A tracked loader or crawler loader is an engineering vehicle consisting of a tracked chassis with a front bucket for digging and loading material. The history of tracked loaders can be defined by three evolutions of their design. Each of these evolutions made the tracked loader a more viable and versatile tool in the excavation industry.

The first tracked loaders were built from tracked tractors with custom-built loader buckets. These early machines were cable-operated and lacked the ability to dig in hard ground. They were mostly used for moving stockpiled material and loading trucks and rail cars.

The first major design change to tracked loaders came with the integration of hydraulic systems. Using hydraulics to power the loader linkages increased the power of the loader. More importantly, the loaders could apply down pressure to the bucket, vastly increasing their ability to dig compacted ground. Most of the tracked loaders were still based on a bulldozer equivalent, with the weight of the engine on the front half of the tracks along with the heavy loader components. This caused many problems with heavy wear of the front idler wheels and the undercarriage in general. The Caterpillar 983 tracked loader, the second largest tracked loader ever built, was notorious for heavy undercarriage wear.

The hydrostatic drive system was the second major innovation to affect the design of tracked loaders. The hydrostatic transmission separates the engine from the final drives, allowing designers to rebalance the machine and spread loads more evenly across the track footprint. Tracked loaders have become sophisticated machines, using hydrostatic transmissions and electro-hydraulic controls to increase efficiency.