5 FANTASTIC Google Maps Features You Want To Know About 

I take google vacations and use street view to travel in different countries. :-) I was in Venice Italy and I stumbled upon the fact that while in street view you can actually get on the gondolas. How cool is that?!?!

The historical street view feature is really useful when considering buying real estate. It gives you an opportunity to gauge if the neighborhood appears to be getting better or getting worse as time progresses.

When measuring your roof, you need to compensate for the "pitch" of the roof. You can google the "pitch" and then use it as a multiplyer which will give you the amout of "squares" to buy or see what the roofing contractor is telling you. A 12/12 pitch requires more squares than a 5/12 pitch.

One little known feature I use is multiple address lookup. I’ve created a single map showing all 1100 of my jobs around my metropolitan area. I update it every month and the number of pins keep growing. Then, for each new job, I can see right away if I had done a job nearby, when, for who and for how much. There are streets and parts of town where I’ve done several jobs nearby but spread over decades I can’t remember. Pretty cool feature. Requires upload of spreadsheet.

Another thing I use Streetview for is nostalgia. I often reminisce about the places where I lived, where I went to school or to different clubs, or I look back years later at places where I spent holidays with my family. I "walk" the streets and squares again and often remember not only the mood of the time, but even the tastes and smells.

When planning a trip, I find Street View so useful to be able to see what some road junction looks like as you approach and to be able to identify buildings or landmarks. When you make the journey, you’ve already rehearsed it! Brilliant feature.

Nice video. Two additional thoughts. 1. You almost mentioned it - with mass transit, a feature I noticed while using the trains in Europe (Belgium specifically) was information about connections track and time. This was hugely beneficial. 2. Caveat on your roofing example. Remember geometry when calculating square footage or meters. A roof’s pitch can have a massive impact on the estimate.

You should add the ability to create a custom map to your list of tips. If you have an alternate route to get from point A to point B beside the route Google maps suggests, you can draw it on maps (similar to your first tip in the video)) and then save it as a custom map and send it someone if you want. Last week, my daughter was coming to visit from 5 hours away. She wanted to know if I knew a shortcut as she did not want to take the interstate as Google Maps suggested. I knew of a short cut, so I drew it up on Maps and saved it as a custom map. This is a very useful function, I think.

I have YEARS of experience in Google maps as a hobby. I was a prolific contributor in the now defunct maps app Google Mapmaker. It was a crowd-source app that allowed you to Edit the maps and everything in it. There was a robust oversight mechanism that assured only quality edits were accepted. Even with this experience, your video taught me something! I am grateful for that, Thank you. You can still edit details, to some degree, by right click on a feature or by exploring the fine print links at the bottom of the map window. I still correct incorrect details on the maps from time to time.

Offline maps is great too. We download to our phones map data for places we intend to travel to where we know we don’t have cell service. We can still get directions and not get lost without having any service. It’s great.

When I was younger and we all used map books to plan a route, I thought it would be great to enhance these map books with with photos of complex intersections, so you could see in advance where to turn. Then google maps came along and they executed the idea 100 times better with a mobile app and street view. I love the suggestion you gave for street view history. Great feature!

My father passed away about 4 years ago I used the street view history and was able to see him at the apartment getting stuff out of car. I was an emotional experience.

The thing that I find most useful about maps is the timeline feature. I have to fill out a time sheet for work and list all the different jobs that I worked on for the week and sometimes I might go to two or three sites within a day and it helps me to not only remember exactly where I was but the exact times that I got there, my travel time, and everything. Some of the other guys struggle at this and for me, this just makes it really simple.

A favorite use of Google maps has been virtual touring. Their engineers made miniature versions of the 360 degree photo equipment they use for street view. They can be carried around like a backpack. They've taken these to quite a few tourist destinations, including down into the Grand Canyon. Many years ago, I spent the night at Phantom Ranch, at the bottom. I was able to relive my hikes down and back. Each step of the way I was able to look in all directions. It was like reconnecting with friends I hadn't seen in a long time. I suppose it wouldn't have the same impact for someone who's never been there, but for me it was a very emotional experience!

