#Garmin mapinstall downloaded map .img how to#
#Garmin mapinstall downloaded map .img android#
#Garmin mapinstall downloaded map .img Pc#
#Garmin mapinstall downloaded map .img series#
#Garmin mapinstall downloaded map .img download#

#Garmin mapinstall downloaded map .img android#

It’s technically possible to do it from an Android device with the right cables, but you’re on your own for that!Īs for compatible devices, here’s the list of devices this will work on.

#Garmin mapinstall downloaded map .img Pc#

You must have a computer – Mac or PC (or even Linux). The actual active time for you to do this is like 3-5 minutes tops. I’m just overly thorough in my screenshotting excitement. In reality the entire process is super quick and easy. While this post probably looks long, it’s mostly my attempt at answering any questions ahead of time. With that, let’s get into all the supported units and requirements and a few minor caveats below. And thousands of you every month do the same following these previously published steps.

Or, for the European units I have when I travel to the US/Canada, like two weeks ago. I myself often use the freely downloaded variant I describe below (because I live in Europe, but often buy my units in the US). What differs is some of the special sauce Garmin adds atop it (heatmap type data), as well as the exact layers Garmin does or doesn’t display (how it looks, but also things like topographic lines).

#Garmin mapinstall downloaded map .img series#

But here’s the dirty secret: It’s the same underlying map data.įor virtually all of Garmin’s maps included on Edge/Forerunner/Fenix/MARQ series devices, the base map itself is OSM (OpenStreetMap). Meaning that if the 3rd party map data isn’t perfect, it’s not their fault. They simply note that it’s unsupported (but doesn’t void any warranties or such).

#Garmin mapinstall downloaded map .img download#

Note that while Garmin would prefer you buy the maps from them, they actually go out of their way to allow you to download free maps from 3rd party providers.

Though, spoiler: It’s the exact same steps as below. But these days they do support it on a few units – so we’ll start with that today, and then on Friday I’ll give you the refreshed version for the Garmin Edge Series. Back then Garmin didn’t have any wearables that could do maps. However, for the sake of cleaning things up (and search optimization), I’m going to refresh both of those posts. Somewhat astoundingly for a tech-specific post, everything I wrote in that post all those years back is still actually correct in terms of steps. Garmin now includes maps for the region you bought it in (such as North America if bought in the US, or Europe if bought within Europe), but they still don’t include any way to freely download maps for other regions (such as going for a trip from the US to Europe). Back then, Garmin didn’t include any meaningfully detailed maps for any Edge devices, you had to buy those separately – often costing $50-$100 per map/region.

#Garmin mapinstall downloaded map .img how to#

I have been successful both ways.Some six years ago I did a post on how to add free maps to your Garmin Edge series device. MapInstall can do a few things in the background while AndroidFileTransfer does nothing else than copy the file. For example you may have to manually enable the transferred map in the watch activity profiles you want to use it with. img file to the watch in the /Garmin folder.Įither workflow can work, each with it's particularities. img file from OSM ( you can download one usually as a PC file), then use AndroidFileTransfer to transfer manually that. img file in the process and transfer that file. Then use MapInstall to transfer that previously 'installed' map from the Mac to the watch. gmap onto your Mac using the Command-I command. gmap file from OSM, use MapManager to 'install' that. So the two processes are as follow.ġ) Using the. To do that they use AndroidFileTransfer, which give you an interface to copy files much like you would do in Finder. So many people want to do things the old way.

Since MTP is limited to one connection at a time it gets annoying and you always have to make sure than only one MFP app at a time is running else one will get the connection and block the others. Also the Garmin ConnectExpress, BaseCamp and MapInstall apps will also support MTP. The Mac supports MTP but not in the Finder. So with the fenix on your mac no drive icon appears. Before it was using ubiquitous FAT format directly in Finder. The Fenix uses the MTP protocol to connect the watch to the computer, that protocol was created for media files (music essentially) and Garmin adopted it when music started being supported on the watches because music apps use that protocol.