If data protection laws in the EU, US or Brazil apply to the processing of your information, you can export a copy of your Waze personal data. This includes search and drive history, activity, and more.
You might want this in order to:
- Back up your data
- Share your data with another service
How to download your personal data archive
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Sign in to waze.com/account
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Click on Download your Waze data
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Follow the instructions on the screen and click Request data archive when you're ready
- You'll get a temporary password to open your data archive when it’s ready. Make sure you write it down somewhere safe – without it, you'll need to request your data archive again.
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You should receive an email to the address associated with your Waze account. Use your temporary password to open the encrypted file within 24 hours. You may need a ZIP extractor software.
What's in the file?
Once you open the zip file, you should find your data stored in two or more CSV files:
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account_activity.csv - includes information related to your Waze activity.
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account_info.csv - shows a summary of your activity and general account information.
You will also receive a PNG file of your Waze profile picture.
Note: If you encounter character encoding issues, try to open the CSV files with a different software.
About the data in the file
After opening “account_activity.csv” you should see the data mentioned above in full detail.
For example you will see your drives history. A drive should appear in the following structure:
YYYYMMDD HH:MM:SS (Latitude; Longitude) => YYYYMMDD HH:MM:SS (Latitude; Longitude)
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YYYYMMDD HH:MM:SS refers to the date and time (GMT time zone) you started and ended the route
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Latitude; Longitude reflect the geographic coordinates from your start and end locations
Example: 20180208 18:34:00(34.111111; 32.111111) => 20180208 18:40:00(34.222222; 32.222222)
In this example, on February 8th 2018 a drive started at 6:34PM (GMT), from coordinates 34.111111; 32.111111 and ended at 6:40PM (GMT) at coordinates 34.222222; 32.222222.
Frequently asked questions
Q: How far back is my data recorded?
A: Please read more in our Privacy Policy→’How Waze retains data we collect’.
Q: I can’t read any of the words in the file. Why?
A: It’s possible that the software you’re using to view the data doesn’t support UTF-8 encoding, so your file appears in non-English letters.
Q: Why am I getting an error when trying to open the file (file won’t open)?
A: Due to the high level of encryption on the file, we recommend using a trusted software which can open encrypted zip files (such as the Unarchiver or Winzip). It’s possible that using other applications you will either produce an error or the file won’t open.
Q: The CSV files won’t open on my mobile device. Why?
A: We strongly advise opening the CSV files on a desktop since it will be much easier to read. It’s also possible your mobile device is unable to properly read CSV files and a 3rd party app may be required.
Need more help? Check out our Waze Community forum for more questions and answers about Waze app