Three friends and I hiked the Camino de Santiago across Spain a few years ago. I insisted that we all use location sharing. During a portion of the trip, we got separated for 3 days because one guy needed to visit a doctor in another city and another guy went with him, while the other two of us kept hiking. We all agreed to meet in another town that none of us had ever been before when the medical situation was over. We used location sharing and walking directions and we navigated right to the bar where the two guys were having a beer.

My 16 year old niece crashed her car in a ditch this winter in an unfamiliar rural area. She cleverly sent me a txt with her coordinates from the Google Maps app. With that info my Google Maps app gave me the quickest directions to her. It was -15c that day and I was able to get to her in 15mins, without this technology it may have taken me more than an hour to find her. It’s truly amazingly life altering technology and should taught in schools. Great video.

Hi Steve, great video! I have to tell you that 5 years ago, the street view history proved to be extremely useful for me here, in Argentina. My wife had a serious accident on a sidewalk that was poorly repaired by a utilities company (he broke her Humerus), but a few days after the accident the floor appeared repaired... so that we couldn't prove whose fault was, or even that it was broken... but as the hole in the floor had been there long enough, thankfully it had been registered by google street view... and here is when the magic happend: Luckily for us, some past images had registered the name of the contractor (and who they where working for) in the official signs that the crew installed as they were working digging the holes in the next block... and of course also were able to see how they left the sidewalk were she fell... when I showed all this to our layer, he was amazed, he said that this tool was to be a game changer for safety on the streets! without this tool we probably wouldn't have collected the insurance! Justice been done and thanks to Street view history! Congrats again from Argentina!

One feature that I've found useful is offline maps. You can download a huge map of your area and if you don't have a Wi-Fi or cell signal you'll still have access to that map and if your GPS is still turned on it will still track you either by satellite or triangulation with Wi-Fi or cell towers

My daughter has used Google Maps since its inception, calling it her "Peter Pan". She is a now a writer but as a teenager she loved to "fly to visit" authors she admired, visiting their homes and the environs mentioned in their books. I remember in her Kafka phase, her telling me she had a wonderful evening flying over Prague, visiting the streets and neighbourhoods of Kafka's world!

Recently discovered this channel. Love the style of it. Simple and informative. Without any forced stupid jokes or over-the-top editing & music. Also, I was not aware of the nice back-in-time feature of street view and just knew its corresponding part in Google Earth. Thanks!

Streetview is an extremely useful tool. Every time I go somewhere I'm not familiar with, I can familiarize myself with the destination. What the place looks like. Where to park the car. Where there's a store or restaurant. What the building I'm going to looks like. Where the crosswalk is. Where the public transportation stop is. In short - when I have a meeting, an interview, a visit, or go to an office somewhere, I don't have to wander around on the spot. I have an exact idea of what the place looks like and when I arrive there, it saves me a lot of time and searching.

I’m a Maps contributor so I have been using Google Maps for a long time. Initially I started watching this video with the assumption that I probably won’t learn anything I didn’t already know but I never thought about using the measure feature to calculate my house’s roof and backyard. What an excellent, informative video! Thank you! I’ll share a feature that I learned about after buying my new car: On some of the newer high-tech always-connected cars that also have a phone app (I’m primarily talking about Tesla here), I can share the location directly with my car (Tesla) by sharing it with the Tesla app. So let’s say that I am heading out to some new place. I pull up the address on my phone then share it with my car’s app. As I get into my car, its navigation system is already set to get me to that location. I don’t need to punch in the address. :) I use it daily, often multiple times a day.

The rooftop measurement was truly just the house footprint. It doesn’t take into account the pitch of the roof. If it was a flat roof that’s your square footage but the steeper the roof gets the more footage you’re going to have.

As a fire investigator, Google Maps and Google Earth transformed some of the methods of data gathering for structural and wild land fire investigations.

My husband is a truck driver and we use location sharing so I can always see how far he is from home and when he's coming back, it's a nice feature! We are in Italy and it works fine. He also use his location timeline (you have to opt-in to for this feature of location tracking) so when he needs to go to a place where he's been before he checks the old road trip and doesn't get lost!

