I want to download some area maps on my Android phone so I can use Google Maps even if I’m completely offline. I have an upcoming road trip with some areas far offroad! How can I set this all up in advance?
You’re smart to plan ahead with your mapping; while modern smartphones do a really good job overall keeping you on the map even if you encounter pockets without a signal, it’s not perfect. Years ago I remember driving in the northeastern area of Montana and having my maps fail, leaving me guessing what direction to turn at various intersections. No surprise, I believe I drove for at least a half-hour in exactly the wrong direction before I finally found a signal and had the map updated with my location!
We live in modern times, however, so there are now ways to get around this problem. Google Maps is also smart about getting map data for within a few miles of the current location too, not just your exact point, which should make sporadic outages invisible. The Maps app on Android can also seamlessly transition between live data over the air and stored map data on the device too because while you might have stored map info, you’ll still have better results with live data that can include traffic, construction, detours, and the like.
Shortcuts: Google Maps 101 | Download Home Map | Download Regional Map
Certainly having an archive of map data for your own neighborhood is always a good idea (though it’s probably the area you know the best). Let’s start there…
GOOGLE MAPS ON ANDROID
I’m at a favorite coffee shop in Longmont, Colorado, close enough to my home that it’s in my home region for the Maps program. Here’s what’s around me:
There are lots of options to explore along the bottom, from Explore to Updates, but most people probably just use the Search box to identify locations and obtain directions from their current location to the destination specified. You can re-center yourself on the map with the circle icon with the tick marks (a stylized compass) on the right, and change the display layers with the rectangle button on the top right. For our task, however, I’m going to tap on my account profile pic icon on the rightmost edge of the search box.
It brings up a menu with a number of different options:
Notice if you want to do a map search without it being automatically added to your search history, Google Maps has an incognito mode. Handy to know. To check my offline map data archive, however, the choice is “Offline maps“. That will show what data, if any, is already on the phone and how old it is (generally it has a 12mo lifespan before it’s considered obsolete)…
Since I’m writing this in mid-November and it’s showing an expiration date of June 30, 2023 that means the archived data is already about four months out of date. But how quickly does map data really change, particularly street layout and general road information? Still, it’s easy to update it, as you’ll see in a moment.
HOW TO UPDATE YOUR HOME MAP IN GOOGLE MAPS
In fact, while I want to draw your attention to the “Select Your Own Map” link, I’m actually going to tap on the “Home” map data to update it. Once tapped, here’s what I see:
As I said, it’s easy to update the map, simply tap on “Update” and let it do its thing. You can delete this map data if needed too but they’re pretty small – my area is only 45MB – so it’s probably not going to alleviate any issues you might have with full storage. Once tapped, the new data will be downloaded and override the old…
Once it’s done, the expiration date changes as you would expect:
Ah! Notice that it’s become bigger, the dataset going from 45MB to 64MB. I guess there are more roads that showed up?
DOWNLOADING OFFLINE MAP DATA FOR ANOTHER REGION
Earlier I highlighted the “Select Your Own Map” link. Go back and tap on it this time.
Now you can tap and swipe to identify the region you desire. I’ve moved the center of my focus for this map to Denver, Colorado, and you can see that it’s an even bigger map, estimating a 90MB download. That works for me. To download, you guessed it, tap on the “Download” button. You’ll see a progress display:
More importantly, notice the “•••” buttons on the right of each stored map. That’s the easy way to delete them when you’re done, update them, or even rename them (like “Greater Denver”):
That should get you up and running with offline Google Maps through the Android app. Have fun on your road trip, comfortable in the knowledge that you should never be “off map” when you’re offline.
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