The first thing you have to understand is that changing your home on Google Maps is not the same as editing a business or a street. People get very confused about this. If you moved, what you’re changing is your personal address, not the general map. That said, Google hides it well in the menus .
On an Android phone the path is a bit confusing but it works. You have to open Maps, tap “Saved” (at the bottom), then “Labeled” and there you’ll see Home and Work. Tap on Home, the three dots and “Edit home”. It seems like a maze but once you do it twice it just works on its own .
With the iPhone the procedure changes and that I really don’t understand. Here you have to go through your profile photo, then Settings and there look for “Edit home or work“. Don’t ask why it’s different, Google has weird quirks with iOS. But hey, in the end it works too .
On the computer the thing is more old-fashioned, like from another era. On the Maps website you have to go to the three-line menu, “Your places”, “Labeled” and basically delete the old address to put the new one. It’s as if they haven’t updated that interface in years .
A trick I learned is that sometimes it won’t let you type the exact address. This happens with new housing developments or recent streets. What I do then is place the pin manually on the map. When you’re editing, you can drag the blue marker to your literal house. That never fails .
Watch out, because there’s a very typical confusion: people try to “edit the place” thinking that’s how they change their home. If on Maps you search for your address and tap “Suggest an edit”, that’s for correcting public data, like the name of a street or a business. For your home that’s not the way .
If you have two homes (this happens a lot with people who work in another city), you can save both. On the same “Edit home or work” screen there’s an option to “Add a place”. You label it “Second residence” or “Work apartment” and that’s it. Then when you search for “home” it asks you which one you want .
What annoys me the most is that sometimes the change doesn’t sync between devices. You change it on your phone and on the computer the old one still shows up. It usually takes a while, but if a day goes by and nothing, log out and log back in. It’s the same old restart .
And yes, you can change the icon for your home, which is pretty cool. In the edit options, next to the three dots, sometimes “Change icon” appears. There are little drawings of houses, trees, shops… It’s a silly thing but when you have several saved addresses it helps to tell them apart quickly .
