Many years ago, I shared this tip with you on how to measure the distance you may have driven, walked, biked or ran. It is still an applicable, fun and helpful tip to use and enjoy.
I only brought up that older tip because it dovetails into today’s tip which demonstrates how to use the new and extremely useful measuring tool in Google Maps. Google rolled out this tip this week (July 2014), and like many of their tools it is straightforward to use, fun and incredibly useful.
Have you ever wanted to measure the distance from your front door to the mailbox? Distance between your favorite parking spot and your coffee shop? The distance between one end of a shopping center to another? Wanted to know the dimensions of that mammoth Costco store? Now all of these questions and more can be answered using this new tool.
To perform a measurement in Google Maps:
- Zoom in on the area of the map you want to measure something (remember to use the powerful map search)
- RIGHT click on the starting point for your measurement
- Left click the endpoint of what you want to measure
- Google Maps will now display a line with the estimated (pretty darn accurate) measurement.
- You can now click again anywhere else on the map to continue measuring, or you can click and drag the endpoints to new endpoints.
- To clear a measurement, RIGHT click anywhere on the map and select Clear Measurement.
Tip within a tip: The measurement tool works in Map OR Earth view
Watch the short video below demonstrating these steps AND share this tip with anyone you think might enjoy learning a new skill!
