Avid hiker here - I rely heavily on GE for generating trail maps by importing a topographic map image, using the image overlay feature to fit it to the landscape, then exporting it as a KMZ that I upload to my Garmin handheld GPS. Given the news of GE's ultimate demise, I'm researching a replacement.

The web version of GE apparently doesn't support image overlays. Any idea what software I could use instead (hopefully without too steep a learning curve)? Most of the suggestions I've seen in this forum (QGIS, GeoLibre, ArcGIS) appear to be overly complicated for an amateur cartographer like myself - and I'm not sure which ones do or don't support image overlays & exporting to KMZ (my primary needs). Thanks for any advice you can provide!

Is there any way to do image overlay on a project I have in the Google Earth mobile app or is it only possible on Google Earth Pro? If only in Pro, is it possible to add the overlay via Pro and then view it within my project on the mobile app?

If you do survey work in Nigeria, you probably know this problem. You have a set of coordinates in Minna Datum, maybe UTM Zone 31N or 32N, and you want to see them on Google Earth. Maybe you want to check a boundary against the imagery, or show a client where their plot sits. Getting from a list of numbers to a clean KMZ often means opening CAD or GIS software, or converting by hand.

CoordCast is an Android app made for that step. You type in your coordinates or upload a CSV, and it gives you a KMZ file you can open in Google Earth.

What it handles:

• Output as separate points, a connected line, or a closed boundary polygon
• WGS84, plus Minna Datum in UTM Zone 31N, UTM Zone 32N and Geographic
• No CAD software needed

You get a set number of free conversions each day. CoordCast Pro removes that limit and the ads. You can also delete your account and data at any time.

Here's the link if you want to try it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coordcast.converter

A question for people who regularly bring survey data into Google Earth: how do you handle the datum conversion now, and where does it usually go wrong for you? We'd like to know which parts of that process are still a pain, especially with Minna Datum data.

Disclosure: I'm posting this on behalf of the CoordCast team.

Hey everyone,

I took this screenshot a while ago while scouting some remote lakes in northern sweden on google earth for a future road trip / fishing trip but didn't save the location. I've spent hours looking at satellite maps to see if I can find it again, no luck. If anyone can find the location of this lake i would be so grateful!!

I'm taking a survey that popped up for Google Earth Pro with the dim hope they might keep the desktop version available for download if enough people bitch.

I swear if they make it a subscription, I will flip my fucking shit. They make bazillions of dollars...they should let us have Google Earth Pro on desktop for free always.

I’ve been building Nexterra3D to do exactly that.

You pick a location on the map, and Nexterra3D can turn real-world geographic data into a 3D environment with terrain, buildings and roads.

No manually modeling hundreds of buildings.
No spending hours recreating a city by hand.

Just choose a location and generate it. ⚡

Under the hood, I’m working with data from OpenStreetMap, Copernicus DEM and Google Open Buildings, combined with my own generation and optimization pipeline.

Some of the things Nexterra3D currently focuses on:

🏔️ Real-world terrain generation
🏙️ Procedural buildings & roads
⚡ Hardware-accelerated 3D rendering
🎚️ Very Low → Ultra quality settings
🤖 AI-assisted generation
📦 GLB / GLTF / OBJ / FBX / 3MF / Heightmap export
🎮 Workflows for game development and 3D projects
🛠️ Windows desktop application

The goal isn't to make another map viewer.

I want Nexterra3D to become a tool where you can take a real place on Earth and turn it into something you can actually build with.

It’s still in beta and I’m actively developing it, so I’d genuinely love some feedback from people who work with Blender, Unreal, Unity, Roblox, GIS, procedural generation or 3D environments.

👀 Try it / take a look:
🌐 https://nexterra3d.com

What would you build if you could generate any real-world location as a 3D environment?

I am from a very small rural town in Alaska, and it is not currently mapped on Google Earth. For years I have wanted to explore it on GE and reminisce. I am well aware that it may be extremely difficult to request it, but I thought it's worth a shot. Has anyone ever successfully requested a location, and if so how did you do it?

