Put your SD card in your computer and make a folder with the name “Garmin” do not give it any other name or it won’t work.

Do not change the file name in any way if you do then it won’t work. Step 7: Put map on the SD card for your Garmin

The second email you receive will give you a link to go download your map.

The first email you receive will tell you that your map is in process and provide a link that you can check when it will be ready or its status.

After your click “build my map” another window will open that says you will receive two emails.

Fill in your email address and click build my map.

Once you have selected your area then request your map.

For example, I built maps of all the Southeast Asia countries I wanted to drive through.

Then using the map area below – use the up and down arrows to move around the world map and the + or – to zoom in or out – click on the tiles you want.

On my MAC it downloads as an image and not as a zip file so it is easy to place in the folder this might be different on a PC.

Download the file with the name “osm_generic_new_gmapsupp.zip” and the description says “compressed file containing a single image that can be placed directly onto the SD card of the GPS”.

Click on the download map now link and another window will open.Note: download map now does not always work so see step 4. Example, using the Asia drop down, choose “Laos” and then at step 4 (request map) you will see “download map now” link on the screen immediately.Using the drop down choices pick your country and depending on size you might be able to immediately download the file.Step 3: You have two choices at this point – you can download a pre-defined country or build your own custom map. Step 2: Choose your map type – click “generic routable (new style)” Using Open Source Street Maps for use on a Garmin

So, here we present step-by-step instructions. I have passed on the how-to steps to individuals along the way and wanted to share the information more broadly. It saved us lots of money since we didn’t have to purchase the maps from Garmin and the open source maps are updated more frequently. We are forever indebted to him for showing us how to do this. A friend taught us how to download free maps to our GPS when we were in Mexico. We use open source maps downloaded to our Garmin GPS.

Nuvi 255w free map update