Import Your Old Travel History from Google Maps Timeline

You downloaded Settld and entered your visa dates. The app shows your ILR eligibility countdown. You know the 180-day rule and how the rolling 12-month window works. But then you look at the empty travel log and realise: you have three years of trips to reconstruct. Flights to visit family. Conferences in Europe. That road trip through France and Spain. A friend's wedding in India. Do you dig through passport stamps? Scroll through years of email confirmations? Cross-reference bank statements?

Until now, the answer was yes. Manually entering every trip you have taken since your visa grant date was the only way to build an accurate absence record in Settld. It works — but for someone two or three years into their qualifying period, it could mean twenty, thirty, even fifty entries to track down and type in.

That changes today. Settld now supports importing your travel history directly from your Google Maps Timeline export. One file, processed entirely on your device, turns years of location data into a complete trip log — with every country identified, every absence day calculated, and every rolling window checked.

The cold start problem

If you are new to Settld, you probably discovered the app the same way most people do: a post on r/ukvisa, a recommendation from a friend, or a late-night search about the 180-day rule. By that point, you may already be years into your five-year qualifying period.

The app has always let you enter trips manually. For someone starting fresh with a new visa, that is fine — you log each trip as it happens. But for someone with existing history, the cold start problem is real. Reconstructing two or three years of travel from memory is unreliable. You will forget the short trips. You will second-guess the dates. And the one trip you forget could be the one that pushes a rolling window over 180 days.

Google Maps Timeline changes this. If you have had location history enabled on your phone — and most Android users do, as do many iPhone users who use Google Maps for navigation — Google has been quietly building a record of everywhere you have been. Not forever, and not perfectly, but for many users the coverage is remarkably complete.

Now you can put that data to work.

How it works

The import process takes about two minutes. Here is what happens.

Step 1: Export your Timeline from Google Maps

On Android, open Settings, go to Location, then Location Services, then Timeline. Tap "Export Timeline Data."

On iOS, open the Google Maps app, tap your profile icon, go to Your Timeline, then tap the menu and select Settings and privacy. Tap "Export Timeline Data."

This produces a JSON file containing your location history. The file stays on your device — nothing is uploaded to any server.

Step 2: Import the file into Settld

In the Travel tab of Settld, you will see an "Import from Google Maps" card at the bottom of your trip list. Tap it, select the JSON file you just exported, and the app does the rest.

Step 3: Review your imported trips

The app processes the file and shows you a summary: how many trips were detected, how many were successfully imported, and how many were skipped because they overlapped with entries you had already added manually.

Each imported trip includes the destination country, departure date, return date, and the calculated whole-day absence counts.

How the app detects your trips

For every calendar date in your Timeline data, Settld finds the location record closest to midnight (local time) and checks whether that point falls inside or outside the United Kingdom. It uses real geographic boundary data — detailed country polygons — to determine which country you were in, not just rough GPS coordinates. This midnight-check method is how the app determines which days were spent outside the UK.

The UK definition matches the ILR rules exactly: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, and all British Overseas Territories are correctly identified as outside the UK — see our Crown Dependencies explainer for why this matters.

Per-country trip splitting

If you spent three nights in France, then drove to Germany for two more nights without returning to the UK, the app creates two separate trip entries — one for France and one for Germany. Each country gets its own entry in your travel log, with the correct dates and absence day counts.

This matters because your ILR application may require a detailed breakdown of destinations. Having each country logged separately is more useful than a single "Europe trip" entry.

Smart overlap detection

If you have already entered some trips manually, the import will not create duplicates. The app checks every proposed trip against your existing entries. If an imported trip overlaps with something you have already logged, it is skipped and reported in the summary. You never have to worry about double-counting.

Privacy: everything stays on your device

This is worth stating clearly, because your location history is sensitive data.

• The JSON file is processed entirely on your device. Nothing is uploaded to any server.
• Raw GPS coordinates are never stored. The app uses them momentarily to determine which country you were in, then discards them.
• The only data saved to your travel log is what any manually entered trip would contain: departure date, return date, destination country, and absence day count.
• The import card disappears after use. It is a one-time operation, tracked locally on your device.

This is consistent with how Settld handles all location data. The app's automated presence detection — which checks whether you are currently in the UK — works the same way: raw coordinates are used transiently and then discarded. Only the result ("in UK" or "absent") is ever stored.

A worked example

Meera received her Skilled Worker visa in June 2022. She discovered Settld in early 2026 — nearly four years into her qualifying period. She had taken roughly 15 trips outside the UK: visits to family in India, holidays in Europe, a work conference in Dubai.

Manually entering all 15 trips would have taken her 30 to 45 minutes of digging through emails, passport stamps, and calendar entries. Instead, she exported her Google Maps Timeline and imported it into Settld.

The import detected 14 trips. One short trip to Dublin (a weekend in Ireland that she had taken before enabling Google Maps location history) was missing — she added that manually in about 30 seconds. Two trips overlapped with entries she had already logged, so they were skipped.

Total time: under five minutes. Her travel log was complete, her rolling windows were calculated, and she could see her compliance position at a glance.

What this feature does not do

It is important to be clear about the limitations.

• It only imports data that exists in your Google Maps Timeline export. If you had location history disabled, or if you use Apple Maps exclusively on iOS, the file may be empty or incomplete.
• It is not a substitute for accurate record-keeping. If Google's data is wrong — it sometimes is — the imported trips will reflect that inaccuracy. You should review imported entries and correct any that look off.
• It is a one-time import. After you complete the import, the card disappears. If you need to add trips later, use manual entry or the automated presence detection feature.
• It does not guarantee ILR compliance on its own. It gives you accurate data. What you do with that data — how you plan your remaining travel, when you submit your application — is still your responsibility.

Free for all users

The Google Maps Timeline import is a free feature. It is not gated behind the Premium subscription. Every Settld user — on both iOS and Android — can import their Timeline data at no cost.

The Premium tier remains focused on what it has always offered: encrypted cloud backup for your travel history. If you lose your device or uninstall the app, Premium ensures your five-year record can be restored.

Get started

If you are mid-way through your qualifying period and dreading the manual entry process, this feature was built for you. Export your Google Maps Timeline, import it into Settld, and see exactly where you stand — in minutes, not hours.

The Google Maps Timeline import feature processes data from Google's on-device location history export. Google and Google Maps are trademarks of Google LLC. Settld is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. The rules described in this post reflect ILR requirements for Skilled Worker visa holders under the continuous residence requirement. Individual circumstances vary. For advice on complex travel histories or ILR eligibility questions, consult a registered immigration adviser.