Google Maps tips and tricks: 22 things to try next time you drive
Google Maps is a fantastic tool, but there's an awful lot more to the service than just finding your way around. Whether you're looking the best way of life to get abode subsequently work, determination a good restaurant to grab some mooch, or working kayoed when it's the best time to go to the supermarket, Google Maps has your hinder.
But with much on offer, it's easily to miss some of the in truth useful features. Some of them bequeath even be capable to ease whatsoever of the common holiday emphasize if you need them. So here are 22 of the best Google Maps tips to judge out.
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Notic the closest COVID vaccination and testing site
If you still harbour't managed to get a COVID-19 vaccine, or you have symptoms and need a test, Google Maps can show you exactly where you need to go. Just search for "covid vaccine" or "covid test" plus your location, and Google Maps will highlight related muscae volitantes in your vicinity.
Results for some bequeath bear witness you whether you need an appointment or a referral, which patients are really eligible to show up, and even if there's a drive-thru option.
Curbside food market pickup support
The epidemic means curbside pickup is now more prevalent than ever before, and Google Maps has added features to assistanc you take advantage of that where information technology's available.
Curbside pickup information has been rolling tabu on Maps' business profiles, and includes all you pauperism to know most minimum orders, delivery windows, and other fees that are involved. Maps buns also tell you when it's time to leave, and forwards your ETA to the store so your order is prepared as presently as you arrive.
Initially closed to Fred Meyers' stores in Portland, Oregon, Google is now trilled out the boast elsewhere. It's not forthcoming at Kroger family stores, including Kroger, Fry's, Ralphs and Marianos in all over 2,000 locations across 30 different states
Total music to your ram down
If you're using Google Maps while driving, you give the axe sync information technology with YouTube Music, Spotify and (on iOS) Apple Music, and so you john control your tunes from inside the Maps app itself.
Just head to the settings menu and score "piloting controls." iOS users will then have to hit "Music playback controls" while Android users will see "Show Media playback controls."
Switch that on and a pop-upwards menu will come out with a list of compatible apps you stimulate installed. Be the setup instructions to join your accounts. All clock you go for a drive you'll see a balloon at the side of the screen that gives you access to those controls.
Go incognito
If you ask to go remove the grid, or at to the lowest degree don't lack Google Maps memory where you've been, make sure to put yourself in Incognito Mode earlier you actuate. That way, atomic number 102 record of your journey will be kept in the Maps app.
Simply tap your profile picture in the overstep reactionist corner of the screen, hit Concealed Mode, and you're good to go. Should you ever need Google Maps to outset keeping tabs again, you lavatory switch it off by doing the same steps and hitting "Put off Incognito Mode."
Measure distance
Google Maps testament always tell you how long a specific route is, simply you can too game out your own custom routes and ascertain exactly how far you're going to go. It's pretty well-fixed too, regardless of whether you use desktop or mobile.
On desktop, to perfection-click on a dapple and click "Cadence distance" to set your start point. Every time you click in subsequent locations, Google testament plot a heterosexual line and tell you how far that length is. The total is displayed at the bottom of your screen.
Mobile works in kind, exclude starting sour requires you to tap and hold to drop a pin on the screen. From there you swipe up to bring together up the relevant menu, and extra spots can atomic number 4 added using the '+' clitoris. Transferable users will also simply represent able to see the total distance, and not individual distances between two points.
Customize your vehicle
You don't stimulate to personify stuck with the default blue arrow. Same (but not as squeamish) as Waze, Google Maps will let you change it to one of three vehicles: a red car, green getaway hand truck, or a yellow SUV. Simply set yourself up with a route to navigate and tap the arrow (operating room acid) that represents you. Nice and easy.
Time travel
Desktop users don't take over to swallow the current, most finished to date Street View imagery. They give the axe 'time travel' as we say, and sound out what a particular location looked like at unusual points in time. Beaver State for as long as Google has been collecting Street View data, anyway.
Simply drag the little unhealthy figure from the freighter right corner to enter Street Reckon, and in the top unexpended you'll see a black box with a drop down menu future to a little clock. Clicking IT brings upbound a gyre bar that lets you go around back and see exactly how an area looked happening previous Google Van visits.
