Having the location of our mobile activated is vital at many times. GPS connectivity allows us to access a multitude of functions that would be impossible without this option. However, our location also serves Google to record a browsing history , which shows us all the sites we have passed with our mobile. Luckily for many it is an option that can be activated or deactivated with the same ease.

Location history is a Google option present in our Android mobiles. It is used to save the places we go to with each mobile in which we have registered a Google account. Whether you find it interesting and want to activate it, or if you are more suspicious of your privacy and want to deactivate the function, we are going to tell you how to do it.

What is it for

Google claims that activating location history offers several benefits to Google’s products and services , such as custom maps, site-based recommendations that have been visited, help finding the phone, real-time traffic notifications for your regular trips and personalized ads.

Activate or deactivate the function

In order to activate or deactivate the location history, we will have to go to the dedicated section for this purpose within our Google account. Once inside we can choose whether we want the account or our mobile to send the location history to Google . We will see two options to activate or deactivate: “Your account and all your devices” or “Only one device”. We will only have to check or uncheck each option.

Clear history

We may be interested in having the feature turned on, but we want to clear the location history from time to time. In this case, Google allows us to delete the location history from our mobile automatically. In this way, those places where we were more than 3 or 18 months ago will be eliminated. We can do it in two ways:

• From Google Maps : on our mobile, opening Google Maps and tapping on the circle of our account. Then click on “Your timeline” and click on “Settings and Privacy”. Now it only remains to click on “Delete location history automatically”
• From the browser: if we do not have Google Maps installed at that time, we can do the same by going to the Google Maps timeline from our browser. At the bottom right, click on “Settings” and tap on “Delete location history automatically.”