An Android app to open map links in other map apps and copy coordinates.
If you'd like to help getting the app published on Google Play, write me an
email to jakub at jakubvalenta dot cz and I'll invite you to the testing
program.
Share a map link with Geo Share and the app will open it in another installed map app.
Supported map links
- Google Maps
- Apple Maps
- 2GIS
- Amap (AutoNavi)
- Baidu Map (beta)
- CoMaps
- HERE WeGo
- Magic Earth
- Maps.me
- Mapy.com
- OpenStreetMap
- Organic Maps
- OsmAnd
- Urbi
- Waze
- Yandex Maps
- coordinates
Example use cases
When someone sends you a Google Maps link, but you prefer using OpenStreetMap, you can quickly open the same location in OsmAnd or Organic Maps.
When you like Google Maps for finding places, but you prefer a different app for navigation, you can easily switch from Google Maps to your favorite navigation app.
Other features
- Shows the geographic coordinates of a map link and allows copying them to clipboard in various formats, for example as a geo: link.
- Shows all points of a place list link.
- Allows performing an action automatically when a map link is processed.
- Allows launching navigation in all apps that support it, including TomTom.
- Allows opening a location in web maps, pre-installed ones or your own.
- Allows saving a location as a GPX file.
- Retries on patchy internet connection.
- Allows pasting map links directly into the app, instead of sharing them with it.
- Interface adapts to tablets.
Share a location from your map app or web browser.
Choose Geo Share and the app will let you open the same location in any installed map app.
First, go to Settings > Apps > Maps > Open by default and turn off the opening of links in this app.
Then go to Settings > Apps > Geo Share > Open by default, turn on the opening of links in this app, and tap Add links.
Select maps.app.goog.gl, maps.google.com, and www.google.com. These are the common Google Maps links. You can choose other maps or the more rare links too, but it’s not essential.
If some links are grayed out, other map apps are set to open them by default. You can find these apps and turn off the opening of links for them, like we did for Google Maps.
Geo Share converts map links (e.g. https://maps.app.goo.gl/...) into geo: links that can be opened by other map apps. To create a geo: link, geographic coordinates are required. Geo Share extracts them from the map URL.
However, not all map URLs include coordinates. In such cases, Geo Share will prompt you for permission to connect to the map service (Google Maps, Apple Maps etc.) and retrieve the coordinates from:
- either HTTP headers, e.g.
Location: https://google.com/maps/@40.78,-73.96,19z - or HTML document, e.g.
<meta property="place:location:latitude" content="40.78"> - or the whole web page with running JavaScript.
If you don’t allow connecting to the map service, then Geo Share creates a geo: link with a search term instead of coordinates, or it stops, depending on the particular link.
To permanently allow or deny connecting to the map service instead of always asking (the default), go to the app’s preferences.
When possible, Geo Share converts map links offline. If the map link requires online conversion, the app will ask you before connecting to the map service ( Google Maps, Apple Maps, etc.). If you allow the connection, the map service will receive the map link, it will be able to read your IP address, and in some cases Geo Share will load the live web page of the map service and execute its JavaScript. This happens in a restricted environment, which blocks tracking scripts and doesn’t store cookies.
Geo Share asks for location permission when launching the TomTom navigation and when sharing a GPX route, because in these cases the app needs to create a GPX route that starts at your current location. The location information is discarded immediately after the creation of the route.
Geo Share supports many types of map links. If you still find a link that doesn’t work, please report an issue.
Get the app on F-Droid (recommended) or Izzy on Droid.
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Download the APK from GitHub.
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Verify the APK signature:
apksigner verify --print-certs page.ooooo.geoshare.apk
Expected output:
Signer #1 certificate DN: CN=Jakub Valenta, OU=Unknown, O=Unknown, L=Unknown, ST=Unknown, C=DE Signer #1 certificate SHA-256 digest: 1b27b17a9df05321a93a47df31ed0d6645ebe55d0e89908157d71c1032d17c10 Signer #1 certificate SHA-1 digest: f847c6935fa376a568a56ca458896b9236e22b6c Signer #1 certificate MD5 digest: 6bcaa6bd5288a6443754b85bf6700374 -
Install the APK on your phone using adb:
adb -d install page.ooooo.geoshare.apk
Open this repo in Android Studio to build and run the app, and to run unit tests and instrumented tests.
export STORE_FILE=path/to/keystore.js
export STORE_PASSWORD=mypassword
export KEY_ALIAS=com.example.android
export KEY_PASSWORD=mypassword
make buildCreate file fastlane/Appfile with the following content:
json_key_file("path/to/play-store-credentials.json")
package_name("page.ooooo.geoshare")fastlane metadataTo share a URI input with the app running in emulator, run:
adb -s emulator-5554 shell am start -W -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d 'https://maps.apple.com/?q=Central+Park\&sll=50.894967,4.341626\&z=10\&t=s' page.ooooo.geoshare.debugDon’t forget to escape the & character.
To share a text input, run:
adb -s emulator-5554 shell am start -W -a android.intent.action.SEND -t text/plain -e android.intent.extra.TEXT 'N-68.648556,\ E-152.775879' page.ooooo.geoshare.debugYour contributions are welcome! To show that you’d like to work on a bug, or feature request, please comment on the relevant GitHub issue or create a new one.
Geo Share is available under Weblate thanks to their libre tier! More instructions can be found under Info in it.
Feel free to remix this project under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. See COPYING and NOTICE.