Is there a good Android app for using offline OpenStreetMap maps? My primary goal is to have maps that work when I have no connectivity. I’d like to download the entire US (or perhaps another country if I am traveling) and be able to navigate hiking trails where no cell service exists.
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OsmAnd, best downloaded from Fdroid. It has profiles for driving and hiking so you can use it for both with different settings.
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OSMAnd and Organic Maps
I’m partial to the former and I’ve noticed, specifically while hiking, that it is better than GMaps for navigating and finding paths.
Both of these apps are meant to be used offline.
I wish there was a way to automatically contribute traffic data to get the same level of car navigation that google maps offers. I find myself going back to Gmaps for that because are a lot of road closures on my way to work right now and the fastest route changes daily.
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I think Organic Maps is the best.
Thank you. I am very much in favor of fully open projects, so I am giving this one a try first. I found there is a desktop version as well, but it does not detect the GPS dongle plugged into my linux computer, and crashes if I try to search my own address. I can put in a 1, but when I put in the second digit, the program crashes. Routing seems to work fine on the android app though.
Yeah I think the desktop app is more of a developer tool. The main apps are the Android and iOS apps.
OsmAnd was specifically designed for offline use, downloads the maps and runs the routing all offline. Can do both online as well but by default after download it’s all offline
Magic earth
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Android also lists offline support
OSMAnd does just that, I love it.
EDIT: On Google Play, you get the premium version for free if you make contributions to OSM once in a while. On F-Droid, you get the premium version, for free.
you’ll get the paid version for free if you make contributions to OSM once in a while
How does that work?
If you are an active OSMer you can activate the “OSM edits” plugins, connect it with your OSM account and you can get OsmAnd live for free every month (see official guide).
@Mannivu @scorpionix the Live updates are hourly not once a month.
I know, but the user contributions to get the Live subscription are checked every month.
It doesn’t, I’m sorry. I just checked and I was wrong - on Google Play, you get the premium version for free if you make contributions to OSM once in a while. On F-Droid, you get the premium version, for free.
It doesn’t, the paid version is completely free on F-Droid.
mapy.cz is built by a company which loves tracking and advertisements. OsmAnd doesn’t limit you if you use the OsmAnd+ version, which is paid on the Play $tore but free on F-Droid. There are also Organic Maps, which are completely free.
The droid page says that OsmAnd tracks and reports your activity. Magic Earth downloaded from playstore or Organic Maps are better privacy respecting choices.
The tracking by osmand app doesn’t seem to be anything malicious or revealing. Developers, contributors, and users discuss the meaning of the tracking here, which is also referenced in the F-Droid page. After reading some back and forth, the level of privacy or lack of you get from the tracking seems subjective. I personally don’t agree with it but its not as nosy as gmaps.
How are magic earth and organic maps any better in respect to privacy or tracking/reporting?
Magic Earth and Organic do not track your location or usage of the app. Both use offline maps so that activity stays local to your device.
Magic Earth uses online maps and is closed source, so it could have code to track users and we wouldn’t know.
OsmAnd needs Internet to download maps, other than that it works offline.
You can download maps from Magic Earth and use the app offline. It could have trackers. On the other hand, Osmand is open source and definitely has code to track users.
Hey, your links are incorrect. It should be https://mapy.cz (single P) instead of having two P’s - which link to a lingerie website… Can you edit your post?
OSMAnd is very good, with a lot of features, but lately I have been using Organic Maps. It has fewer features but is SO MUCH FASTER when rendering maps.
I still mainly use Osmand but it’s pathfinding is completely bonkers sometimes (like when you need to go down a street (on foot) it instead takes a right into another street, then a left and left again, so you would walking in a square when you could just go straight ahead). It’s super obvious most of the times but I don’t know if I would trust it when I go somewhere by car (which I never do so I don’t care __).
One thing I like about Osmand for driving is that it tells you which lane(s) you should to be in for the next turn/junction/roundabout. It’s especially useful for large junctions and/or in busy traffic. I’ve had it do the “detour route” that you talk about, but it’s never been anything major like a complete square that’s lead to wasting time.
