{"id":13431,"date":"2024-07-21T20:07:11","date_gmt":"2024-07-21T20:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=13431"},"modified":"2024-07-21T20:07:11","modified_gmt":"2024-07-21T20:07:11","slug":"discover-your-homes-history-with-hidden-google-maps-tool-that-lets-you-travel-back-in-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=13431","title":{"rendered":"Discover your home\u2019s history with hidden Google Maps tool that lets you travel back in time"},"content":{"rendered":"

You might discover that your house has a hidden past.<\/h2>\n

Did you know that\u00a0Google Maps<\/a>\u00a0has a secret setting that lets you go back in time?<\/p>\n

Alright, it’s maybe not a\u00a0secret<\/em>\u00a0but it is quite hard to find, and this little trick can make it really easy to take a look at what your home, or any street you like, used to look like.<\/p>\n

It all centers on Street View, a feature that Google launched years ago to let you take a look around a given location.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>\n

Avalon \/ Contributor \/ Getty<\/cite><\/div>\n

It’s been mapping out roads and streets around the world for years now – many of us know the familiar sight of a Street View car driving past with a big camera on top of it, taking up-to-date scans of the area.<\/p>\n

This is a handy navigational tool since it lets you get a sense for what streets actually look like before you set off, rather than just knowing the map layout of the area.<\/p>\n

It turns out, though, that when\u00a0Google<\/a>\u00a0updates its Street View database with new images, it doesn’t delete the old ones like you might think.<\/p>\n

Instead, it keeps them there so that you can find them to compare them with the present, and it’s actually quite easy to do.<\/p>\n

How to go back in time on Google Street View<\/strong><\/p>\n

To get a look back in time, follow these steps.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Open the Google Maps website in a web browser.<\/li>\n
  2. Search for a location or address of your choice.<\/li>\n
  3. When you’re looking at a mapped area that you chose, go to the bottom right of your screen. Drag and drop the icon of a yellow person onto the road location of your choice (so long as it’s blue, and therefore mapped).<\/li>\n
  4. Now that you’re looking at a\u00a0Street View<\/a>, look at the top-left of your display. Under the search bar, you’ll see a grey box detailing your location. At the bottom of this box, click on ‘See more dates’.<\/li>\n
  5. This will bring up a roster of older views at the bottom of your screen, that you can click through to compare.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n
    \"\"<\/div>\n

    NurPhoto \/ Contributor \/ Getty<\/cite><\/div>\n

    There you have it – you can see a historical list of views, some of them going back to the mid-2000s when\u00a0Google<\/a>\u00a0Maps really started to ramp up its activity.<\/p>\n

    It’s fascinating to scroll through, and if you live in an area that has seen a lot of construction then you could see a huge amount of\u00a0progress<\/a>, almost like a time-lapse.<\/p>\n

    Equally, on roads with historic buildings or less newbuild activity, you might find it interesting to see how little has changed down the years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    You might discover that your house has a hidden past. Did you know that\u00a0Google Maps\u00a0has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":110,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/used82.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}