How to Use Google Maps: Directions, Traffic and Street View

Google Maps is one of the most useful things on a phone, and it’s already there. It came with your Android phone. On an iPhone you download it once from the App Store, free, and it stays. Once you know three or four basics, it will get you to a new address, tell you if the motorway is backed up, and even show you a photo of the front door before you leave home.

This guide keeps to the parts most people actually use. Getting directions, reading the traffic colours, and using Street View to have a look at a place first. The steps are much the same on an Android phone and an iPhone, and we’ll point out the small differences as we go.

Getting directions from where you are to where you’re going

This is the part you’ll use most. Maps assumes you’re starting from wherever you are right now, so you only need to tell it the destination. Have a go with somewhere you already know, like a family member’s house, so you can see it working before you rely on it.

1. Open the app and tap the search bar

Look for the app icon that’s a small map pin in red, yellow, green and blue. Tap it to open. Across the top you’ll see a search bar, usually saying “Search here”. Tap it once.

2. Type where you want to go

Type an address, or just a name. “Sydney Airport”, “Royal Melbourne Hospital”, or a shop name like “JB Hi-Fi Chadstone” all work. As you type, a list appears underneath. When you see the right one, tap it. If two places share a name, check the suburb shown in grey underneath before you tap.

3. Tap Directions

A panel slides up from the bottom with the place name and a blue Directions button. Tap it. Maps draws a blue line from your location to the destination and shows how long it will take. Often it offers two or three routes. The fastest one is highlighted, and any others show in grey with their own times, so you can pick a road you prefer.

4. Choose how you’re travelling

Along the top are small icons: a car, a bus, a person walking. The car is chosen by default. Tap the bus icon and Maps switches to public transport, with bus and train times where they’re available, which is handy in Sydney and Melbourne. Tap the walking icon for a short trip on foot.

5. Tap Start, then drive

When you’re ready, tap the blue Start button. The map fills the screen and a voice reads out each turn well before you reach it, so you can keep your eyes on the road. If you miss a turn, don’t worry. Maps quietly works out a new route and carries on. When you arrive, it tells you, and you can put the phone down.

One habit worth keeping: set the destination before you pull away, not while you’re driving. Tap Start, slot the phone in a holder if you have one, and let the voice do the rest.

Reading the traffic colours

Google Maps colours the roads to show how the traffic is moving right now. You don’t have to turn anything on for a trip you’re navigating. The colours simply appear over the busy roads.

• Green means traffic is flowing freely.
• Orange means it’s slowing down.
• Red means heavy, stop-start traffic. Darker red is worse.

This is genuinely useful before a trip across town. If the motorway through Sydney is glowing red, you might wait half an hour or take a different road. The traffic here tends to be reliable in the main cities. On winding country roads and long remote stretches it’s less complete, so treat the arrival time as a good guess rather than a promise on those trips. Give yourself a little extra when it matters.

Using Street View to see a place before you go

Street View is the feature people are most delighted by once they find it. It shows real photographs taken from the road, so you can look at the actual building, the driveway, and where you might park, all from your armchair. Google has been photographing Australian roads for years and keeps the images reasonably current, though a quiet street may not have been driven for a while.

1. Find the spot on the map

Search for the address, or just move the map with your finger until you can see the street you want.

2. Press and hold to drop a pin

Put your finger on the exact spot and hold it there for a second until a red pin drops. A panel appears at the bottom of the screen with the address.

3. Tap the small photo

In that bottom panel you’ll see a little square photo of the street with a Street View label. Tap it and the screen fills with the photograph, as if you’re standing on the footpath.

4. Look around and move along

Drag your finger across the picture to turn and look in any direction, up at the house or along the street. To move down the road, tap the arrows on the ground ahead. To come back to the ordinary map, tap the back arrow at the top left. It’s worth a play. You can wander down a street you’re visiting next week and know exactly what to look for.

If you’d rather use a computer, Street View works there too. Look for the little orange figure at the bottom right of the map, drag them onto any blue-lined road, and the photo opens.

Three extras worth setting up once

None of these are essential, but each one saves a bit of fiddling later.

Save your home address

Tap Saved at the bottom of the screen, then look for Home, and type your address in once. After that, getting home from anywhere is a single tap. You can save a work address or a regular spot like the bowls club the same way.

Download a map for patchy areas

If you’re heading somewhere with weak phone coverage, a lot of regional Australia included, you can download the map of that area while you’re still on wifi. Search for the town, tap its name, then tap More and Download offline map. Directions then keep working even with no signal. The download expires after a while, so grab a fresh one before a big trip.

Let the voice do the reading

While navigating, the spoken directions mean you never need to glance down to read anything. If the voice is too quiet or too chatty, tap the small sound icon on the navigation screen to adjust it. Newer versions of Maps are also starting to describe turns using landmarks, like “turn right after the petrol station”, which is easier to follow than street names you don’t know. These newer touches are rolling out gradually, so yours may look a little different.

Where to go next

Google Maps is one of a handful of apps that earn their place on an older person’s phone. If you’d like more calm, step-by-step help, browse our Tech Basics guides for seniors, or see where to find free tech help for seniors in Australia. The best way to get comfortable is simply to open Maps and look up somewhere you already know. Once you’ve watched it guide you to a familiar spot, you’ll trust it for the unfamiliar ones.

Maps is just one of Google’s everyday tools. To get better results when you look things up, see our guide on how to search Google and actually find what you want.