Tutorial: How to make a 1-tap Google Maps or OSMAnd+ homescreen shortcut to your HOME location

"Hey Siri, navigate home".

Isn't that functionality already built in? If I understand what you're doing, I open Google Maps, enter the destination, (starting location defaults to "Your location", which is perfect), then under the 3 dots there's an option called "Add route to home screen." That's it. When I want to actually navigate to that destination, it's a single click to launch Google maps in Nav mode. No third party apps required.

Or, as Alan suggested, just speak the destination if you know it.

Char Jackson snipped-for-privacy@none.invalid wrote

That works also.

The point is this is a general purpose method that also works for other map apps such as with OSMAnd~ offline maps - which may not (and probably which do not) have that easy to use "add to homescreen" option inside the app.

But I do agree with you that your method works just fine - and - I agree that it's even easier - as long as the app has that "add to homescreen".

Try that "Hey Siri" method with OSMAnd+ for why you want to know how to create your own shortcuts to anything you can reach in the Android GUI.

What matters is you can make a shortcut to _anything_ you can see on Android, which "Hey Siri" and "OK Google" (or "Hey Google") just can't do.

This shortcut method requires no logging into any mothership accounts (which the poor Apple users don't even realize they're doing 24/7/365).

But I do agree with you that the method you showed is easier - as long as the app has internal to itself the ability to make the shortcut for you.

But what if it doesn't?

Not so fast. I tried this for an hour. Until I gave up on the Google Maps three dots approach (as simple as it seemed to be described above).

It took that long to figure out that the three dots don't always exist.

You don't get those three dots if you don't have a Google account. At least I didn't get those three dots no matter how hard I tried.

Clicking around I found this was my situation.

1. Start Google Maps (with all three radios turned on that it needs). GPS Location + Wi-Fi scanning + Google Location Accuracy

1. Search for "100 Main Street, Houston, Texas" and you will see a "Directions" button in blue at the bottom but no three dots anywhere.

2. When you tap that big blue "Directions" button, you'll get a request to "Choose start location" but no three dots anywhere.

1. If you click around though, you can tap the circle-person default avatar at the top right and then you'll see these six options Your profile Your Timeline Location sharing Offline maps Settings Help & feedback

2. If you tap "Location sharing" then you do get the three dots at the top right of the screen. Tapping the three dots gets you a four-part menu. Blocked users Help Send feedback Add to Home screen

1. But when I added the icon to the home screen, tapping it brings me to the "Location sharing" page which won't work without a Google login.

So I'm not sure how to consistently get the three dots you speak of because when I run a search, the microphone icon is in the place where you'd expect the three dots to be.

And if you back up, you get the circle-person default avatar at the top right - but there are no three dots anywhere to be found.

Unless you have left out some step you did, you didn't give a destination! Without a destination, there can't be a route (to a destination). Without a route, there obviously can't be a "Add route to Home screen" function.

So just *follow* Char Jackson's steps and you'll be fine:

BTW, please don't snip attribution lines (in this case the one pointing to Char Jackson's contribution).

Isn't "100 Main Street Houston Texas" the destination?

When you type that in, you see the following items in the destination field (and at the same time, the map zooms into that destination with a red pin).

First you see a back arrow to the left of the destination field. Then you see the address (truncated with ... at the end to fit). Then you see an "x" to wipe it out in case you made a mistake. And lastly you see the microphone icon at the far right.

There are no three dots in this "destination" field that I see. You can hit "Directions" in the blue box at the bottom. So maybe you mean to press the "Directions" button?

When you press the blue "Directions" button at the bottom a new screen comes up with asks "Choose start location" and at the right of that is an up/down arrow (which just reverses the start and destination locations).

When you tap on "Choose start location" you get the choice of "Your location" (which is the blue-dot default) or "Choose on map."

When you tap on "Choose start location", my Google Maps asks "Allow Maps to access this device's location" either "While using the app" or "Only this time" or "Don't allow" where I always select "Only this time" (even though I had already turned on all three radios, GPS location + GPS Location + Wi-Fi scanning + Google Location Accuracy).

Oh. I see now. When I pressed "Only this time" it brought me up again to the maps with "Your location" at the top and "100 Main Street" below it.

At the bottom, instead of blue "Directions" is a blue "Start" button. Now I see the three dots at the top right you & Char Jackson spoke of!

When I tap those three dots in the "Start" screen, then I get this Options Add stop Search along route Set depart or arrive time Add route to Home screen Share directions Share your location About these results

When I tap the "Add route to Home screen", then it does what was said!

Thank you for explaining that it's not the "Directions" page that has the three dots but the "Start" page that has those important three dots!

This is nice because it means that a map shortcut (for example, to the local emergency room) can be put on everyone's phone in the house) without having to install any extra software to create that directions shortcut.

It will only work with Google Maps but that's my only map program anyway.

It is the *intended* destination, but as 'Wally J'/'Arlen Holder' hadn't set an *origin*, the address was just that, an address.

I.e. without an origin or a destination, there is no route, so no "Add Home screen" function.

You found the same in your experiments: As soon as both the start location and the destination had been set, the three-vertical-dots icon appears and you can select ""Add route to Home screen" from that menu.

I see now that you need a completed route and not just a one-ended address.

Since I tend to operate with all the permissions turned off, I found you can keep the GPS + Wi-Fi scanning + Precise location switches off and still be able to "Add route to Home screen" if you arbitrarily choose a location on the Google map for the starting point after you type in the destination.

In that situation of choosing the starting point for the route on the map, you don't get a blue "Start" button but a blue "Preview" button instead.

With either the "Start" or "Preview" button you get the three dots that leads to the "Add route to Home screen" menu you & Char Jackson spoke of.

I just added my dentist where I did an images.google.com to get icons for dentistry so that I don't have to read the wording below the route icon.

Do you think these home screen shortcuts can be copied to my wife's phone?

Char Jackson snipped-for-privacy@none.invalid wrote

It's nice to have two slightly different methods to create a one-tap homescreen shortcut to the Google Maps destination of your choosing.

Especially for emergency destinations - such as the nearest hospital.

However - one method works for _all_ map programs. The other doesn't.

Even for the convenient method outlined by Char Jackson for the Google Maps program, there is a distinct, albeit minor difference in that the generic method I showed does NOT require you to choose a starting location since Google Maps will (apparently - at least in my tests) assume your current position when it opens up to a "Finding best route..." message.

So the only real difference is the generic method works for more than one map app and it only needs the destination (and not the starting point).

However, the generic method requires an additional (free) app, while the nice Google-Maps specific method Char Jackson kindly outlined does not.

Thank you for fleshing out the tutorial so that it's of better use to all!

The menu which has the 'Add route to Home screen' function, also has a 'Share directions' function, so you can share the directions via one of the many sharing/communication methods it presents.

I did a share to myself using WhatsApp. In WhatsApp I received a maps.app.goo.gl link. If I click on that link, the Maps app opens with the route and I can do 'Add route to Home screen'.

I shared the directions - via WhatsApp - to myself, but I could of course also share it - via WhatsApp or some other sharing/communication method - to someone else. So you could share the directions with/to your wife's phone.