# Mileage Logs: Using Google Maps Timeline as a Backup



## ubercrashdummy

_*I've noticed lately that some new drivers have not been keeping mileage logs. If you have an Android phone, you may have something to fall back on besides Uber's online mileage*._

My first two years of driving, I took photos of my odometer. Once tax time rolled around, I then would input the data from the pictures on a spreadsheet and that served as my mileage log.

Despite procrastinating and compiling my logs in one sitting only once a year, I wanted to spend even less effort and time. After some research, I tried MileIQ. This was a mistake cause now I had to swipe all my rides left or right and eventually I stopped keeping up with this daily.

Tax time arrived this year and I finally sat down with my Uber account and my MileIQ app to begin swiping all my Uber rides. Then to my horror, I discovered that the app had stopped properly recording trips. MileIQ had discovered the issue and had a fix but I must have missed the email. In any case, I was screwed.

After much rage, I remember seeing that Google had been collecting my GPS data. I had thought it was a bit creepy and had read about the ability to purge that data but thankfully I never did.

I discovered all the driving data was accessible through the Google Maps under "Your Timeline". There was even an option to classify driving as "In a Taxi" and I didn't have to classify each individual trip like I had on MileIQ. Google bundles trips taken close togather allowing for bulk clasification although the individual trip data is still available.

Once I tagged my Uber rides as "In a Taxi", the daily summary would show total mileage while in a taxi. Unfortunately, there is no yearly summary but I was once again able to compile a mileage log using the daily summaries.

So this year creepy Google saved me from the pitfalls of my habitual procrastination.

I have been recording my odometer readings for the past month and comparing those totals with the Google Maps Timeline data. Occasionally the data is spot on, however there is normally some loss in total mileage. The good news is that the Google mileage is still within 2% of the odometer readings. It's not perfect but it is a pretty solid backup.


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## Uberx24

I had the same issue I was doing it manually since I don't trust any of those mile tracking apps! But the last 2 months of last year I stop keeping track, thankfully I discover that google timeline keeps accurate track of all miles driven. For me I find it pretty easy to write everything down since I was driving uber fulltime, but for other drivers who had other jobs or did a lot of driving, it might be difficult separating their Rideshare miles from their personal.


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## CJSommie

Uberx24 said:


> I had the same issue I was doing it manually since I don't trust any of those mile tracking apps! But the last 2 months of last year I stop keeping track, thankfully I discover that google timeline keeps accurate track of all miles driven. For me I find it pretty easy to write everything down since I was driving uber fulltime, but for other drivers who had other jobs or did a lot of driving, it might be difficult separating their Rideshare miles from their personal.


It's a bit time consuming, but it is possible to figure out your exact mileage even if you had 2 jobs, or just completely lost track of mile logging. Just print out your trip reports from Uber / Lyft and compare those to your Google Timeline history. I had to do it for two months worth of tracking because I thought the apps themselves were keeping track of all the "online" miles when I first started...
Anyway - an example of what I'm talking about: Say you look up your JAN 15 - 21 statements, and you open JAN 18th to see how many rides / how much money ect. My first ride for that date was 12:30 AM so I look at my Google Timeline information and see were it has me for 12:30 AM and just start putting it together from there. It worked for me to recover 100s of miles I neglected to log for 2 months almost a month after I even gave those rides.
Hope this helps.


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