Go manpower-free with Google Assistant
Google maps obviously has bad close ties with Google Adjunct, which can be invaluable while you're driving. So don't forget almost anything Maps can arrange is available hands-free with a simple "Hey Google" command. At least information technology is on Humanoid.
iOS users wish have to go through an supererogatory step, which involves tapping the microphone in the crown just corner of the screen. This also whole kit and caboodle for Humanoid users who don't have Assistant switched on.
So whether IT's asking Google to find you a gas base, tell you when your next bend is, or control your medicine playback, information technology can all be done without taking your attention forth the itinerant.
Advanced one-handed gestures
You don't need two free hands to savour some of Google Maps' many gesticulate controls. In fact information technology's been designed to let you make it unrivaled-handed, patc your other reach is unbroken on the pedal. Those gestures let in:
Zooming in aside double tapping and holding your fingerbreadth against the test. You can and so zoom in and come out by swiping up and down.
Change correspondenc orientation is some other with child one, which involves pressing your finger and leaf against the screen and spinning them in a circular motion.
Change perspective by swiping 2 fingers along the test. Swiping dormy offers a boo's-eye view of the expanse, spell swiping down takes you back to the traditional top-down perspective.
Deflect crowds
No uncomparable likes a crowd, and Google Maps can help you avoid them when you'rhenium proscribed running errands. Find a fix, whatsoever location, in Google Maps and it will Tell you the best and worst multiplication to travel to. It even shows you roughly how interfering it is at that exact point in sentence.
Google is also set to expand this feature closer to the holidays, letting you escort how busy any circumstantial area or neighbourhood is from the map sieve.
This feature applies to market stores, restaurants, parking lots, and even some parks and outdoor spaces. Google will even commemorate where your car is if you press the blue dot and run into Keep open your parking (Android) operating theater Set as parking placement (iOS).
Get word AR Live View walking directions
It's non easy navigating from a top-down perspective, specially in a strange locate. Thankfully, Google Maps has an augmented reality feature that overlays direction arrows on top of the world around you.
There are some caveats to this feature. The original is that your phone needs to support Apple ARKit operating theatre Google ARCore, and the second is that there needs to live good Street View coverage. No Street View means no AR, unfortunately.
But to get AR navigation simply effect a path to your intended location, and hit the Live View button at the bottom of the screen. Hit Start connected the pop-up message and so let Google Maps scan the area just about you. Once IT's figured verboten where you are, those directions will ostentation up on blind.
Google Maps also recently launched Interior Live View, designed to help you go around complicated buildings like shopping malls, train stations, airports, and so on. It's currently sole available in select malls in parts of the U.S., and passage stations in parts of Nippon, but Google is planning a wider rollout as metre goes along.
Get real-time transit data
Google Maps isn't just for driving. It's invaluable for anyone relying on public transportation to get around. In fact it smooth offers real-time updates on trains and busses, visible once you opt for the Public transit option when acquiring directions.
You can even ask Google Assistant for that information, so you don't need to load dormy your phone to lick if you should be running to the platform or stop.
Google Maps likewise features a bunch of entropy about transit stations, such as handicap accessibility, temperature of train cars, and whether there's any security department on site.
Plan your commute
Checking your directions is only one part of planning a trip forwards of time. You also call for to know what the dealings is potential to be like after you go away. So be certainly to limit your departure and arrival windows.
First, search for your intentional position and hit Get directions. Once the route preview comes up, slay the three Transportation menu in the summit right corner and choose Set depart operating theater arrive time. Google will then use its huge swaths of data and knowledge of the itinerant conditions to estimate what the road will be like when you want to depart.
Navigation isn't always well-nig going from A to B. Sometimes you make to strike onto signal C and D American Samoa well. Luckily Google Maps give the axe accommodate your inevitably, aside letting you total to nine spare stops to your journey.
Load leading your seafaring prevue again and hit the three dotted menu in the top right box. Then select Sum up plosive speech sound, which flashes up an extra destination relegate to find where you need to go. Those extra Chicago can also be rearranged aside pressing and holding the two crosswise lines happening the right incline of each bar.
At that place's no need to text your friends liberal them your ETA, because in that location's a better mode — especially if you're the unity behind the wheel. Google Maps lets you share your trip progress, so they can check in and determine where you are. That also makes it a usable protection tool in certain situations.
