I rely on Google Maps every day, but these 4 missing features still hold it back

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Over the past two decades, Google Maps has evolved from a simple navigation app into a tool I use for almost everything. From my daily commute to helping me find nearby coffee shops and business opening hours, to providing live traffic information so I can figure out when I need to leave for my destination, the feature set has expanded by leaps and bounds.

But despite all those updates, redesigns, and AI additions, there are still some features I wish Google Maps had added . None of these features require a ground-up rethink. Instead, these are simple quality-of-life tools that would make Maps more useful for people who rely on it every day.

Here are four features I think Google Maps desperately needs.

This is perhaps my biggest ask. Google Maps’ offline maps haven’t changed much over the years, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

You can download an area for offline use, but you still have to select it manually by drawing a rectangle over the area you want to save. This means planning a long road trip in a massive country like India can quickly turn into a game of drawing boxes around every part of the route you might need, simply because the rectangle doesn’t go big enough.

Leave aside the fact that it is an exceedingly cumbersome way to manage map data; it also means that I can’t have the entirety of a country saved offline unless I can fit it into a series of rectangles.

Apps like Maps.me and Organic Maps take a much simpler approach. You can download an entire country or region as a single package by selecting the region from a drop-down menu. That’s exactly how I think Google Maps should work.