Guide / Offline maps & downloading a region

Offline maps & downloading a region

Introvert Maps renders vector topo maps entirely on your device. You download the area you need once (on Wi-Fi or signal), then the map — trails, contour lines, peaks, water and land — works with no connection at all.

Before you start

• On first launch you’ll see a coarse, zoomed-out map of the whole coverage area even before you download anything (a trail-network overview is bundled in the app). Your blue dot appears once you grant location.
• When your GPS fix lands inside a covered region and you’re on Wi-Fi, the app auto-fetches just that region’s coarse overview so a usable map appears within seconds, and offers to download full detail. On cellular or outside coverage it shows the prompt instead of auto-downloading — so it never burns your mobile data without asking.

Do this — download a region

1. Open the Data tab → Regions.
2. Find your region in the list — each row shows its size and its data date (how fresh the OpenStreetMap data is).
3. Tap Download. The region downloads cell by cell: a coarse overview cell first, then the detail cells nearest your location first.
4. You can start using the map before the download finishes — it fills in progressively as cells arrive. Downloaded areas are crisp; not-yet-downloaded areas fall back to the coarse overview.

Options & toggles

From the Map tab, open the map settings sheet:

• Trail types — the Hike / Bike / Field mini-toggles. Marked long-distance routes are drawn in their waymark colour; unmarked paths and tracks only appear as you zoom in, so the coloured backbone isn’t drowned at overview scale.
• Difficulty & surface — Simple / Advanced modes. Advanced filters cycling by surface and hiking by SAC grade and trail visibility, plus Show ungraded trails (most OSM trails have no grade; on = dotted lines, off = only graded trails).
• Points — Huts & shelters and Transit stops mini-toggles.
• Overlays — contour lines, Slope shading (terrain awareness, not a go/no-go tool), Light pollution, Rivers & water, and the weather control. Each has its own guide.
• Download several regions ahead of a trip; the map composites all downloaded regions — there’s no single “active” region.

Good to know

• Progressive fill is by design. The app hosts maps as a grid of cells; it downloads overview first, then nearest-first, and unions them on disk, so you get a usable map early and it self-heals as more arrives.
• Updates transfer only what changed. Maps are rebuilt monthly from OpenStreetMap. On an update the app re-fetches only the cells whose content changed — contour lines never change, so they’re never re-sent. Most monthly updates are tiny.
• Elevation contours come from the Copernicus GLO-30 DEM (see data sources), not OpenStreetMap.

If something’s off

• Map looks coarse or blocky in one area → that area’s detail cells haven’t downloaded yet; stay on Wi-Fi and let the region finish in Regions.
• Nothing downloads on cellular → auto-download is Wi-Fi-only by design; tap the download prompt to proceed on cellular deliberately.