Some of the best features of Google’s mapping app are among the hardest to find—until you know where to look.
12 Incredibly Useful Things You Didn’t Know Google Maps Could Do
Google Maps is great for just getting around. But don’t be fooled: The app is much more than a glorified Garmin. Maps has all sorts of powerful features and time-saving shortcuts that aren’t obvious, but are just waiting to be discovered. So grab your compass and get ready: It’s time to explore some of its most useful off-the-beaten-path options.
1. GO COMPLETELY HANDS-FREE
We’ve all been guilty of glancing down at our devices while driving—to look ahead at the next turn, perhaps, or see how long is left in a commute. If you have an Android phone, there’s a better way: Google Maps has a whole series of helpful voice commands that’ll work whenever you’re actively navigating.
Just say “Okay, Google” and then try variations on these examples:
“What road is this?”
“What’s my next turn?”
“What’s my ETA?”
“How’s traffic ahead?”
“How’s traffic to work?”
“Avoid tolls”
“Avoid highways”
“Find gas stations”
“Find restaurants”
“Navigate home”
“Take me to McDonald’s”
“What’s the closest hotel?”
“Exit navigation”
You can also instruct your phone to make calls, send texts, play music, or look for your next appointment—all without ever taking your eyes off the road.
2. REMEMBER WHERE YOU PARKED
Open up Maps on your iPhone or Android phone and tap the little blue dot that represents your current location. That’ll pull up a hidden menu with some handy options—including the ability to save your current parking location. You can add in your own supplementary notes or photos and even set a timer to remind you when it’s time to move your car.
When you’re ready to get back to your spot, look for the saved parking notification on your phone or just open up Maps and tap the “Parking location” card at the bottom of the screen.
3. SHARE YOUR LOCATION, EVEN AS YOU MOVE
Need someone to find you—or maybe just know where you are? Take a look at Maps’ simple system for real-time location sharing.
To try it, open up Maps on your phone and tap the blue dot, just like in the previous tip, but this time, select, “Share your location.” You’ll be able to set an end time for the location sharing or opt to keep it active until you manually turn it off. You can then select any of your contacts to share with or get a private web link to paste wherever you want.
You can also access the sharing function while in the midst of a Maps navigation by swiping up from the white bar at the bottom of the screen and then selecting “Share trip progress.” That’ll share your location with whomever you choose until you reach your set destination.
In either scenario, anyone who opens the link will see an icon showing your current position on a map as you move—within the Maps app if they have it, or in a regular browser window if they don’t. You’ll see an indicator at the bottom of Maps letting you know location sharing is active, and you can always stop the sharing by tapping that box.
4. SEARCH ALONG YOUR ROUTE WHILE NAVIGATING
That swipe-up-while-navigating menu mentioned in the previous tip has one other useful gem: an option to search along your current route.
Activating it will give you one-tap buttons for finding gas stations, restaurants, grocery stores, or coffee shops along your way from point A to point B. You can also type in your own custom search term—if, say, you want to see every Starbucks or Taco Bell that’s on your present path.
5. FIND OUT WHAT’S NEAR ANYTHING
A similar sort of search is available in Maps, even when you aren’t navigating. Any time you want to find specific types of places near your current location or any other spot, tap the search bar at the top of the mobile app and try variations on these queries:
“Restaurants near here”
“Pharmacies near Figueroa and 1st Street”
“Vegetarian restaurants near me”
“Bookstores near UCLA”
“Gas stations near the airport”
“Things to do near the Florida Theatre”
You can also browse to see what’s near your current location by opening Maps on your phone, and then scrolling and swiping through the Explore tab at the bottom of the screen.
6. EXPLORE AT EYE LEVEL
Street View is one of Maps’ coolest features, but you’d probably never even realize it existed if you didn’t know where to look.
First, on your phone, search within Maps for any location—like Times Square, for instance. (You can also touch and hold your finger to any spot on a map to select a specific point of reference.) Next, tap the image of the location that appears in the lower-left corner of your screen.
Now, for the really neat part, tap the compass icon in the app’s upper-right corner. Hold your phone up and move it around, and the view will shift to match the actual direction you’re facing at any given moment. It’ll be like you’re standing on the map and looking around.
7. GO BACK IN TIME
Fire up the flux capacitor, Doc, ’cause we’re about to do some serious time traveling. Google Maps has a little-known feature that lets you look at the Street View for any area as it existed at various points in the past.
This one only works from the desktop site, so open up Maps on your computer and pick a place. See that little yellow guy in the lower-right corner—known to his friends as Pegman? Drag him up with your mouse and drop him wherever you want to go. Then look for the clock icon in the gray box at the top-left of the screen.
Tap that, and you’ll be able to drag a slider back through time to see 360-degree views from previous years. The feature isn’t available for every possible place, but it’s pretty widespread—and a lot of locations have a full decade’s worth of data.
8. BEAM A MAP DIRECTLY TO YOUR PHONE OR CAR
Speaking of Maps on the web, the next time you’re looking up directions on your desktop, save yourself a step and beam them directly to your vehicle or mobile device.
All you need to do is click an inconspicuous option that appears whenever you search for a place or pull up directions. It’ll be in the box on the left side of the screen—either as an icon beneath the place’s name or address, if you’re looking at a regular map, or as a plain-text link immediately above the route options, if you’ve already pulled up directions. (If you’ve clicked through to a specific route, it’ll be an unlabeled icon immediately to the right of the travel time estimate. And yes, there’s some irony in the fact that you practically need a map to find this feature.)
Click whichever version appears, and you’ll see a list of devices that are connected to your Google account. Android devices should show up automatically, while iPhones will require you to first install and sign into the Maps app and then enable notifications within the app’s settings. For a car, you’ll have to manually add your vehicle on Google’s Send to Car site, provided you have a compatible make and model.
Whichever way you go, the Maps info will show up as a notification on your dashboard or device seconds after you send it over from your desktop.
9. SEE TIME-SPECIFIC TRAFFIC ESTIMATIONS
You can find out how long a drive is likely to take at any given time with Maps’ intelligent traffic estimation tool. Just search for a location in Maps’ desktop version, then click the “Directions” button and put in whatever starting point you want.
At the bottom of the same box where you typed the address, you’ll see a line that says “Leave now.” Click the downward-facing arrow next to that, then select either “Depart at” or “Arrive by” to view the probable traffic conditions and estimated trip total for any specific day and time.
10. ADD EXTRA DESTINATIONS INTO YOUR DIRECTIONS
Not every trek is a two-stop adventure—and while it isn’t exactly front and center, Maps has a feature that lets you add multiple stops into any navigation.
From your phone, start by searching for your first destination. Tap the “Directions” button, then type in your starting point. See the little three-dot menu icon to the right of that same field? Tap it, then select “Add stop” from the menu that appears. You’ll then get a third field in which you can enter another destination—and when you fill that one in, the option for a fourth destination will appear. You can even drag and drop the destinations to reorder them as needed.
The feature’s a little more prominent when using Maps on a computer: After firing up directions to a specific destination, you’ll see a small plus sign with the text “Add destination” alongside it. You can tap that to add as many extra stops as needed into your trip, and you can drag and drop destinations with your mouse to change their order.
