How to change Storage Location of Offline Maps in Windows 11/10

This tutorial shows how to change the storage location of Offline Maps in Windows 11. The built-in Maps app in Windows 11 supports offline maps that are helpful to get directions, look for places, etc., without an internet connection. You can select a continent (Asia, Europe, North and Central America, etc.) and then download the map for a country or a region (if available) of a particular country. All the offline maps are stored under the default hard drive. But you can change this default location easily.

Changing the default storage location for offline maps doesn’t delete the already stored maps. The already downloaded maps are moved to the new location with all the data. So, you don’t need to worry about that.

How to change Storage Location of Offline Maps in Windows 11/10

These are the steps to change the storage location of Offline Maps on a Windows 11 computer:

Close the Maps app if opened already. Otherwise, the changes to move offline maps won’t be finalized
Use the Win+I shortcut to open the Windows 11 Settings app or open it using any way you prefer
Access the Apps category from the left section
Select Offline maps from the right section
You will see options to download offline maps, delete all offline map data, Storage location, etc. For Storage location, you will see that the default location is set to Local Disk (C:)
Use the drop-down menu available for Storage location and select a different hard drive (D, F, etc.) of your choice.

Now you need to wait until the moving process is finalized and completed.

Change storage location for offline maps using Advanced storage settings

Windows 11 Settings app provides another way to change the offline maps storage location. The steps are as follows:

Open the Settings app
Select the Storage option present in the System category
Expand Advanced storage settings (available in the Storage management section)
Click on Where new content is saved
Scroll down and use the drop-down menu for Change where you store your offline maps to select another location
Press the Apply button.

Wait until the process is finished and the new storage location for offline maps will be ready.

The entire process is smooth and straightforward. But there are two things to consider before moving offline maps to some other storage location:

The offline maps can be moved to the internal hard drive only. Therefore, you won’t see any USB drive or external drive connected to your PC for the new location
The drop-down menu to change the storage location for offline maps will remain grey out if the download for offline maps is in progress. In that case, you can either wait to complete the download or cancel downloading offline maps.

Hope this helps.

Where are downloaded maps stored?

The offline maps are stored under a hidden MapData folder in the C drive (or where you have installed Windows) in Windows 11. Its location is C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\MapData. Under MapData, you will see a mapscache folder and other items where all the data is added. But, if you don’t want to store offline maps to the default location, then you can also change the Storage location to D, E, F, etc. Access the Offline maps page in the Settings app and use the Storage location drop-down menu.

How do I change the default storage location in Windows 11?

If you want to change the default save location for Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos in Windows 11/10, then it can be done using any two ways. The first option is to open the Properties box of that particular folder and then use the Location tab in that box to set the target location. And, the second option is using the Settings app. In the Storage page (available in the System category), access the Where new content is saved section, and then you can change the drive to store new music, new photos, etc.