Turn On or Off Download Offline Maps over Metered Connections in Windows 10


Windows 10 comes with the Maps app preinstalled. Maps is your guide to everywhere. Find your way with voice navigation and turn-by-turn driving, transit, and walking directions. Search for places to get directions, business info, and reviews. Download maps to use when you’re offline. Tour the world virtually with aerial imagery and 360 degree street-level views. Plus, you get the same experience across all your Windows 10 PCs and phones.

If you would like to search for places and get directions in the Maps app even when you are not connected to the Internet, you should download maps for offline use.

By default, maps will be automatically updated only when your device is plugged in (AC power) and you're not on a metered connection.

If you have a metered connection, then you can set maps to only download on free Wi-Fi or unlimited cellular data. This does not affect automatic updates.

UPDATE 6/01/2020: Bing Maps is updating its base map data source

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off downloading offline maps over metered connections for all users in Windows 10.

For a Windows 11 version of this tutorial, see:

Enable or Disable Download Offline Maps over Metered Connections in Windows 11

Contents

• Option One: To Turn On or Off Download Offline Maps over Metered Connections in Settings
• Option Two: To Turn On or Off Download Offline Maps over Metered Connections using a REG file

OPTION ONE

To Turn On or Off Download Offline Maps over Metered Connections in Settings

1 Open Settings, and click/tap on the Apps icon.

2 Click/tap on Offline maps on the left side, and turn on or off (default) Metered connections on the right side for what you want. (see screenshot below)

3 When finished, you can close Settings if you like.

OPTION TWO

To Turn On or Off Download Offline Maps over Metered Connections using a REG file

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do this option.

The downloadable .reg files below will modify the DWORD value in the registry key below.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Maps

UpdateOnlyOnWifi DWORD

0 = On
1 = Off

1 Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you would like to do.

2 To Turn On Download Offline Maps over Metered Connections

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_On_download_offline_maps_over_metered_connections.reg

Download

3 To Turn Off Download Offline Maps over Metered Connections

This is the default setting.

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_Off_download_offline_maps_over_metered_connections.reg

Download

4 Save the .reg file to your desktop.

5 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

6 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

7 If you like, you can now delete the downloaded .reg file.

That's it,
Shawn Brink

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Windows 11 Tutorials