Google Maps Offline Viewer

We have reviewed several applications in the past that allow you to download Google Maps for offline use. To name a few: Google Map Buddy, Offline Maps or Google Map Saver among others.

GmapCatcher is another offline maps viewer that supports not only Google Maps but also Cloud Made and Open Street Map.

Update: The most recent version of the application  supports additional mapping services: CloudMade, OpenStreetMap, Yahoo Maps, Bing Maps, Nokia Maps, SkyVector.

The cross-platform program is written in Python and works on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX operating systems.

The interface of GMapCatcher is relatively easy to use. Basically, what you do is select the area that you want accessible offline. This is done by first selecting a location to start with. Once done, you may zoom in or out, or move around, to display the area that you are interested in.

Make sure to check the offline button if you want the information to be available offline, and hit the download button afterwards to download the data to the local system.

You may use the mouse to scroll around on the map. It is also possible to use the slider on the left instead, or to right-click and select the zoom in or out option to change the zoom level of the map.

The map view can be changed from map to satellite or terrain. A click on the Download button displays the download options. These allow you to fine tune various parameters such as latitude or longitude, area width or height, and the minimum and maximum zoom level before starting the download.

The map is then downloaded to the local computer system so that it becomes available in offline viewing mode.

Program Settings

The settings that GMapCatcher ships with are quite extensive. You may switch to another mapping service there, change the default size, height and zoom level, units, and save directory.

There is also an option to add locations and markers, or enable GPS support.

GMapCatcher is available for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OSX and Linux systems. The software can be downloaded from Github.

Verdict

GMapCatcher is an easy to use program that works considerably well even though search did not work properly when used. You may still zoom in on the location you are interested in though. While it takes a bit longer, chance is high that you will adjust the display manually anyway when using search.

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