I was looking on google earth pro and found this fake location with an obvious ai-generated image on it. I tried to report the location on the google maps website but it is convinced that i have to ask my parents to do it, and it won't let me continue. Are there any alternative ways of reporting fake and troll locations?

I like to use google earth to explore possible treks and paths

I have noticed however that it is a slog, I thought it was the site until I checked how it works on Chrome and it's a night and day difference in usability and smoothness

I already tried that hardware acceleration embattlement doodads that are suggested as a fix but they have no impact

Has anyone found anything that actually work to make it just as smooth in Firefox ?

Recently, my Google earth search bar has not been working as it used to. You used to be able to search for something vague over an area and many results would come up (the same works on Google maps.) Now, the "No result" message constantly shows up

If anyone knows what the problem is or is having the same problems please let me know? 😅

We’re a CCTV ARC (Alarm Receiving Centre) with 700+ cameras across four different councils and two counties.

Currently all our cameras are mapped in to Google earth desktop.
Different groups and sub groups, police radio channel boundaries, wireless link path overlays, town centre restriction zones etc.

With the news that Google earth desktop isn’t supported as of June 2027 we may be forced to change software.
I know we can maybe download the latest version and keep the installer safe on the network but our data and IT guys are likely to end up a little shifty about the non supported/out of date software.

Google earth web based doesn’t support all the features etc.

Is there a go to alternative?
Whats other people’s thoughts?

Is there a reason you cant look at them? Is this normal in every country?

Can anyone add images? Or what is this?

No Google Earth para desktop existe uma funcionalidade que permite medir distâncias e traçar rotas a partir de dois marcadores. Basta clicar sobre o primeiro com o botão da direita do mouse e selecionar "Rota a partir daqui" e clicar no segundo com o botão da direita e selecionar "Rota para cá".

Como sabemos o Google Earth para desktop em breve será descontinuado, para usuários de sistema macOS em notebooks ou desktops com chip M (não Intel) não existe versão atual.

Gostaria de saber se existe como fazer uso desta funcionalidade tão importante para planejamento na versão do Google Earth web.

Usar a funcionalidade "Medir" ou "Adicionar Polígono", principalmente em longas distancias, além de extremamente demorado é muito improdutivo e dificulta muito algo que era simples, prático e rápido.

Relegar esta funcionalidade apenas para o Google Maps penso que restrinja e empobrece muito o Google Earth que tem sido ao longo dos anos muito importante.

Agradeço antecipadamente por qualquer ajuda para conseguir executar essa funcionalidade na versão web.

I have been effectively unable to use Google Earth Pro since February 2026. September 2025 build works great on my computer, but autoupdates immediately after running once. My Places file is very large, but only had an issue with it until February and every release of Google Earth Pro since has been unusably slow. 1FPS (for lack of a better term) when moving the globe, interacting with menus, literally any function.

I have reset Google Earth Pro, run repair mode, run without my places, update graphics drivers 5+ times and reinstalled probably 20 times. Also tried repairing/replacing certain dll files that other posts say can become corrupted. I run windows corruption scans monthly (sfc /scannow and dism online). I had version 7.1.8 installed but it doesn't scale correctly. I have tried just about everything in this forum to try and resolve it to no avail.

My computer is MORE than capable of handling Google Earth Pro:

Ryzen 9 9900X

RTX 5070 running latest drivers

Windows 11 Pro

64gb RAM

Kind of upsetting they are actively making Google Earth Pro worse right before killing the desktop app entirely. The web version doesn't compare to the responsiveness or clarity of the desktop app, and importing KMZs to it is cumbersome and unrealistic especially in a non-Google Workspace environment (which I think is the entire point of killing GEP).

Anyone having this issue, any ideas?

Using an iPad, I have clicked on "more dates" and the bar underneath came up. I tried clicking on the thumbnail but it keeps the most recent view up, would like to see the Sept 2018 thumbnail in a larger size. Thanks!

How can we fix this?