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I am looking for an Android app that can be installed and used free of charge, that allows me to input target coordinates in the coordinate system of our planet (as numbers), and the app should guide me to that location by indicating the direction (and possibly the distance) to the coordinates from the current position of the device.

There are plenty of navigation apps available, but they

  • either require an internet connection (which is not necessarily available while underway)
  • or rely on map data downloaded beforehand (which means I have to know in advance where I'm going, or download a large number of maps and possibly occupy much storage space just in case)

I do not need guidance based upon a map. I want primarily the direction, and for that, I am looking for a free app as described that works offline and without any map data, just using the current position from the built-in GPS and whatever coordinates the user enters.

The only related info I could find is this thread, which is close in terms of the question, but only leads to the rather dissatisfying suggestion to use GPS Status, which did not seem to provide any such feature now that I tried it (either that, or that feature is hidden in the non-free version).

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  • Related: Offline map browser on Android with offline search. Though a different focus, some of its answers might prove helpful to you. Also, from its description Ulysse might be a good candidate. Some more in this list :)
    – Izzy
    Commented May 31, 2014 at 22:06
  • @Izzy: Doesn't seem so @ apps linked in other thread. As the other question explicitly adds the requirement of downloading maps (in contrast to my own requirements of not using any downloaded maps), all the suggested apps are map-based.
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented May 31, 2014 at 22:14
  • Yeah, sorry – notices that part of your question after my comment was already "fixed". // I've not used one app like that before (otherwise I'd made it an answer), but came across some. The "GPS Tools" section of my last link above should have some good candidates you might wish to take a look at – while waiting for a good answer, I mean :)
    – Izzy
    Commented May 31, 2014 at 22:17
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    @Izzy: That was one app I had not come across yet on my quest for anything GPS-related in the Play Store. Anyway, this looks very promising in terms of theoretical functionality, and I don't care that the UI looks a bit incomplete. I'll have to test it for a few days; will report back then.
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented May 31, 2014 at 22:49
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    @NicolasRaoul: I tested it once, and it made a good first impression, however the linked website now says: "This app is unfortunately no longer available on the Android market." :(
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented Mar 24, 2015 at 9:27

1 Answer 1

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There is OSMand. It is a navigation app for which you can download maps, but it comes out-of-the-box with

  • a (low-resolution) world map,
  • a compass, showing
  • the direction to target, and
  • only 7 MB.

It is available on Google Play and F-Droid. So if the extra map does not bother you, go give it a try.

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  • 1
    I use OSMAnd for this exact purpose, it is really great and you don't need to download maps if you don't want navigation assistance.
    – Ewald
    Commented Oct 29, 2015 at 10:12

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