One of the more convenient features made possible by enabling Location History on Android is the Google Maps timeline. In addition to a monthly review, Google Maps sends out a ‘2020 timeline update’, which of course affects the past twelve months, but still provides useful local statistics.
COVID-19 changed world travel in 2020 and how many places people could visit. If you were able to travel this year, you could see some places you were using this automated timeline email.
Before submitting a summary of “Your visits in 2020”, Google first acknowledges the ongoing situation. There is then a map indicating where you have traveled with a number of ‘Cities’ and ‘Places’ indicating how many are new.
The Google Maps 2020 summary, compared to last year, contains a “trends” section. It divides the types of places – shopping, food and drink, etc. – which is visited every month in cumulative hours. It also looks at how many kilometers you have walked and driven.
Then there are the highlights of ‘Visiting Cities’ and ‘Visiting Places’, with places that get a cover photo and Google identifies whether it’s new.
This summary ends with Google Maps recording the total distance (in miles) you traveled for 2020 and “Your data of all times.”
While we’re already in the new year, Google’s wait a week or two to send out this email. So far I have only received it on one account and it will be ready in the coming days. The full Maps timeline is available on the web and mobile applications (profile avatar> Your timeline), while recently coming to Google Photos.
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