{"id":593621,"date":"2026-08-23T15:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T15:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/593621\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T15:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T15:44:14","slug":"i-turned-off-location-history-on-my-android-it-freed-6gb-of-wasted-storage-and-stopped-googles-tracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/593621\/","title":{"rendered":"I turned off location history on my Android \u2014 it freed 6GB of wasted storage and stopped Google’s tracking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYour storage is full<\/a>\u201d is one of the scariest pop-ups you can see on your phone. I got hit with it on my Android a few days ago, and my first thought was, not again. I really didn\u2019t want to go through my gallery and start deleting photos and videos to free up a few gigabytes.<\/p>\n

So, instead of immediately sacrificing my camera roll, I decided to figure out what was actually taking up all that space. I checked my storage, reviewed my apps, and poked around a few settings. That\u2019s when I stumbled upon one setting that had apparently been turned on for a very long time without me realizing it. And it had eaten through 5.7GB of storage on my phone. Nearly 6GB, just sitting there because of a setting I didn\u2019t even remember switching on.<\/p>\n


\n \"Person<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\tI got back 22GB on my Samsung phone without deleting anything important
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

The storage fix that Samsung doesn\u2019t advertise.<\/p>\n

My phone knew everywhere I’d been<\/p>\n

I don’t really need my phone to remember everything<\/p>\n

\"Timeline
\n Shimul Sood \/ MakeUseOf<\/p>\n

The feature responsible for all of this is Location History<\/a>, which Google now calls Timeline. It\u2019s an Android setting that creates a personal map of the places you visit and the routes you take. When it\u2019s enabled, your phone regularly saves precise location information, essentially building a record of where you\u2019ve been over time.<\/p>\n

The strange part is that I have absolutely no memory of turning it on. Yet, when I opened Timeline, there it was: a surprisingly detailed history of the places I\u2019d visited for the past two years. Trips I\u2019d taken, routes I\u2019d followed, and random spots I\u2019d stopped at were all sitting there. And because Timeline data is now stored directly on your device, that history had slowly grown into the 5.7GB chunk of storage I discovered earlier.<\/p>\n

I can understand the appeal \u2014 Timeline is almost like a little digital travel diary. Maybe you want to remember the name of that caf\u00e9 you stumbled across months ago, retrace a road trip, or figure out exactly where you went on a particular day. Google can also use this information to make things such as place recommendations more useful.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/p>\n

The problem is that I don\u2019t use it that way. If I discover a great caf\u00e9, restaurant, or hidden spot, I\u2019ve probably already saved it somewhere, taken photos there, or found it through social media in the first place. I don\u2019t really need my phone to maintain a diary of every place I visit just in case I want to revisit that history someday.<\/p>\n

Once I realized how much space Timeline was taking up, keeping it around made even less sense to me. There\u2019s also the privacy side of it. I\u2019m quite conscious of my privacy<\/a> and how much information I share, so seeing such a detailed record of my movements sitting on my phone made me uncomfortable. Hence, turning Timeline off was an easy decision for me \u2014 I got that space back and stopped building a location history I didn\u2019t need.<\/p>\n

A few taps gave me my storage back<\/p>\n

Your storage will thank you<\/p>\n

\"Location
\n Shimul Sood \/ MakeUseOf<\/p>\n

There are actually a couple of ways to check whether Timeline is turned on your Android phone. I found my way there through Google Maps<\/a>, and since that\u2019s also where you can see all those previously visited places, I found this route pretty straightforward. Here\u2019s how I did it:<\/p>\n

Open the Google Maps app on your Android phone.<\/p>\n

Tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner.<\/p>\n

Under More from this app, tap Your Timeline.<\/p>\n

Tap the three-dot menu in the upper-right corner.<\/p>\n

Select Location & privacy settings.<\/p>\n

Scroll to Timeline and select the Google account you want to manage.<\/p>\n

Tap Turn off, then choose Turn off and delete activity if you also want to remove your existing Timeline history.<\/p>\n

That last part is important. Simply turning Timeline off stops it from continuing to build your location history, while choosing Turn off and delete activity also removes the Timeline data you\u2019ve already accumulated.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t necessarily have to take the Google Maps route, either. On Android, you can also look for the relevant location controls through your phone\u2019s Settings app. And if you actually like having a record of everywhere you\u2019ve been but don\u2019t want to keep all that data sitting there, you can export your Timeline data before deleting it. For me, though, there wasn\u2019t much worth saving. I wanted the storage back far more than I wanted a years-long map of everywhere I\u2019d been.<\/p>\n


\n \"Google<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\tI had no idea how much Google Maps was tracking me until I found these settings
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Create a boundary and protect your data<\/p>\n

Well, hello there, 6GB<\/p>\n

Turning off just this one setting gave me back almost 6GB of storage<\/a>, and I could see the difference immediately in the Storage section of my phone\u2019s Settings app. If you decide to turn Timeline off, I\u2019d recommend checking there afterward, too, to see how much space you\u2019ve actually reclaimed.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m constantly digging through my phone, looking for settings and features that can free up space or make it nicer to use<\/a>. This was definitely one of the more surprising finds. And if your Android phone is also constantly complaining about running out of storage, it might be worth checking Timeline before you start saying goodbye to another batch of something that you dearly want on your phone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cYour storage is full\u201d is one of the scariest pop-ups you can see on your phone. I got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[85,46,125],"class_list":["post-593621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}