I changed Google Maps Timeline with a self-hosted app, and it does issues Google would not provide

Google Maps Timeline is a kind of options that may be extremely helpful when wanted. It can remind you the place you went on a selected day, the locations you visited on trip, and even the routes you took from A to B. I by no means appreciated the concept of Google realizing all over the place I ever went, so I changed Google Maps Timeline with a free, open-source different that shops location historical past on my native {hardware}.

Google made Timeline simple to lose

I did not like the concept of Google realizing my each transfer

Google Maps Timeline builds a historical past of the locations you’ve got visited and journeys you’ve got taken, utilizing location info offered by your cellphone. You can use it to retrace journeys, see locations that you’ve got visited, or discover if you final visited a particular location.

Google is much from probably the most reliable firm, and the concept of It storing a historical past of each place I’d ever been, together with my residence, work, and day by day routines, did not sit properly, so I disabled Timeline a very long time in the past.

Google has since modified how Timeline works. Location historical past was once related along with your Google account, and you can entry it by means of Google Maps on the net. Google has moved Timeline information to particular person gadgets in an effort to enhance privateness.

However, the transfer wasn’t with out issues. The unique default setting solely saved information for 90 days for brand new customers, and a technical issue in March 2025 induced some customers to lose their Timeline information utterly. It’s one more instance of why trusting a 3rd celebration along with your information can simply go incorrect.

Dawarich is a self-hosted Google Maps Timeline different

It runs by yourself {hardware}, so your location is not shared

While I did not desire a big tech firm to entry my whole location historical past, I missed some options of Google Maps Timeline. That’s why I arrange my very own self-hosted different.

Dawarich is a free and open-source location tracker that provides lots of the options of Google Maps Timeline. The largest distinction is that whilst you pays for a cloud subscription to Dawarich, which retains all of your information within the cloud, you may also self-host it free of charge. This retains your whole information by yourself servers fairly than within the cloud.

I run Dawarich in Proxmox on an old Dell OptiPlex, which additionally runs a number of different providers, akin to Frigate and Immich. There’s an online interface that I can use to entry Dawarich and see my location historical past plotted on a map, with every recorded GPS level included, and play again journeys at many instances the conventional velocity. I can browse historic dates, study routes, view statistics and heatmaps, and even use a fog-of-war view that reveals extra of the map as you discover.

I’ve additionally arrange Photon, a self-hosted reverse-geocoding service that makes use of OpenStreetMap information. This interprets GPS coordinates into place names, permitting Dawarich to acknowledge the locations I’ve visited, together with shops, museums, gyms, and extra. All of this info stays on my {hardware}, fairly than being saved within the cloud.

Dawarich can do issues Google Maps Timeline cannot

Google nonetheless has the sting in some issues

Perhaps the most important distinction between Dawarich and the present iteration of Google Maps Timeline is that Dawarich presents a full internet interface. Timeline used to, however all the information now lives within the Google Maps app on your phone. It’s far simpler to look at routes and different information in a browser on a pc than on a tiny cellphone display.

Dawarich additionally offers you extra detailed entry to info; you may view particular person location factors for GPS accuracy, altitude, velocity, and extra. You get detailed statistics on distance traveled, time spent in particular areas, and journey patterns. You may import information from a number of sources, together with GPX and GeoJSON codecs, and even Google Takeout exports.

Google continues to be higher at some duties, akin to figuring out the place you stopped and the way you traveled between stops. Occasionally, Dawarich will mark one among my journeys as biking, even when I’m within the automobile.

Getting your location into Dawarich

Home Assistant works, however the app is healthier

The Dawarich server is simply half of the equation; it could possibly’t do something with out location information. Home Assistant already tracks my location and shops the knowledge domestically, and I used to be in a position so as to add this information to Dawarich, together with a number of days of historic information.

I additionally use the Dawarich app on my cellphone, which data location way more ceaselessly. During a brief journey, the app recorded 62 location factors, in comparison with simply 7 recorded by Home Assistant. This offers me way more detailed journeys, with the Home Assistant information performing as a secondary supply.

Since the Dawarich server is on my residence community, I use Tailscale to share the information remotely from my cellphone when I’m away from residence. The app can retailer the information and add it when you’re again on your property community, so Tailscale is not strictly needed, but it surely additionally lets me entry the Dawarich internet interface when I’m away.

I like being accountable for my very own information

While Google Maps Timeline has modified, previous occasions have proven that even when your information is saved in your machine, it could possibly nonetheless be misplaced. By self-hosting Dawarich, I’ve full management of my information, and with a sturdy backup system, I’m much less more likely to lose all my location historical past.