I've worked on Google Earth for nearly twenty years, and have witnessed all the amazing things our community has accomplished. I’ve seen how essential the Google Earth desktop app (Google Earth Pro) is to your daily work, and I know that moving to the web is a big shift.
While downloads for the Google Earth desktop app will end on June 25, 2027, our team is committed to easing the transition to Google Earth on web with new capabilities to address your critical needs and enhance your overall experience.
Over the past year, I've talked with many of our longest-standing desktop users about their concerns, ideas, and hopes for the future. Plus, our team has also been listening closely to every issue reported in-product, thoughts shared on our community forum and comments left on our socials. Your feedback is actively shaping what we build next. I’m excited to share that some of the top requests have already shipped: circle measurements, elevation profiles, project search, CSV and shapefile imports, and a rebuilt local KML editor. But this is just the beginning.
Before walking through how to bring your files over and your other top questions, I want to clear up three points of confusion I hear most often. First, Google Earth on the web is no longer just a digital real-world model, but has evolved into a geospatial analysis platform purpose built for professional workflows. Second, the web does not require you to work in the cloud; you get to decide if you want to keep work local. Third, the core tools and imagery you use free of charge today in the desktop app remain free of charge on the web with our Standard plan. Let’s dive into the details.
Collaboration and data control
Moving years of My Places data is a real undertaking, but making the jump enhances how you share and control your work.
Sharing live map projects in Google Drive
In the desktop app, sharing work with a colleague or client usually meant exporting a static file and attaching it to an email. Every time someone edits their copy, another version starts circulating, and you quickly lose track of who still has your data or what is the latest.
On the web, your map projects can live in Google Drive, and you can share them the way you share a Google Doc. Instead of teammates downloading and editing separate, out-of-date copies of the same work, everyone collaborates in the same place. You also decide who gets access and what they can do: assign viewer or editor roles, set access to expire, and block viewers from downloading, copying, printing, or resharing your map.
Setting Drive project expiration and role controls.
Editing KML files locally on your computer
Now, I also want to address how your data is stored in Google Earth on the web. Different users and organizations have personal preferences. To support more flexibility for users that prefer to work outside of the cloud, we’ve rebuilt the Local KML editor on the web. This feature is designed specifically for those who would like to view and work with KML files without ever uploading them to the cloud. Your data is opened from your local device and you must actively save or download the modified KML file back to your computer. Read our full guide on choosing between cloud projects and local KML files.
Opening a Local KML file from disk.
Organizing your work: Moving My Places into focused projects
In the desktop app, all of your work lives in one My Places panel. Moving to Google Earth on the web introduces a paradigm shift: you are moving from a single, locally stored hierarchy into a modern project system. Think of it like Google Docs: most of the time you wouldn't keep 15 years of writing in one file. You would break your work into focused projects to keep things organized, shareable, and manageable.
When bringing over your data, if you try to upload your entire 'My Places' archive all at once, your web map project might feel a bit cluttered and hard to navigate. In fact, import limits might actually prevent you from importing your entire 'My Places' archive at once! We recommend breaking your My Places data down into smaller chunks. In the desktop app, look at your top-level folders. You might consider saving each of those top-level folders as its own separate file, and import them into Google Earth on the web as individual projects.
If you're like me, you probably have certain folders in 'My Places' that you keep checked on all the time. In Google Earth on the web, the best way to handle those 'always-on' layers is by setting them as reference projects. With Reference Projects, you can see multiple projects on the globe at once, giving you easy access to your most-used datasets in read-only mode, without having to constantly import them into every new project. This keeps your active workspace clean, while ensuring the canonical data you rely on is always visible in the background.
By using the right import method and leveraging Reference Projects, you can build a powerful, organized workspace that scales with your needs. For a step-by-step walkthrough on choosing between editable Map Features, large read-only Data Layers, and Local KML files, read our full My Places transition guide.
Exporting one top-level folder from My Places into a new web project and pinning a Reference Project.
More imagery than ever
Imagery has always been the heart of Google Earth, and I occasionally hear from users who prefer the desktop app because they think it has better imagery. Well, I have great news. On the web, you get the same satellite, aerial, historical and 3D imagery as in the desktop app, plus imagery you can't get on desktop.
The web adds historical Street View in more than 110 countries, so you can jump through time at ground level and see how streetscapes, corridors, and landscapes have changed. Plus, we are investing in new ways to deliver you the freshest imagery possible. One way you can help us do this is our new ‘Request imagery update’ tool. Check out our full guide on imagery for more details.
Exploring 3D, aerial, and Historical Street View imagery on the web and submitting an Imagery Request.
What's new on Google Earth on the web
Beyond the workflows you already know, we've added data layers, analysis tools, and AI features that longtime desktop users tell me could save them hours at work.
Curated data layers and new terrain analysis tools
Start with the data layers available to you on the web. In just a few clicks you can overlay rich data layers for climate, infrastructure, terrain, zoning, and more, without hunting down files and downloading them first. Google Earth has curated layers that are as practical as land parcels and county lines or as powerful as layers sourced from Google’s most advanced geospatial AI models that will visualize data like flooding history, infrastructure assets, and more.
We’ve also added powerful new site analysis tools. You can analyze terrain from your desk before setting foot on a site. We have tools to help you generate detailed elevation contours, analyze slope, evaluate cut and fill, and more.
Running new terrain analysis tools on a project site.
Detect change, classify, and Ask Google Earth
You've probably spent hours scanning historical imagery in the desktop app for site changes, or tracing boundaries by hand to map land cover. Two new tools take on that repetitive work and give you access to powerful new insights:
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Detect change: Pick two years, and a heatmap shows where the planet changed between them.
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Classify: Name the land class types you care about, such as water, forest, farmland, or pavement, drop a few example points for each, and Google Earth builds a custom classification layer in seconds.
Generating a Detect change heatmap over historical imagery and mapping land cover with Classify.
We've also introduced Ask Google Earth, our Experimental conversational agent that allows you to ask questions, get responses, highlight results on the map and perform spatial queries using natural language. Currently available in English.
Delegating a site search and layer overlay to Ask Google Earth.
New Google Earth plans, plus trials and impact credits
These new advanced capabilities are available at varying levels across Standard, Professional, and Professional Advanced plans. Learn more here.
All new Google Cloud Platform customers are also eligible to sign up for $300 USD in credits over 90 days to try these new capabilities.
Lastly, many of you do critical work at nonprofits, universities, and research organizations. Our noncommercial access and Google Earth Credits programs give eligible organizations a way to access advanced plans at no cost.
Start with one folder
You don't need to move fifteen years of archives this afternoon. Open the desktop app, export one active top-level folder from My Places, then go to earth.google.com, click New Project, and start your first project on the web today.
Your feedback has already shaped the features you see in the product, and that work is just beginning. Thank you for over two decades of partnership, and for everything you've built as part of the Google Earth community.
Stay connected
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We want to hear from you: Use the in-app feedback tool in Google Earth on the web (Help > Send feedback) and include the hashtag #EarthPro anywhere in your message so our team knows you're a desktop user and can route your input directly.
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File won't import? Send it to our team privately at goo.gle/earth-import-issue. Only you and our support and engineering teams can see your report, and attached files are automatically deleted after 60 days.
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Track what ships: Check our Release Notes and subscribe to the Google Earth YouTube channel.
