Your photos already remember where you’ve been.
Most phones save where each photo was taken. Photerra reads that and draws a map of the places you’ve been — the cities, countries and years your camera roll covers — free on iPhone and Android. If your Google Maps Timeline is gone, this is a different map, and you probably already have what it needs.
What happened to Google Maps Timeline
On June 9, 2025, Google stopped keeping Timeline on the web: it now lives on each phone, and after that date, Google said, only 90 days of history would be moved to a device (Yahoo Tech, December 2024). In March 2025 a technical issue deleted some people’s Timeline history for good, unless they had turned on encrypted backups (GSMArena, March 2025).
Only Google can restore Timeline data; if you had backups on, start in Google Maps’ own Timeline settings. Photerra can’t bring it back. What it can do is build a map from something you still have: your photos.
What Photerra maps from your photos
- Every place you photographed. Tap Map my photos and Photerra reads the location your camera saved with each photo, groups them into places and pins them on a map.
- Your countries, continents and years, counted from those places — including the ones from before you ever installed a travel app.
- Private by default. The map is yours alone. Your photos stay on your phone; only a coarse summary of where you’ve been syncs to your account.
- Shared only when you choose. A photo becomes public only when you post it as a spot, and only that photo, pinned about where you took it.
What it can’t do
- It isn’t a location history. Photerra knows where you took photos — not the roads between them, how long you stayed, or the places you didn’t photograph.
- It needs photos that remember where they were taken. If your camera’s location setting was off, or the photos came through a chat app or a shared album that strips location, they have no place to put on the map. That happens more often on Android phones.
- It can’t recover Timeline data, or anything else that isn’t in your photos.
Questions
Does Photerra upload my photos?
No. The scan reads the location saved with each photo on your phone. A photo is uploaded only if you choose to post it as a spot.
Is it free?
Yes, on iPhone and Android. No sponsored spots, nobody pays to rank, and we don’t sell your data.
Does it only map trips?
No — it maps everything your camera roll covers, trips and everyday places alike. The places you photograph most become the densest part of your map; here’s how to share the corners you know best.
Get Photerra, free on iPhone and Android, and tap Map my photos.