I have a feature to share. When I am navigating a long drive with Google Maps I'll often need to find a place to get fuel, a meal or hotel along my route. I go to the bottom of the map on my phone, swipe upward and I get a list of options. One of the options is: "Search along route." After selecting that, Google Maps then offers me several fixed options: "Gas stations, Restaurants, Coffee shops, Grocery stores, Rest Stops and Hotels." Alternatively I can search for something specific by typing it in. Google then shows me the options that are ahead on my route. I can select from the results and enter my choice as a stop along the way. Once the stop is completed I can resume navigating to my destination. I use this feature frequently on long trips. Thanks for the video Steve. It's great to meet a fellow map freak.

I have used the measuring feature to determine the area to spread fertilizer. really helpful. thanks for sharing

When I worked for a small ISP we used to use google maps all the time to map out distances between wireless transmitters and receivers also using topography to check possible obstructions or hills in the way.

A couple of things others might find useful: A couple of years ago, I went to Paris and was going to be arriving tired after an all night flight, and taking transit from the airport. Ahead of the trip, I used street view to walk the trip from the metro station to the apartment I would stay at - preview the walk ahead of time to make it easier for my jet-lagged brain when I arrived. Another one: I do some bicycle touring. When I am going to an unfamiliar place and planning a route, I use street view to look at the width of roads, presence of bike lanes, etc., to decide which route is better for cycling. Quite handy.

My wife and I have been using location sharing for a while now. Another cool thing about it is that it shows how much battery power is left on the phone being tracked as well.

My dad also built a house I’ve happily visited on Google. He was a businessman who’d studied drafting, drew up the plans, hired a contractor and did much work himself. It makes me proud.

The history of the street view is cool. But imagine if it was available for the past 100 plus years. You could see an accurate history of development of an area or city as it is growing.

My favorite GoogleMaps feature is their API. Being a programmer, I've written a web app to be able to enhance maps. Like adding an icon for every place I want to track. Say, I'm doing a tour and I want to set a 'sticker' on every place we might visit. I can set those, say, 20 stickers, and then have the app zoom out just enough where the're all visible. So I can see them clearly in relation to each other. I can also save them via AJAX to my host. And be able to have multiple maps with pre-stored stickers🙂

For me one of the great features is the ability to download maps and use them offline. It means I don’t run up roaming charges when abroad and it also means I have maps if I go out of cellphone coverage.

Nonna an Nonno's house! Love it. I feel bad for folks who never had Italian grandparents! Thanks for the tips!!

Location sharing sounds like a good way to keep track of your young kids when you buy them their first phone.😁. I made use of Street View back in 2006 to basically travel the entire route of our one week drive through southern California, and west to the Grand Canyon. So when we went, I felt like I had driven the route before and knew pretty much exactly where I was and what was around us for most of the trip.

One feature i use all the time, is that whenever i meet with someone some place, i share my travel position so they know exactly when i'm about to arrive (sharing route progress, available once you've setup your trip using Google maps). Also very useful is one's own timeline, in case you want to review the places you've been on some holiday trip for example.

One of my favorite ways to use Google Maps is to “experience” locations that I encounter in reading. I have never been to New York City, but Maps let’s me see and explore the neighborhood where Nero Wolf’s famous brownstone would have been and all the other places I have read about. Since I do most of my reading in the Kindle app on my iPad, Maps is just a touch away.

Before you get into an argument with your roofer, remember that a roof is "usually" sloped or at an angle. That means MORE surface area than just the flat footprint. You need the ANGLES of your inclines, or the arc of your slope, to figure the REAL area.

I genuinely enjoy seeing boys enjoying their toys, especially when they play so nice. Contagious enthusiasm. 😉

I LOVE Google maps!! I used to work construction. We moved around a lot. I used it to find my job, a motel, food, chiropractor etc.. When off I used it to find fishing spots. When waiting I used it to travel the world. I'll probably not use every tool you showed but thank you for broadening my horizons!

