The Download Map Tiles Tool

Last updated 16th Dec 2025

This is a Windows command line tool to download map tiles for Handy GPS for Android. It is written in C# using the .NET Framework 4.8.

To use this tool, extract the zip file to your computer and run DownloadMapTiles.exe from a DOS command shell.

You need to run it once for every zoom level that you want to download.

USAGE:
       DownloadMapTiles URL Zoom Lat1 Lat2 Lon1 Lon2 OutputFolder

e.g. For zoom levels 6 thru 10 you'd need to run it six times:

DownloadMapTiles http://a.tile.opentopomap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png 6 -35 -32 150 154 C:\HandyGPSMaps\Test\6
DownloadMapTiles http://a.tile.opentopomap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png 7 -35 -32 150 154 C:\HandyGPSMaps\Test\7
DownloadMapTiles http://a.tile.opentopomap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png 8 -35 -32 150 154 C:\HandyGPSMaps\Test\8
DownloadMapTiles http://a.tile.opentopomap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png 9 -35 -32 150 154 C:\HandyGPSMaps\Test\9
DownloadMapTiles http://a.tile.opentopomap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png 10 -35 -32 150 154 C:\HandyGPSMaps\Test\10

As you increase the zoom level, the number of tiles increases, as does the level of detail. If the tool is interrupted or cancelled and you start it again, it will only download the tiles it still needs to. However, in this case be sure to remove any tile files with zero size which may have been only partially created.

Click here to download the DownloadMapTiles tool

How to prepare offline basemaps for the iOS version of HandyGPS

If you need to build offline base maps for the iOS version of Handy GPS, the process is the same, but you need to run another command line tool called "ConvertMapTilesAndroidToiOS" afterwards. This tool takes the top-level output folder from the process above (e.g. C:\HandyGPSMaps\Test) and converts it to a format suitable for use in the iOS version of the app.

USAGE:
       ConvertMapTilesAndroidToiOS SourceFolder TargetFolder

Click here to download the ConvertMapTilesAndroidToiOS tool

How to prepare the base map for importing into Handy GPS

Once you have created the folder structure using one or more of the tools above, simply zip the entire folder structure and then upload it to a web location, such as on your Google Drive account. Then, download the zip folder from that location onto your phone.

Once the zip file is on your phone, in the downloads folder, open Handy GPS, open the map page, choose "Manage offline maps" from the map page menu, and then press the "Import map from zip" button. This will allow you to browse to the zip file and will then import it ready to display as the current offline map in the app. Depending on the zip of the zip, downloading and unzipping it could take some time.

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