Google Maps is one of those apps that has seen multiple changes over the years. However, the one area that’s untouched is the Settings page. Even though the navigation app received the Material 3 Expressive makeover in phases last year, the Settings page has oddly remained the same for a few years now.
Material 3 Expressive quietly made Google’s older Pixels incredible bargains
Sometimes updates improve older phones
That appears to have changed over the past few days (or weeks), with a sleeker Settings page now visible in a limited capacity. This refresh is currently live on my Pixel device, featuring version 26.02.07.x beta of Google Maps. However, 9to5Google reports that the updated design has also appeared on version 25.49 (stable).
This change is reportedly rolling out as part of a server-side update, which may explain why it’s live on both stable and beta versions of the navigation app.
A less crowded and cleaner Settings page
Older Settings page layout (images 1 and 2) vs the recently rolled out design
In total, there are now seven menu items on the updated Settings page: Apps and display, Navigation, Your vehicles, Location & privacy, Offline maps, Notifications, About & terms. There’s also a button to “Sign out of Google Maps.” Accessing this option previously required scrolling all the way to the bottom.
Another change you’ll find here is the ‘X’ in the top-right corner of the page to close the tab, whereas the previous layout offered a back button positioned in the top-left corner. Google has managed to unclutter the page significantly by moving around multiple options to their respective menus.
The Navigation page in Settings looks identical to the previous version
Some menus are practically unchanged from their former version, including Navigation. The toggles inside these menus are also the same as before, as you can see above. In any case, this was a much-needed refresh for the Settings page, which had been out of date for a while.
The lack of Material 3 Expressive elements here is quite surprising, especially given that the majority of the Maps app already reflects the new design language. In fact, the Google Maps account switcher that houses the Settings page features M3 Expressive, while the page itself doesn’t.
Apps like Google Clock, Phone by Google, and a handful of others feature settings pages with Material 3 Expressive, whereas apps like Calendar, Gmail, and Maps don’t. Apart from this inconsistency, Google has been steadily adopting M3 Expressive across its apps.
