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Agent Derek Meister-Geek Squad spoke to Bill about If the Google Maps app is your favorite GPS app to use when driving, these tips may help - Take control of Google Maps notifications - Stop Google Maps from prioritizing fuel efficiency - Check traffic before you leave
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If the Google Maps app is your favorite GPS app to use when driving, these tips may help
Take control of Google Maps notifications
Keep the useful alerts and ditch the rest
Maps can be annoyingly chatty. Some notifications are genuinely useful, particularly when they relate to journeys or places I'm visiting, while others are the sort of thing I'd rather never see.
The obvious solution is to turn Maps notifications off altogether, but that would block important alerts. Fortunately, Maps lets you control its notification categories individually. Tap your profile picture, choose Settings, and tap Notifications. From there, you can see the different types of alerts Maps can send and switch off the ones you don't need.
That means you can keep useful notifications while silencing recommendations, contribution prompts, and other interruptions you don't need.
Stop Google Maps from prioritizing fuel efficiency
Save a few minutes on regular journeys
Maps is generally very good at choosing the best route for me. But when two routes have almost identical ETAs, it sometimes chooses the slightly slower option when fuel efficiency is part of the routing preference. On a single journey, the difference might be only a minute or two, but for journeys I make regularly, those small differences can add up.
If you'd rather prioritize speed, you can change the routing preference. Open Maps, tap your profile picture, choose Settings, then Navigation, and look under Route options. Turn off Prefer fuel-efficient routes.
With that disabled, Maps can prioritize the fastest route instead. It won't necessarily choose the exact road you'd have picked yourself, but it gives you more control when saving a few minutes matters.
Check traffic before you leave
Find out what's waiting for you
I used to enter a destination, look at the estimated journey time, and immediately start driving. That works most of the time, but I've found it pays to spend a few seconds looking at what's happening along the route first.
Maps' Traffic layer gives you a better sense of what's happening along your usual route. You can see where congestion is building and whether nearby roads are moving more freely.
This is particularly useful when you're driving somewhere familiar. You might know several ways to reach the destination, so you don't necessarily need Maps to choose the route for you. But if your usual road is showing heavy traffic while an alternative looks clear, you can make that decision before setting off.
To see it, tap the Layers button in Maps and select Traffic. For journeys you need to make at a particular time, you can also use Set depart or arrive time
https://www.howtogeek.com/psa-google-maps-can-tell-you-when-to-leave-to-arrive-on-time/