Google folds My Maps into Drive

by Jon Mundy 11 December 2014 | Share: Google has incorporated its My Maps map creation tool into Google Drive. The company's custom map creation tool can now be accessed through its cloud storage and document editing tool. In a recent Google Maps blog post, Google revealed that "Creating a custom map is just as easy as opening up a new Google Doc." Just head to Google Drive and hit the New button, then open out the More menu, and you'll find Google My Maps as the bottom option. The Google My Maps tool lets you create and save journeys, which is perfect for planning holidays or road trips, or for documenting such trips. With Google Drive storage now part of the package, you can now put your maps in folders and search for them just as you would a normal document. This latest update also gives you the ability to add more layers and points of interest to your maps, as well as to import bigger spreadsheets and include more details in info boxes. Google has promised that, over the next week, all of the maps you've already created with the My Maps tool will be available to you through Google Drive. All in all, this seems like a natural step in Google's push to place Google Drive at the heart of productivity rather than just cloud storage. Read More: Best cloud storage services You can now stow your own My Maps in Google Drive JC Torres With yet another holiday fast approaching, Google is trying to help make your vacation planning a lot easier, and keep you inside its ecosystem of services while doing so. But even if you're not dreaming of your remote island getaway, getting Google's My Maps creation tool inside Google Drive is still a convenience for any traveler, or even just a digital surveyor, as it puts all your custom-made maps in a single location, stored on Google's cloud, of course. Creating your own map is quite simple now really. No need to memorize a URL, bookmark a page, or dig through menus. Simply go to your Google Drive account on the Web, create a new document, specifically the Map type. From that point forward, you're free to create your map as you would normally in My Maps, adding layers of data from spreadsheets or map files. Aside from a single place to start making maps, Google Drive integration also means that you can manage all your maps in a single file manager interface. Group them into folders, copy them, rename them, and even delete them, all from a single location. Now you can keep your holiday plans separate from, say, your business trips. Google is also updating the My Maps service with even more functionality. The amount of layers, the distinct and independent pieces of information you can overlay on a base map, has been increased. Larger spreadsheets can also now be imported with ease. Sadly, all of these are not available from the convenience of Google's mobile apps. As My Maps is a browser-based tool, it stands that integration with Google Drive only works on the browser interface as well. The My Maps files themselves of course appear in the Drive mobile app, but you can only view them from within a web browser. SOURCE: Google Google Drive Errors Preventing Users From Working The past few months or so Google Drive has had numerous issues preventing users from fully enjoying the suite of applications available. The most recent of errors occurred today, where many are reporting receiving an Internal Server Error 500 message upon loading up the service. This issue has been experienced for the past few days now, with users having the most trouble signing in to the service yesterday. Google will need to release an update as soon as possible to ensure everyone may gain access to their files and work in a timely manner, though some may be able to gain access now. Unfortunately, the Google Drive app status page is suggesting there are no problems being experienced within the application at the moment, but the users are still reporting the problems. Users were taking to the social media site Twitter to report the problems, and a constant stream of them were occurring quite regularly. Most of these users were rather unhappy about being unable to access the service, which is understandable. Is it unclear whether Google realizes the current problems being experienced, but we imagine word has already made its way to them by now. Knowing the tech firm, however, it may take them quite some time to release a working update for everyone. The company is known for releasing updates in tiers, thus ensuring they have a chance to fix any issues occurring following the most recent update. Of course, that also means not everyone will receive the fix at the same time. If you’re experiencing any problems with Google Drive, we highly recommend sending in a report to Google, or take to the same Twitter page everyone else has been using the past couple of days. Hopefully Google will fix the solution soon, then everyone can get back to their work.