A nifty Google Maps directions shortcut

Recently, I found myself doing the same steps over and over in Google Maps in order to get directions from my house to a particular destination:

1. Go to the website
2. Press the “Get Directions” button (why doesn’t it just default to this?)
3. Enter my Home address
4. Enter where I want to go
5. Press the “Get Directions” button (this time to actually get the directions)

Needless to say, the whole process was pissing me off.

To fix it, I decided to use the Chrome auto-search complete feature to make my life easier. Now, whenever I want directions from my house, I go to the URL bar, type “gmaps”, press tab, type where I want to go and boom – pressing enter brings me directions from my home to anywhere.

Here’s how to do it yourself (I’m on a Mac – not sure if the steps change because of this):

1. Chrome -> Preferences (if you want to be fancier  command + shift + ? and then type in preferences)
2. Search for the term “Search”
3. Select “Manage Search Engines”
4. Go to the bottom of the “Other Search Engines” area and enter the following :

• ‘Google Maps’ in ‘Add a new search engine field’
• ‘gmaps’ in ‘Keyword’ field
• ‘https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=330+east+22nd+street,ny,ny&daddr=%s’ in the ‘URL with %s in place of the query field.
• Note : You’re going to want to substitute your own address between the saddre= and &addr= fields. Put + instead of spaces.

Enjoy!