You can use public hotspots, typically found at restaurants or even in parking lots, or your phone’s data plan to download updated navigation data in Waze. Needless to say, if you can still go online from time to time, Waze can automatically refresh the navigation and download new data, eventually providing more accurate navigation and even faster routes to the destination. Without traffic reports and alternate routes, however, Waze is just a regular basic navigation app that only offers turn-by-turn navigation. Thanks to the GPS connection, it’ll still follow you on the map. It goes without saying this isn’t the most convenient way to use Waze, but it’s the only option to keep running the application when an Internet connection is not available.

Furthermore, you need to follow the recommended route because otherwise, Waze won’t be able to look for alternative ways to reach your destination. Waze can’t download updated data, so traffic reports or warnings will be disabled. You can now disconnect from the Internet, and Waze will still guide you to the destination. Launch Waze while your mobile device is still online (either using Wi-Fi or with a data plan), configure the destination, wait for Waze to generate a route, and that’s it. To use it offline, setting up the navigation must happen when an Internet connection is available. This is because Waze does not come with an offline mode or offline maps. If you’re already offline and try to set up Waze to a certain destination, the application should normally return an error. Using Waze without an Internet connection is still possible with a small catch. This way, Waze can determine where traffic jams are more likely to happen, eventually being able to generate faster routes. Once the app is launched, even without active navigation, it collects information such as the vehicle speed and sends it to the parent company. Waze can send traffic information to a central server without users doing anything special on their devices. Otherwise, it can’t send and receive traffic reports that are eventually used for generating routes to a certain destination.

This makes perfect sense, as the crowdsourcing engine needs the app to be online. Waze offline modeCompared to Google Maps, Waze can do its magic as long as an Internet connection is available. Google Maps can automatically update the offline maps when the app is running. Instead, it requires them to select a region from the map, and more often than not, this is smaller than an entire country.

The region selection process isn’t exactly the best, as Google Maps does not allow users to download offline maps for a whole city or country. This is why you need to make sure you download offline maps covering a region that’s as large as possible. Google Maps can provide navigation to a certain address as long as the entire route is within the offline maps.

Waze maps offline