months. When you first turn Timeline on, Google sets it to 3 months by default. It used to be 18 months. Timeline now lives on your phone, with an optional encrypted backup on Google's servers. Turning Timeline off does not erase what it already saved. And it is not the only place your location ends up: Google can still save location through Web & App Activity, which runs on a separate clock.

What Timeline is, and what it is not

Timeline is a setting in your Google Account. It saves your visits and routes to a map. Google's help says it is there to help you "remember where you've been." A visit is a place you stopped, like a cafe or an office. A route is how you traveled between two places. The same setting used to be called Location History, and its data was stored in your Google Account online.

Timeline is off by default. Google's Account help says so in plain words, so nobody has it unless they or someone with their phone switched it on. When it is on, the iPhone help says your device's precise location "is regularly saved to your devices," even when Google apps are not in use.

It is not the blue dot in Maps, which only shows where you are now. It is not Find My Device either. And it is not your search history, although a search can carry a location too. That last point matters, and it has its own section below.

Every clock on your location history, in one table

Your location can sit in several places at Google, and each one has its own rule. The first four rows are Timeline. The rest are not.

The row most people miss is the sixth. It is why some people find location in their account after switching Timeline off.

A worked example: one trip, three records

Take a phone where Timeline was switched on for the first time in March 2026. Nobody touched the settings, so auto-delete sits at the 3 month default. Suppose the owner drove to a beach town in April 2026. On the way, they searched Google Maps for a place to eat. Their Web & App Activity is on, and their account dates from 2021, so that setting deletes after 18 months.

Work it through to today, November 5, 2026. The April drive and the stop at the restaurant are past the 3 month line. Timeline has already removed them from the phone. If backup is on, Google's help says changes to Timeline take a few days to reach the backup.

The search is different. It was saved under Web & App Activity, which can store location along with it. Under an 18 month rule, it stays until around October 2027. So the place they looked up outlives the record of going there by about a year.

Now change one thing. Suppose they turned Timeline off in May instead. Nothing would have been deleted that day. Turning it off only stops new saving. The April trip would sit on the phone until they deleted it, since the iPhone help says "previous activity is not deleted" when you turn Timeline off.

Why "3 months" and "forever" both get quoted

Search this question and you will find two answers. One says Google keeps your location forever. The other says three months. Both describe a real account, and the dividing line is the update.

The old Location History lived on Google's servers. Auto-delete could be off, and on many older accounts it was. In those accounts, years of visits sat online, and that is where "forever" comes from.

In December 2023, Google announced the change. Timeline would be "saved right on your device." The default changed too. "When you first turn on Location History, the auto-delete control will be set to three months by default," the post says. It adds: "Previously this option was set to 18 months." The changes rolled out over the following year on Android and iOS.

The move had a deadline, and it was not the same for everyone. Android Police reported in December 2024 that each account's cutoff came about six months after Google's email. If you missed it, only the most recent 90 days would move to your phone, and older data would be deleted. An account that missed its cutoff would show only recent months, however long it had been on.

Today the answer is on Google's Maps help. "You'll keep your Timeline based on your auto-delete settings, or until you delete it." Three months is where it starts. It is not a limit you are stuck with.

The location Google keeps when Timeline is off

Google's Account help is direct about this. Say Web & App Activity is on, and you turn off Timeline or delete it. Then "your Google Account may still save location data as part of your use of other Google sites, apps, and services."

Web & App Activity is the setting that saves your searches and what you do in Google's apps. Google's help says that activity may include your general area, worked out from your device and the IP address your connection uses. It has its own auto-delete. In June 2020, Google's chief executive Sundar Pichai changed the default. He wrote that it "will also default to 18 months for new accounts." Accounts that already had it on were not changed, so many older ones keep everything. How long Google keeps your search history explains which accounts sit on which clock, and how to check yours.

That data does not live on your phone. It sits in your account on Google's servers. Deleting it there takes time. Google's retention policy says removal "generally takes around 2 months." Copies can also stay in encrypted backups "for up to 6 months."

Location is only one of the signals companies use to follow you. Websites and ad networks build their own picture from cookies, pixels and device details. How web tracking works shows which of those Google's settings can reach and which they cannot.

Phones, backups and deleting for good

Because Timeline lives on the device, the phone is the record. Google's help says your visits and routes are saved "on each of your signed-in devices." Each copy is separate. If you "edit or delete your Timeline data on one device," the help warns, "those changes won't be reflected on other devices." Delete a trip on your phone, and a tablet signed in to the same account can still show it.

The backup is how Timeline survives a lost or broken phone. "As long as you've turned on backup," Google's help says, "you can import your data onto a different device." Without the backup, a new phone starts with an empty Timeline. Google's December 2023 post said the backup is encrypted "so no one can read it, including Google." The help pages do not give the backup its own time limit. It does sit in your account, though. If the account itself goes, so does the backup, and Google can close an unused one, as how long an inactive account survives explains.

Deleting is final. Google's Maps help says deleted Timeline data "will be permanently deleted and can't be recovered." To stop and erase in one step, use "Turn off and delete activity." The Maps app offers it next to plain "Turn off." Selling or passing on a phone? Sign out and wipe it properly before you sell it. That removes the copy on that device. Clear the backup and your other devices too, or the history lives on there.

What this answer does not cover

These rules are Google's, for your own Google Account, as its help pages read in November 2026. They do not cover location your mobile carrier keeps, or apps from other companies with their own settings. Nor do they cover the location written into photos you take. That travels with the photo, and how long deleted photos stay in the cloud has those rules. Google also keeps some data longer for legal reasons, and its policy gives no length for that. Nor does any of this tell you whether someone else is following you. If you worry that a tracker has been hidden on you, how long before your phone warns you about an AirTag covers that.

Setting the clock you want

1. Check if Timeline is on. Look under Activity settings in your Google Account. If it was never switched on, there is nothing to delete.
2. Pick an auto-delete window. Choose 3, 18 or 36 months. Three is the shortest Google offers.
3. Decide about the backup. Keep it if you want Timeline on your next phone. Delete it if you do not.
4. Set Web & App Activity too. Turn on its auto-delete, or turn the setting off, so location from searches does not outlast your Timeline.
5. Clear what is already there. Auto-delete only stops data from growing older than the window. Delete past visits by hand, or use "Turn off and delete activity."
6. Clean up old devices. Each signed in phone or tablet keeps its own copy, so check every one.
7. Ask for what is left. In the UK and EU you can ask Google for the data it holds. How to make a data request has the wording.