After creating a route I'm happy with, how do I save it to "My Maps"? I used to know how to do this but things look different now.
I found directions which seem to be out of date: https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-save-directions-from-google-maps
There, I read
Scroll down to the bottom of the driving directions. Click "Save to My Maps."
But when I scroll down to the bottom of the driving directions, I don't see "Save to My Maps."
Once you've chosen a route, after you click on "Details", you have a couple of options:
It seems to me that the simplest option for coming back to directions later is to get the link and save the link somewhere. There is even an option to shorten the link, so you can get something like https://goo.gl/maps/unAMRv2oXQL2 instead of https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Mets-Willets+Point/Sag+Harbor,+NY/@40.8383632,-73.6327663,9z/am=t/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c25fdf0a2e25f3:0x3abb28977780008d!2m2!1d-73.8437!2d40.75239!1m5!1m1!1s0x89e8bd23cca70ca7:0xd8ff0f5b96c0899d!2m2!1d-72.2925819!2d40.9978773
Or, similar to the above, In Google Maps next to the "Send to your phone button" is a button for "Share link" Copy the web address it provides and Paste it into the web site Maps to GPX https://mapstogpx.com/ Press the "Let's Go" button and a GPX file will be downloaded to your PC. Go to My Maps, create a New Map and click on Import to import the GPX file and voila you can save your map.
My Maps is neither phased out or shut down.
But it is now a completely separate product. You can still use it to plot and share routes. But you need to start at MyMaps (https://www.google.com/maps) not regular Google Maps to access it: there is no way (AFAIK) to transfer a plotted route from Google Maps to My Maps.
You have three options within Google Maps. You can save the destination address to your list of places before doing the route, then do the route each time you want to start. This is the most work, but allows flexibility in starting point. You can do the route, then touch the 3 vertical dots and share the route to your device via e-mail or other option (text directions can be used offline). You can do the route, then touch the 3 vertical dots and save a shortcut to the route to your device home screen (requires full time data service).
The way I do it is to use GPS Visualizer (gpsvisualizer.com) to convert the route on Google Maps to a GPX file (save it on computer). Then import the file to My Maps.
