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agreed. On Google Maps app, there is a feature called "offline maps" which allows a user to select a rectangle on a the map and download all the street info inside it. A whole US state can fit in less than a few hundred megabytes. I have all the city I live in downloaded so I can go on walks without needed to use my data plan.


Not as useful as back when google maps required a 5GB download IIRC


Downloaded a whole island yesterday. Was 40mb. That's a lot better now, has less resolutions packed in tho.


That's assuming you have it on and updated before you hit the road.

I think it's off by default, and I'm guessing most people haven't thought to turn it on, or are even aware of it.


I'm pretty sure maps caches the data around you if you've used it somewhat recently. It saves Google bandwidth too.


I’m not so sure.

Anecdotally, I’ve made it to a remote destination using Maps, then hopped back in the car an hour later (with no signal), and it couldn’t load anything. This seems to happen quite often.


Maps used to expire after 30 days (no idea why), and the auto-updating while on wifi wasn't great unless you were in the app forcing it update. Nowadays they last 365d.




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