Simply open up maps and start your navigation, then swipe up from the bottom toolbar and quality Share trip build. Pick the contact or app you want to send your progress to and the recipient volition get along a link that lets them track you in real time. To stop sharing follow the same steps, simply this time press Stop sharing. Google Maps will automatically terminate the sharing once you arrive at your destination as cured.
Download maps for offline directions
Cellphone service isn't always accordant, and that buns manoeuvre havoc with your seafaring if you haven't contrived ahead. As luck would have it Google has accounted for these eventualities, rental you download portions of the mapping for offline use.
Mind into Google Maps and press your avatar along the helpful lateral of the search bar to open high the menu. Choose Offline Maps and go down the blue bar to the country you want to save and collide with Download. You hind end scroll the map around or zoom in and out, but remember that the larger the region you save, the more warehousing distance it testament scoop out.
Find new places and save them for later
Google Maps is too an invaluable tool around to find things in your local country. That's exceptionally useful if you are in a freaky place, or linear want to see what other is out there.
You can search for what's more or less you, or you can use the dedicated hot keys Google has below the search bar. The almost common requests comparable gas stations and restaurants are front and middle, but if you scroll all the way to the end you can see a ample list of businesses and amenities you can hunt down at the push of a button.
And if there are some you like, or require to run down again later, be sure to hit the Save option to bookmark that location to nonpareil of the custom lists Google Maps lets you produce and share.
See where you've been
If you're terrible at remembering where you've been, you're in luck, because Google Maps will do that for you as part of the 'Your timeline' feature.
Hit your avatar in the transcend right, at the end of the search bar and knock the Your Timeline choice most halfway dispirited the menu. This will tell you where you've been throughout each mean solar day. Information technology's all recorded automatically, but you can also add your own notes where necessary.
And, if you'd rather Google Maps didn't keep tabs along where you've been and when you were there, this characteristic privy be turned off in the settings menu. Open the setting menu and pick Personal content. From in that location, select Location History and make a point IT's switched unsatisfactory. You may also wish to toggle cancelled Timeline emails so Google doesn't fill your inbox with a list of places you've been.
Get indoor directions
Google Maps doesn't fitting offer outdoorsy directions; it's easy sure enough indoor locations too — including museums and sports arenas. Any of them even support maps for different floors, so you're far to a lesser extent likely to get deep in thought.
The maps smooth highlight central interior landmarks, like ARM machines, information desks, and bathrooms.
Book hotels, restaurant reservations, exercise classes and more
You fundament find pretty much any job inside Google Maps, and you don't deliver to leave to make a reservation at nonpareil. Google partnered with a crowd of third-political party services much as Experia, Booking.com, and OpenTable, all to let you place a reservation on that point and then. Just find a business and load up the business profile to get IT done.
Android users using Google Pay will also be able-bodied to bear from Google Map, and the app itself will also add your plans to Google Calendar if you use it.
Check brave and air quality
Google Maps has plenty if different layers for see real-time information in any given area. Two of the virtually useful ones cover weather condition and air quality. That way you'll be able to see flow and forecasted weather for other localisation, besides as how good the local air is at any given time.
Melodic line quality is presently restricted to the U.S., India, and Australia, simply the weather layer is presently rolling unconscious oecumenical. Simply hit the clitoris connected the right position of the screen exhibit a squarish with a triangular line underneath to boot the menu.
Opt more eco-friendly driving options
Whether you deeply care about the environment, Oregon just want to make every ounce of natural gas last atomic number 3 long as possible, Google Maps keister help you with more eco-friendly routes.
The idea Hera is that Google Maps will avoid the quickest or shortest routes, and as an alternative send you down the one that uses the least fuel. Because all those stop signs, dealings lights, and strange obstacles all work to reduce fire economy. Drivers in some regions will too get alerts if they're heading to a ground-hugging emission zone.
This feature is enabled by default, though users can prefer call at the settings menu if they choose.
- More: Google Maps vs Apple Maps: Which mapping app is top for iPhone users?
Kate Kozuch is a senior writer at Tom's Lead covering wearables, TVs and everything smart-home similar. When she's not in bionic woman mode, you can find her on an exercycle or channeling her inner celebrity chef. She and her robot army will dominion the world one day, but until then, reach her at kate.kozuch@futurenet.com.
Google Maps tips and tricks: 22 things to try next time you drive
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/how-to-use-google-maps
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