Meshtastic offline map FAQ

How do I add offline maps to a Meshtastic device?

Download a PMTiles archive, rename it to match its style, and put it on the SD card at maps/<style>/<style>.pmtiles. For the default style that path is maps/osm-bright/osm-bright.pmtiles. Insert the card and reboot the device, and the map screen reads it directly with no network. This needs Meshtastic MUI 2.8.1 or newer. On older firmware, download the ZIP instead and unpack it into maps/<style>/ keeping the z/x/y folder structure.

Should I download PMTiles or ZIP?

Use PMTiles unless your firmware is too old for it. PMTiles is a single file, so it copies to the SD card in seconds and avoids the tens of thousands of tiny files a tile tree creates, which is what makes ZIP slow to extract and slow for the device to browse. ZIP is the fallback: it is a plain z/x/y folder tree and works on every Meshtastic MUI version, including those before 2.8.1.

What zoom levels do I need?

Zoom 0 to 12 covers most practical use, and going beyond 13 is rarely worth the size on a small device screen. Roughly, zoom 8 to 10 shows regional context and major roads, 11 to 13 shows towns and street layout, and 14 and above adds individual buildings. Every extra zoom level holds about four times as many tiles as the one below it, so the last level you add usually costs more than everything beneath it combined.

How large will the download be?

Budget about 15 KB per tile, or about 5 KB with the 8-bit PNG option enabled. The app shows an exact tile count and a size estimate before you start, updated as you drag the zoom sliders, so you can check the cost of a zoom level before committing to it. As a reference point, the pre-built world bundle at zoom 0 to 9 is a few hundred megabytes, while a single European country at zoom 0 to 15 runs to several gigabytes.

Does this work with MeshCore and other mesh firmware?

Yes, as long as the software reads standard tiles. The downloads are ordinary 256-pixel raster PNG map tiles in the usual z/x/y scheme, packed either as a PMTiles v3 archive or as a folder tree, with no Meshtastic-specific encoding. Anything that consumes XYZ raster tiles or PMTiles can use them, including MeshCore companion apps, other LoRa mesh firmware, and general-purpose mapping software. Only the SD card layout described here is specific to Meshtastic MUI.

Can I use these map tiles outside a mesh device?

Yes. The tiles are plain OpenStreetMap raster PNGs, so they work anywhere XYZ tiles or PMTiles do: MapLibre and Leaflet web maps, QGIS, offline hiking and sailing apps, flight simulators, or a local tile server. Nothing about the archives assumes a mesh radio. If you want a map for a boat, a drone ground station, or a field laptop with no signal, the same downloads apply.

Which map styles are available?

Four styles: OSM Bright, Dark Matter, Positron and Toner. OSM Bright is the familiar full-colour OpenStreetMap look. Dark Matter is a dark theme that suits low light and OLED screens. Positron is a pale, low-contrast basemap that keeps overlaid nodes and tracks readable. Toner is high-contrast black and white, which stays legible on small or monochrome displays. Each style lives in its own folder on the SD card, so you can keep several and switch between them.

Is it free, and do I need an account?

It is free and there is no account, no sign-up and no email required. Pick an area, download, done. Tiles are fetched and packaged in your browser rather than assembled on a server, and the pre-built bundles are served straight from object storage. Please keep downloads to what you will actually use, since every tile is rendered and served from a single self-hosted OpenStreetMap tile server.

How often are the pre-built bundles updated?

Every month. A scheduled job rebuilds them from the current OpenStreetMap planet file, and the Bundles page lists the exact build date for each region alongside its tile count and file size. The underlying tile server itself is refreshed weekly, so anything you download yourself from the map page reflects more recent OpenStreetMap edits than the monthly bundles do.

My region is not in the bundle list. Can I get one?

Two options. Draw the area on the map page and download it yourself, which works for anywhere in the world at any zoom up to 20. Or use the request form on the Bundles page to vote for your region: requests are counted, and regions with enough of them are added to the next monthly build. Pre-built bundles currently cover the world, every US state, the Canadian provinces and the European countries.

Can I combine several map archives into one file?

Yes, with the Merge page. It stacks several .pmtiles archives into a single archive, which is how you get a low-zoom continent and a high-zoom country into the one file the device reads. Where two archives hold the same tile, the higher-detail one wins. The merge runs entirely in your browser, so nothing is uploaded and the only size limit is your own disk.

Where does the map data come from, and how is it licensed?

The data is OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under the Open Database Licence (ODbL). Tiles are rendered from a self-hosted planet file rather than proxied from openstreetmap.org, so this places no load on the OSM Foundation's own tile servers. You are free to use the downloads, including commercially, provided you keep the OpenStreetMap attribution visible wherever the map is shown.