Google Maps Will Now Automatically Save Your Parking Spot on iPhone

Forgetting where you parked your car isn't just a sitcom trope-though it does make for classic TV. Even in the age of the smartphone, it's all too easy to walk away from your car and retain zero memory of where you left it. As it happens, Google Maps has a solution-provided you have an iPhone.

So long as you're running the app on an Apple device, Google Maps can automatically remember where you parked and display that information on the map. There's no need to mark the location yourself, tell the app to save your spot, or take a picture of the cross streets in case you forget: You can simply glance at the screen to find a "You parked here" label.

The thing is, while some are reporting this feature is relatively new to them, others suggest it's been out for a while. What gives?

How Google Maps automatically saves your parking location on iOS

This feature works if you connect your iPhone to your car, whether via Bluetooth, CarPlay, or a USB cable. When you disconnect your iPhone from your car, Google Maps will assume you've parked, and will automatically mark that location on the map. The feature will also work if you give Google Maps permission to access your Motion & Fitness data, which allows the app to tell when you've started and stopped driving. (You can check on this setting from Google Maps' in-app settings: Head to Navigation, then, under "Automatically save parking," tap Let maps use your motion to save your parking.)

You can also choose to set Google Maps' location permissions to "Always," which gives the app persistent access to your location data, and also lets it figure out when you've stopped your car. You can change this option on your iPhone by navigating t0 Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Google Maps.

Is this feature actually new?

This feature is genuinely great, and I'm happy Google Maps supports it-even if Android users are inexplicably being excluded for now. But you might also be wondering to yourself, wasn't this already a feature? It doesn't sound all that new. Yet you might have even seen a flurry articles like this one today, all reporting on this "new" Google Maps parking feature.

As it turns out, the answer is a bit complicated. The coverage today all references this announcement on LinkedIn from Google Maps senior product manager Rio Akasaka-only that post is, according to LinkedIn, a month old. Some of the comments are more recent, but others appear to be from the original posting date.

Potentially adding to the confusion, other navigation apps, like Apple Maps, already support automatically saving your parking spot, and while Google Maps has also had an option to save your parking spot for some time, it previously wasn't automatic. If you wanted the app to remember where you stopped, you needed to tap your blue dot on the map and choose "Save your parking." That's how it still is on Android, since the automatic feature only works on iOS.

Looking through the comment sections on articles from outlets like The Verge or MacRumors, some users insist they've had this feature for some time-well before that month-old LinkedIn announcement. This commenter says they've had the feature for years, while this one claims they've had it for "ages." So what gives? Have at least some iPhone users have had this feature for years? It is possible Google has been testing out the feature with smaller subsets of users and only recently rolled it out en masse, but whether or not that actually happened is unclear at this time.

I've reached out to Google for clarification about the timeline of this feature's implementation, and I will update this article if I get an answer. Until then, I can only hope Google is actively working on rolling out the feature to Android, as that really would be something new.