How much data does Google Maps use?

Why nobody can give you one number

Google Maps is not one activity. Scrolling across a city you have never opened loads new map data. Tapping a restaurant loads its photos, reviews and opening hours. Asking for a walking or transit route needs the internet, and so do live traffic and alternate routes when you drive. Leave the app open on the dashboard for an hour and it behaves differently from checking a street name twice on a walk.

That is why per-hour figures quoted around the web vary so much, and why Google itself does not put one in its help pages. Any single number would be wrong for most people. What you can know for certain is how much it used on your phone, with your habits, on a normal day, and that takes five minutes to find out.

Measure it yourself in one day

• iPhone: Settings > Cellular (Mobile Data on some phones), scroll to the bottom and tap Reset Statistics. The next evening, scroll back to the app list and read the figure under Google Maps.
• Pixel and stock Android: Settings > Network & internet > SIMs, then App data usage. Use the arrow to pick the period and find Google Maps in the list below the graph.
• Samsung Galaxy: Settings > Connections > Data usage > Mobile data usage, then look for Google Maps.

Do it at home on a day you use Maps as you would on holiday, and multiply by the days of your trip. Apple and Google both point out that the phone’s count can differ from the operator’s, so treat it as a close estimate.

The offline map takes most of it off the bill

The map itself is what you can move off mobile data. Google lets you download an area to the phone, and once it is there you use Maps on it much as you normally would. Driving directions work offline as long as the whole route sits inside the downloaded area. What you lose without a connection are traffic information and alternate routes while driving, plus transit, cycling and walking directions.

So a road trip with downloaded regions can run on very little data, while a city break on foot still needs a connection whenever you ask for a route. Download at home on Wi-Fi, before the trip, and the heavy part is done. If you will be crossing borders by car, our guide to road trips across Europe covers the rest.

Settings worth changing before you go

Offline maps expire and need updating. In Maps, open your profile picture, then Offline maps, tap Settings and turn on Auto-update offline maps. Google says it tries to refresh areas that expire in 15 days or less when you are on Wi-Fi, so leave the phone on hotel Wi-Fi now and then rather than updating by hand on mobile data.

At phone level, Low Data Mode on iPhone and Data Saver on Android cut what apps do in the background. Neither stops Maps from using data while you have it open, because both let the app you are actively using carry on. If navigation is the one thing you need on mobile data, those modes are a good way to keep everything else quiet while it runs.

Putting Maps into a trip estimate

Maps is rarely what decides the size of a data plan; video and a laptop on the hotspot weigh far more. That is why the data calculator on this site does not ask about Maps on its own: its middle option, around 300 MB a day, is described as maps every day, messages and some social media. It is an estimate built for typical travel use, not a Google figure.

If your one-day test shows Maps using more than you expected, the fix is usually the offline download rather than a bigger plan. If it shows very little, you know the rest of the data goes elsewhere, and the per-app list on the same screen tells you where.