Quickly access your home and work locations in Google Maps

With Google Maps, we’ve made it increasingly easy to save and re-find the places that matter to you. Last year, we introduced the My Places tab which organizes your saved Custom Maps, directions that you’ve previously looked up, and locations you’ve starred, checked-in and rated. Starting today, you’ll also be able to save your home and work locations in Google Maps when signed in with your Google account.

Imagine moving to a foreign country -- this means a new city, a new neighborhood, and even a new apartment to call home. That was how I began my summer last year, moving from Boulder, Colorado to Tokyo, Japan. In a new country where blocks, not streets, are labeled and addresses use a different formatting system, finding home was a feat in and of itself. And that’s how the idea to save home and work locations in Google Maps was born.

By saving these locations that are common to you in My Places, you’ll be able to access these addresses by simply typing “home” or “work” when searching or getting directions in Google Maps. Using these keywords will create a drop-down suggestion with the address you’ve set so that you no longer have to type the full address into the search box.

By saving your home and work locations in My Places, you’ll also see special icons to easily identify these locations on the map.

To set your home and work locations, you’ll need to sign in with your Google Account. Once logged in, click the My Places tab in Google Maps and save your home and work locations. From the My Places panel, you can also edit or delete your saved locations by clicking the drop-down to the right of the home or work icons.

With home and work locations saved in Google Maps, we hope to help you navigate your way to these frequently visited places, regardless of where you may be.

Update (5/15): Sorry for the delay, but home and work locations in My Places will be available soon. We'll update this post again when the feature is live.

Update (5/25): Thanks for your patience, home and work locations in My Places is now available.

Posted by Erika Yamasaki, Associate Product Manager Intern

An easy way to access directions and locations you care about

If you’re anything like me, you might use Google Maps to look up the same places and directions more than once, like the location of your hotel while you’re on vacation, or directions to a friend’s house that you’ve visited before. When you’re signed in to your Google account, the My Places tab on Google Maps makes it easy to find starred locations, places you’ve rated and checked-in, saved Custom Maps, and even past local searches.

Now, when you visit My Places, you’ll see directions you’ve recently looked up appear on the panel to the left of the map. You can also filter the results to access only these previous directions from the ‘More’ tab.



This historical archive of directions results makes it quicker and easier to continue planning later. For example, if you have a few minutes to spare during the day and use your work computer to search for directions from your house to the restaurant where you’re meeting friends for dinner, you can easily access those same directions from your home computer via My Places once you’re ready to head out. We’ll even remember when you’ve customized your directions by dragging the blue line to your preferred path, and show that you route again.

These past directions and places will only appear for signed-in users who enable Web History. And like other items in My Places, it’s simple to remove any of the locations or directions via the drop-down arrow next to each item.

Whenever you need to access or organize your important places and directions, just visit Google Maps and click on the My Places button to get started.

Update (2/15): Sorry for the delay, but the new feature for viewing saved directions in My Places will be available soon. We'll update this post again when the feature is live.

Update (2/18):  The feature is now live on Google Maps. Thank you for your patience!

Posted by Tatsuo Nomura, Software Engineer, Google Maps