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I found new Google Maps slow, useless (routes with only two points) and wrong. Is there any way, I can turn it off completely and go back to favored old Google Maps? Or is this — as with everything in Google — one way trip?

I found Google Help text on this matter, but it seems useless. I have the feeling, that it discuss something completely different. It says about lite indicator in bottom-right corner. I don't have something like that. And provided links, that should switch new Google Maps engine between WebGL and canvas-based, simply doesn't work. All of them opens new window with annoying advertisment about new maps.

I even tried pasing part of URL, they're talking about (force=canvas) into any URL that my new Google Maps uses. Of course without any luck.

So... is there any way, I can get rid of new Google Maps, once and permanently?

UPDATE: In these days (April, 2015) Google has announced, that soon new Google Maps will be the only one available. To my extremely negative surprise, this question will become invalid soon! :(

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  • The "New" Google Maps is now the default for everyone. It is entirely possible that the "old" Google Maps will no longer be available in the future.
    – ale
    Commented Mar 11, 2014 at 20:14
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    Ah, conjecture. As a comparison, consider Google Images, which still supports the old UI (via query string sout=1, e.g.) many years later.
    – reisio
    Commented Mar 24, 2014 at 17:15
  • @reisio I know perhaps you are making all of these comments tongue-in-cheek, but please be respectful at all times.
    – jonsca
    Commented Mar 25, 2014 at 7:59
  • No, I'm serious. Respectful would be not wasting all our time by disallowing answers and deleting people's comments, but inexplicably (y'know, besides that you want your little badges and numbers to change :p) leaving irrelevant ones.
    – reisio
    Commented Mar 25, 2014 at 16:21
  • And now is the day, r.i.p. old google maps ! (ps. for now it is still possible to access it using the ?output=classic method)
    – Antonello
    Commented Apr 23, 2015 at 11:41

3 Answers 3

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Update 2015-05-07: With Google finally removing "classic" Google Maps, they have introduced "Lite Mode" as the alternative. You can access it via the menu as described in the link, or by adding ?force=lite to the end of the URL, for example: https://www.google.com/maps/?force=lite

Original answer

According to this Google Help article:

  1. Go to http://maps.google.com.
  2. Click the Help button (white question mark in a blue circle) at the bottom.
  3. Click Return to classic Google Maps.
  4. Click Yes in the notification bar that appears.
  5. On the landing page that appears, follow the instructions to opt out permanently.

Any feedback you could provide as to why you wanted to opt out will be valuable in improving the product for you in the future.

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  • 1
    Thanks! I just found this myself. The only problem was, that I was to hurry, and I was closing browser before "Updating preferences" page was fully loaded. Turns out, that you have to be patient at that.
    – trejder
    Commented Jul 22, 2013 at 12:01
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    I expect that this will be only temporary. They're not going to want to support two codebases forever.
    – ale
    Commented Jul 22, 2013 at 14:24
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    I belive, you're right. Then, there'll be: "Google Maps, bye bye, OpenStreet Maps, welcome!". At least for me.
    – trejder
    Commented Jul 27, 2013 at 8:18
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    Here, on 2, the circle is black. And here 5 shows "You have switched back to classic Google Maps for this session. Do you want to make the switch permanent? Yes Dismiss" img9.imageshack.us/img9/4876/cxjd.png.
    – user55569
    Commented Dec 22, 2013 at 18:23
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    @trejder thanks for the update. I've also updated this answer to add details for "Lite mode" which will be the alternative when classic is removed.
    – John C
    Commented May 7, 2015 at 13:01
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If there is no option on google maps to revert to old version, you can use this webpage to opt out provided by google.com:

https://www.google.com/maps?output=classic&dg=opt

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    Clicking on that link takes you to old maps, but it shows a message similar to "Do you want to make this change permanent?" and you have to agree to it or next time it'll put you back in new maps app.
    – Gurjeet Singh
    Commented May 1, 2014 at 22:19
  • Thank you. This worked when Google's official method failed (because no elements on the new map page would respond).
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Jul 20, 2014 at 22:05
  • That has stopped working now. :-(
    – Synetech
    Commented May 6, 2015 at 20:27
  • Works for me right now, but It shows "new" maps with an additional information, that I'm using "light" version of "new" maps. Seems we have now three versions of Google Maps: old, new-light and new-full. Strange...
    – trejder
    Commented May 7, 2015 at 7:32
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Google has made it clear that they were going to completely phase out the “Classic” Google Maps (Q2 2015). The vast majority of feedback has been negative towards the new Maps (I have yet to see a single positive comment), but per their history (and company policy?), they have no intention of listening to user feedback, so all methods of accessing the old Maps have stopped working.

No URL query term, no cookie, no user-agent hack, or browser extension can be used to access it anymore because they completely removed it now (think they “fixed” the loopholes that allowed people to access the old version).

There are innumerable people complaining about this in countless threads on more sites than there are stars in the sky, but if Google keeps with its tradition of ignoring user feedback, then all of the petitions in the world won’t get them to bring it back. The best you can hope for is to send feedback about very specific issues and hope they actually bother to read it.

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  • (This whole question will—eventually—be a candidate for deletion once Google deletes Classic Maps.)
    – Synetech
    Commented May 6, 2015 at 20:28
  • I recommend switching to Bing Maps because that is much closer to “Classic” Google Maps than the New (or even Lite) Google Maps are.
    – Synetech
    Commented May 6, 2015 at 20:31
  • Probably it will become obsolete at some time. You can then delete it (more details: here). But, right now, it is the only valid one, so I'm accepting it.
    – trejder
    Commented May 7, 2015 at 11:09
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    If the old maps is gone, people might still search how to access it. And "it's not possible anymore" is a useful answer for those people. I don't see why it should be deleted.
    – Mark
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 21:27
  • @Synetech I used Bing for a while because of exactly this. Bing was faster to load and you could to multi point directions and searches very easily. But now Bing maps is just as slow as Google. Seems they both have decided slow is the way to go.
    – Brad
    Commented Nov 17, 2015 at 22:05

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