Used by over a billion people around the world, Google Maps is the most popular navigation application on the Internet. Originally released in February 2005, it has become the go-to navigation software for millions of people.

However, due to constant updates and changes to the platform, it is common for Google Maps users to experience bugs and issues.

That being said, Google Maps does have a chronological location history feature that lets you keep track of where you’ve been and where you were on a particular date and time.

But Google Maps users now say they can’t turn on the timeline’s location history. Others say the feature doesn’t record any trips or locations for them.

While some blame the age check for the problem, others say that despite meeting all the requirements, the location history is not being updated for them.

Since the end of September 2021, the position history has been deactivated on my phone. When I try to re-enable it, I’m taken to a page that says “The setting you are looking for is not available for your account”. (Translated from Dutch). I am currently in the Netherlands and according to the Google Help website the age requirement for Position History is 16 which is an account requirement. I read online that a failed age verification could be the problem, but when I change my birthday in the account settings I am not prompted for verification. How can I resolve this issue and turn location history back on?
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Ever since the maps updated the timeline layout and it has all been so imprecise and frustrating to navigate. I will use google maps for directions to an affected location and respond if it got me there in a timely manner or anything and a few days later go to my timeline to confirm where I was and the place where google maps gave me the route is not here. For example, it says home-driving-home. The maps gave me directions but my timeline has no trace or place for that matter.
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Turns out there is another issue with the location history. It appears that Google Takeout does not allow users to change the file format for location history.

Many say they had the option to choose between JSON and KML, but now the option is grayed out and the only option is to use JSON.

Previously, when you went to Google Takeout and scrolled to the Location History section, it would let you choose either “JSON only” or “JSON and KML”. Now the drop-down arrow is grayed out and it won’t allow you to change the default (which is just JSON). There is currently no way to export your location history to KML, which is the file format I need. It seems like you can still download individual days in KML format from your timeline, but it’s extremely tedious to do one day at a time.
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It turns out that JSON to KML converters also don’t work because they are unable to parse Google’s JSON format.

Fortunately, there appears to be a temporary user-shared workaround that allows users to download the data in KML format.

And Mingyu, go to the timeline in a wide, high-resolution desktop view (tested at 16: 9, 1080p), select a date (you should see the vertical timeline on the left half of the screen).
There should be a gear at the bottom right and the KML download should be near the top.
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Since Google has yet to comment on the matter, it is not clear whether Google intentionally removed the KML option or if this is a problem.

Nonetheless, we’ll be keeping an eye out for Google Maps timeline location history and Google Takeout KML file issues and update this space as needed, so stay tuned.

To note: We have more such stories in our dedicated Google Maps section, so be sure to follow them as well.

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