For some reason when people look up my address online they tend to wind up a half a block away from my home. So I've actually taken a couple of screenshots in Google maps, and put notations on them, so that when I have to give directions I can just send that to them in a text or an email. The most amazing thing to me with Google maps is when my car broke down and I suddenly had to take the bus, it told me what bus to take and what times I could catch it. Dealing with public transportation when you're not regularly using it can be a bit daunting, but Google has it seamlessly integrated.

I read somewhere how this lady used the Historical Street View on her recently deceased* mother's house. Her mother was in the yard on one of the years she went through. She said it gave her great comfort knowing her mom's image would forever be there for all to see . *She clarified how her mother's image was not a ghostly, spiritual, or whatever type image. Just a normal image captured by Google.

Didn‘t know about the measurements features. I always use my mobile for Google Maps. The framed picture of your dog on the wall just made my day. That‘s so cute and funny. 😂

Google Maps once saved me a journey. I found the business I wanted to go to and when I asked for directions it told me the business would be closed when I got there (what business is shut on a Monday!) - Nice save Google..... I also find the location sharing useful. My friend drives for 5 hours to get to my house for our dive trips to Orkney. Using Location Sharing I know when she is about an hour away and I can pack my car and then put the kettle on. That just leaves me the next 10 hours of driving.

Unintended Google Map Perk: Pointing directional antennas can be greatly assisted by the Google measuring distance feature. From receiving antenna to broadcasting antenna can be measured, then one can point their receiving antenna more accurately at the broadcasting antenna. One may not see the broadcast antenna, but you can see things closer that are on line of sight to broadcast antenna. Pointing your directional antenna over those items is the same as pointing at the antenna. The directional line overlays every item in the landscape, all the way to the antenna. Any item in that overlay gives you a direct line to the antenna.

Before I go on some backpacking hikes, I use satellite view on desktop using left click for distance. It doesn't always follow the trail though. Using the right click method for distance will help fill in sketchy sections. Thanks.

My wife stumbled across this video. I loved it! Your delivery and personality are awesome. You now have 2 new subscribers!

The one feature I want the most: Having all the places (restaurants etc.) in their own layer that you can deactivate if you want! But Google will probably not do this, because they always want you to see these

Quick additional tip, one I use almost daily with work, is to enable 3d google map. Then you can hold the control button down and use your mouse to zoom in and then rotate your view. Then you can see the side of buildings from space and rotate around buildings. It’s not available in small towns yet, but it is in major cities.

One fun feature I like, is to look at the roads/areas where my friends/family live, in Streetview, to see if I can spot anyone I know walking down the street.

Google Maps is very useful and a lot of fun 🙂 When I'm going to a new store or office, I use Street View to see what the landmarks are. What does the store sign look like? I'm amazed how complete the Street View is, even in small towns.

I measure roofs frequently. I have found that the Google measurements can be wrong by about 10% almost every time. If i start with a couple of known measurements I can calculate the error, multiply by the pitch factor and get a pretty good answer.

Excellent Steve. My favorite Google Maps option is Your Timeline, specifically how the photos are recorded with exact location and time. Excellent to remember where you were when you were traveling. I was surprised that you didn't covered it in this video. Maybe on the next one.

You're bringing me back in time, my father also built our house. He hammered every nail himself so that is a very special thank you for the story

FANTASTIC is right! Love learning more about calendar integration, and especially measuring distances! (just about to have a bunch of landscaping done)...but my favorite is sharing locations. Now I don't have to rely on external apps when I need to know where my 14 year-old is! Awesome!

That Street View History tip is amazing. The House my family and I spent a decade in was bought by a developer, torn down and replaced. So it was with wonderment and awe that I was able to find an earlier photo of it from 2012 because of this feature. Love that you can measure area and distance too.

'location timeline' is one of my most used features. Now I don't have to keep a diary of business miles in order to claim expenses, I can simply review my timeline at the end of the month. And if I see an interesting restaurant /shop on route somewhere I can track it down by hunting along my routes.

Currently in the UK and completely reliant on G maps for phone for directions, bus and train schedules.

❤love your channel!!! Much value fam !!!

My favorite Google Maps feature, being a Lyft Driver, is when Maps tracks other Google users with location services turned on and notifies and reroutes based on stoppages.

