Get Google Maps Location History manually from the browser

README.md

Get Google Maps Location History manually from the browser

1. Modify startDate and endDate
2. Paste this into your browser while logged in to Google
3. Manually open each URL in the browser: it should download the KML for the day

Notes

• Google's API only returns a maximum of one day's of data

• You have to merge the resulting KML yourself

• You might want this because

  • Google Takeout is not triggering scheduled takeout exports
  • Google Takeout takes a few days after scheduling to run the export
  • Google Takeout exports JSON

  This is working as of Feb 2024. There is no guarantee this will continue working in future.

getLocationHistoryManually.js

function makeUrlForDate(year, month, day) {
  // month is 0-indexed ie, Jan = 0
  // Google only returns one day's worth of data even if more is requested
  return `https://www.google.com/maps/timeline/kml?authuser=0&pb=!1m8!1m3!1i${year}!2i${month}!3i${day}!2m3!1i${year}!2i${month}!3i${day}`;
}

var getDaysArray = function (start, end) {
  for (
    var arr = [], dt = new Date(start);
    dt <= new Date(end);
    dt.setDate(dt.getDate() + 1)
  ) {
    arr.push(new Date(dt));
  }
  return arr;
};

const startDate = new Date("2024-02-10");
const endDate = new Date("2024-02-27");

const dates = getDaysArray(startDate, endDate);
const urls = dates
  .map((date) => {
    // getMonth is 0-indexed
    return makeUrlForDate(date.getFullYear(), date.getMonth(), date.getDate());
  })
  .reduce((acc, val) => {
    return acc.concat(val);
  }, []);

console.log(urls);