General News: How to share Google Maps directions from your PC and Android smartphones

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[Image: google-maps-stock-image.jpg]

When looking for driving directions or searching a place, Google Maps turns out to be a handy tool. Google recently introduced the feature that allows sending your location to your device. But you can also share directions from one point to another via SMS, e-mail, Facebook and other services.

Google’s location sharing works differently on web and smartphones. The browser based web interface lets you search for a place and also look for directions from the source to destination. An interesting and helpful addition here lets you send places from a PC to your Android or iPhone. Let’s see how to go about it.

[Image: share-google-maps-direction-step-1.jpg]

Step one: On your web browser, open google.co.in/maps. Sign-in with the same Google account as the one you’ve used on your Android or iPhone. Next, search for the place on the top left dialog box. This will load the location, commute options and it will also show an icon “Send to device”. Hover the cursor on this icon and tap on the device you want to send the location to.

[Image: share-google-maps-direction-step-2_ed.jpg]\

Step two: Now check the notification on your device. It will display the location along with options to Navigate or look for Directions. Tapping on that notification will open the Google Maps app pointing at the location. This feature works both on Android and iPhone (provided the latest version of Google Maps is installed).

[Image: share-google-maps-direction-step-2-i_ed.jpg]

Coming to the smartphone app, one of the interesting features is Google Maps now lets you share location coordinates and driving directions from the app to SMS, email, social networks such as Facebook and Twitter among others. However, it only works on Android devices. We’ll walk you through the procedure on how to go about it.

[Image: share-google-maps-direction-step-i_ed.jpg]

Step One: Open Google Maps on your Android device. On the bottom right corner, tap on the navigation icon.

[Image: share-google-maps-direction-step-ii_ed.jpg]

Step two: Enter the source and destination. This will now display the route on how to travel, the distance and the approximate amount of time it will take. On the top left, there is an icon where you can tap and change your mode of commute (car, bus, train, walking).

[Image: share-google-maps-direction-step-ii-1_ed.jpg]

Step three: Now that you have the driving directions, tap on the three dots (on the top right corner). Here, you will get options to change to satellite or terrain map. The very first option – share direction – is where you need to tap on.

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Step four: You now get plenty of options to share the directions, such as SMS, Bluetooth, email, Twitter, Facebook and Google Hangouts among others. For demonstration, we’ve tapped on Gmail. It automatically composes a mail with the route that you are sharing, distance, estimated time and turn-by-turn navigation details.

[Image: share-google-maps-direction-step-iv_ed.jpg]

The location sharing feature of Google Maps may not be the everyday thing for many, but it does promise to make things easier when needed. It can be very helpful when you want to share address details of the venue along with driving directions with your clients, friends and relatives.

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