Google Takeout Statistics: What 160 Real Exports Contain
Most writing about Google Takeout describes what an export should contain. These figures describe what real exports did contain: 160 Takeout archives and 61 Google Maps Timeline files opened on TakeoutReader from October 8 to 23, 2026. The headline: Takeout has stopped carrying people's location history.
Updated October 23, 2026. One export per person. How the figures were gathered, and what they cannot tell you, is under Method.
Takeout no longer carries your Maps Timeline
Of the 160 Takeout exports, 22 had a Timeline or Location History folder in them. In 18 of those 22, the folder held a single settings file and no location history at all. Only 4 contained actual places and trips.
This is the visible effect of Google moving Timeline onto the phone in 2024. The folder is still created, so the export looks complete, but the history now lives on the device and has to be exported from the Google Maps app. People who request a Takeout expecting their Timeline mostly get a file describing their settings. Our guide on how to export Google Maps Timeline covers the route that does work.
The same confusion shows up on the Timeline side. Of the 61 Timeline files people tried to open, 9 were that settings file, the one Takeout now includes in place of the history.
Where location history does survive
42 of the 61 Timeline files held readable history. By format:
Three in four came from the phone export, the format Google introduced with the move. The older monthly files, such as 2019_JANUARY.json, still made up one in five: backups people had kept from before 2024.
For the 32 phone exports, half covered two calendar years or fewer, which fits the three-month default that auto-delete has had since 2024. The rest tell a different story: 7 of 32 covered five calendar years or more, and the longest covered 14. Those are most likely accounts where auto-delete was off when Google made the move, so their history came across to the phone. The median phone export held 1,006 trips and 228 distinct places. See how far back Google Maps Timeline goes to check your own setting.
What a Takeout export actually contains
91 of the 160 exports held at least one kind of activity history. Among those, the share that contained each kind:
YouTube history was the most common, ahead of Chrome and Gmail. Location History was the rarest, for the reason above. The ad profile, the list of interests Google infers about you, appeared in only 5%. Our guide to what Google knows about you explains each of these.
How big Takeout exports are
Size of the 160 exports, as downloaded:
Most exports are small because most people export only a few products. One in ten was over 2 GB, the size at which Google splits an export into several numbered ZIP files by default. Those are the exports that include Google Photos, Drive or a large mailbox. See Google Takeout file size for what the parts mean.
The most common mistake: opening the index page
Every Takeout export has a file called archive_browser.html at the top. It lists what the export contains, but it holds none of the data. It is also the first file people see after unzipping, so it is often the one they open, or send to a tool, as if it were their data. Of the 73 people whose export came back with nothing readable, 14 (19%) had opened that index page on its own. The data is in the product folders next to it, or in the original ZIP. Our guide to the files in a Takeout export shows what each one holds.
Method
- Source. Exports opened on TakeoutReader from October 8 to 23, 2026. Files are read in the visitor's browser and never uploaded. For each one, only counts and categories are recorded, as described in our privacy policy: which kinds of data were found, the size range, the number of calendar years in a Timeline. No file names, places, messages or contents.
- One export per person. When someone opened several, only the latest counts.
- Who is in the sample. People who looked for a way to read their export and found this site. They are not a random sample of Google users, and someone whose export confused them is more likely to be here. Read the shares as describing exports people need help with.
- Small numbers. Several figures rest on a few dozen exports, so they are given as counts as well as percentages. They will be updated as more exports are read.
Using these figures
You are welcome to quote them. Please credit TakeoutReader and link to this page:
Google Takeout Statistics, TakeoutReader, October 23, 2026. https://takeoutreader.com/google-takeout-statistics
Frequently asked questions
Does Google Takeout still include Google Maps Timeline?
Almost never for recent history. In the exports opened on TakeoutReader between October 8 to 23, 2026, 18 of the 22 that had a Timeline folder held only its settings file, with no location history. Since 2024 Google keeps Timeline on the phone, so the history has to be exported from the Google Maps app instead.
How big is a typical Google Takeout export?
Smaller than most people expect. 78% of the exports in this sample were under 50 MB. One in ten was over 2 GB, almost always because it included Google Photos, Drive or a large Gmail mailbox.
What is the most common data in a Google Takeout export?
YouTube history. It was in 41% of the exports that had any activity history in them, ahead of Chrome history and Gmail.
How far back does an exported Google Maps Timeline go?
Usually one or two calendar years. Among 32 Timeline exports from phones, half covered two calendar years or fewer. But 7 of them (22%) covered five years or more, and the longest covered 14: most likely accounts that had auto-delete turned off when Google moved Timeline to the phone.
Where does this data come from?
From the exports people opened on TakeoutReader between October 8 to 23, 2026. The files are read in the visitor's browser and never uploaded. The only facts recorded are counts and categories, such as which kinds of data an export contained, and these figures add them up across everyone. Nothing about any single export is shown.
See what your own export contains
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Written and built by Martin Ferret, one independent developer.