Google Maps Tips and Features You Might Not Be Using

Google Maps does much more than give directions. These useful features — street view, saved places, restaurant details, and more — make it even more valuable.

In this guide (5 steps):

1.Save places you visit frequently
2.Preview a place with Street View
3.Find restaurant and business hours
4.Share your live location with family
5.Download maps for offline use

Save places you visit frequently

~27s

Search for a location in Google Maps. Tap on it to open the details panel. Tap the bookmark icon (looks like a ribbon) to save it. Choose a list: "Favorites," "Want to go," or "Starred places." Saved places appear with a star on the map and are quickly accessible from your home screen in the app.

Quick Tip

Quick Tip: Save your doctor's office, pharmacy, library, and any places you visit regularly. When you open Maps, these appear right away — no retyping needed.

Preview a place with Street View

~24s

Before visiting somewhere you've never been, you can see exactly what the building and street look like. Search for the address, tap on the place, then scroll the bottom panel and tap the street-level photo at the bottom. Or drag the orange person icon (on the bottom right of the map) to a street to enter Street View. Use this to find an unfamiliar entrance or parking lot before you arrive.

Find restaurant and business hours

~16s

Tap any restaurant or business on the map. The details panel shows current hours, phone number, website, and whether it's busy right now (the busyness graph). You can call directly from Maps by tapping the phone icon — no need to look up the number separately.

Share your live location with family

~20s

Tap your profile picture in Google Maps > "Location sharing." Tap "New share" and choose a contact and how long to share (one hour, until you turn it off, etc.). They'll see a link showing your real-time location on their Google Maps. Great for letting family know you've arrived safely or tracking each other in a new city.

Download maps for offline use

~17s

If you're traveling to an area with poor cell signal, download the map beforehand. Search for a city or region, tap the name at the top of the screen, scroll down to "Download offline map," adjust the area, and tap "Download." The map works without internet for 30 days.

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Most people know how to use Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions — type a destination and go. But Google Maps has many features beyond basic navigation that can make your daily life easier: saving favorite places, exploring street views before visiting somewhere, checking restaurant hours and reviews, sharing your live location with family, and filtering search results.

This guide highlights the most useful lesser-known features. None of them require any setup — they're available to anyone with the Google Maps app on their phone.

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