"Straight up Cool Tech" - no kidding! Thanks for this Steve! Every one of these features is valuable to me and will be used . . . a lot . . . now. IMHO nobody is better at explaining app functionality to "the common man (non tech wizards & seniors)" than you! I have been a long standing "Patron" of your channel - and - this is why I feel that I always will be. Thanks

1 year ago & I've only just seen this video. This is outstanding info, can't believe I didn't know these features existed. Fantastic, Cheers!

Fantastic real-world tips. Thanks, Steve.

That measurement feature is extremely useful for a model railroader like myself. Previously I just used the scale bar at the bottom right to create my own scale along the edge of an index card to measure the size of a building. After viewing your video last night I went back and re-checked my figures of a certain building I wanted to model using the measurement tool. I was close on some but off on others. This feature is terrific! Thank you for pointing it out.

You ought to cover Google maps as an essential for tourists. In France, it will give you Metro and walking directions in Paris, tell you station and train schedules to travel from city to city, and massively simplifies getting about without needing a translator (for which there is Google translate!).

The area of the rooftop you indicated was actually the area of the total room opening before the builder framed the roof out. You would be grossly underestimating (by 60-70%) the actual roof area which is necessary in determining the amount of shingles to order. Which could lead to an intense uneducated argument with an actual roofer, and potentially having an honest roofer not wanting to deal with you at all. The actual area of the roof would have to be a combination of all the triangle slopes formed by the three legs of each triangle (eave and two hip rafters) of this compound Hip Roof design, then the two rectangles (formed by the common ridge, eaves, and gable ends) that figure I'm assuming the garage roof, etc.

I love to learn and I use Google Maps all the time and being able to map distances is such a great feature. As a kayaker I am always wondering how long or wide lakes are and this will be a great addition to my information. Thanks for the great tips.

The measure - Distance part was amazing for me. I just this past weekend sprayed my yard with chemical to control weeds. I had to estimate the of my yard which was a pain. Now I see your video and did in one minute what it took me about two hours to do last week. Enjoyed the whole video.

6:00 - be careful! Roof pitch will add a significant amount to the area of the roof. But good rough estimate.

A lot of comments critical of the fact that the pitch of roofs are not accounted for. Agreed, BUT... If you work in surveying, forestry, real estate, and many other land based fields, you use maps. A map converts 3D terrain to 2D. The 3D has to be corrected out. So Google maps is super useful for this. I did forest land surveys, made vegetation maps, and wildlife habitat maps for many years before retiring. Wish I had had Google maps distance and area calculator back then. Especially the area calculator. I just found the acreage of a small park near my home in less than a minute. Didn't even get my feet wet. Google maps rocks! THANK YOU DOTTO! I will use the area calculator this summer when I order both top soil and bark mulch for our property. Yes, I will have to add a fudge factor for slope. But that will be small even with a lot of slope. Dirt is not roofing tiles. Dotto, you probably saved me a couple of hundred bucks! Since watching the video I found another fun use. Been wondering for a long time what the actual flight route is for long east-west flights. And what the distance is too. So I zoomed out to get a Google world map, then zoomed back in to the area of interest. Discovered that the circle route for Seattle (my home airport) to (I think it was Frankfurt) Germany goes up above Hudson's Bay and then back right through Iceland. And Iceland is about 2/3 of the way. Found the distance from the SW corner of California to the NE corner of Maine. And the distance from the SW corner of Russia to the NE corner of Russia. Makes the U.S.A seem pretty small. Incredible tips. Thank you again!

We use Google maps when we watch old tv dramas like Highway Patrol and Streets of San Francisco. One time we watched a program with clips of Los Angeles from the early 1900's. Google Maps showed an area where all the small shops were replaced with a skyscraper but, the exact fire hydrant was in the exact same place.

Except the roof area doesnt account for the slope. Meanwhile, my favorite feature is custom maps. Before I fly to a vacation spot, I always make a custom map: routes from the airport, bike routes, restaurants, sights etc etc. INDESPENSIBLE.

Steve, I loved your communication style and how clear your message is. You've got yourself a subscriber Sir. I was particularly interested into the history feature, since we've been researching a couple of neighbourhoods for a family move. Here's a question: When creating a route with multiple stops, can you still send to the phone and activate the reminder? Cheers!

I love sharing my route with people I'm going to visit, so they know where I am and when I'll be getting there. FANTASTIC feature!

I use Street View for virtual travel as part of my workout program on a stationary bike. I create routes on My Virtual Mission and view them in Street View as I make progress. Adds a motivational aspect by getting to do virtual road trips that I never would actually do.

I went into the history feature of street view and found all the homes that I grew up in... sadly some of the places are no longer there. I also went to the places I'd lived in to see the changes since I lived there... Kind of a walk down memory lane... It was eye opening...

I'm amazed at the comprehensive street views available for many little villages all around Greenland. Fascinating!

Very nice video. I’m a level 8 local guide and a Street View Trusted photographer. Google Maps are a great hobby and Street View photography provides a bit of hobby side money. Your video was very informative and I look forward to viewing more. Nice work!

Location sharing is great for letting friends / family know where I am while I travel. Thank you for the tips!

I suggest trying the 3D view. One of the first things I tried was to put G Map in 3D mode then hold down the CRTL button while moving my mouse to reposition the angle of the view and simulate flying over the area. I can also use my scroll button to zoom in/out as needed. Take a look at a volcano somewhere like Guatemala with this feature and you can simulate circling right over the cone and look straight down into it.

Measuring the area of a roof as done here will certainly give the square footage of a plan view length x breadth..... i.e. two-dimensional; but roofs are actually three-dimensional, so the figures given were incorrect as they missed the height element. On that basis, if you ordered the slates/tiles on the figures given, you would find yourself well short of what you needed!!!

Love that measurement function! Thanks for sharing. Greetings from Seattle!

Nonno and nonna, loved that. My family is from Italy, called my grandparents just that way. 😊

I knew how to measure distances but didn't know that you could also measure areas. That's really cool and useful. Also the tracking feature is good to know. Thanks a lot for sharing 😊

Well actually I just found something else out too which google maps on desktop. If you're trying to make contact with someone else around the world say for work and you don't want to interrupt their sleep or something. If you go to the place you want to talk to and you go to the place name and click on it, it shows the temperature, weather conditions and the time of day there so you know if it's a suitable time to contact them. I love that so much. I use that all the time

Hi Steve, Barrie here from Australia. Another tip you may want to pass on; After plotting a destination on my iPhone I can send everything straight to my Tesla thru the share option in Google maps providing one has the Tesla app installed. Enjoyed your video mate. Very informative.

Awesome. Love go back in time and look at previous years pictures.

Fantastic tips thanks! I use Google Maps when going on holiday. Zoom in to the hotel where I'm staying and see how close amenities are. Or look around the local town and see what attractions there are.

Great tips to explore! I have a bad habit of dropping a pin in a foreign country and using street view to explore... I love seeing storks nesting by a rural road in Spain, or exploring a mountain road in Japan... talk about losing track of time!

I remember watching your shorts on tv years ago. I’m very happy to see you’re still being awesome!

Excellent training video... i learned some important stuff thanks Steve, (subscribed).

been watching 14 years great content!

Thank you for the measurement tips! In my area, Google Maps provides awesome assistance to those traveling by mass transit: stop locations, arrival times, trip durations, transfer options, etc. It's a godsend on cold winter days!

Man I loved your TV show. What a treat to stumble on your channel!

There is a spectacular integration of maps and google photos, a map history of photos taken

I love the "show bicycle routes" feature. This allows location of routes both locally and around any planned trips.

Often times local trails aren't available in Google maps. Especially in rural areas. I use satellite view to find paths to lakes and rivers. Also if you're hiking, the elevation feature is very useful. You can also switch to a contour map to see elevation across the whole area.

I thought I knew all about Google Maps, but as ever Steve, you have unlocked info and features that made me realise how much more there is to it. Great stuff. Thank you very much.

Table of Contents: 00:00 Introduction 02:00 Measurements - distance 04:32 Measurements - area 06:18 Street View - history 09:53 Integration with Google Apps 13:41 Location Services