If you have marked several locations in Google Earth Pro, you do not need to recreate them every time you open the program. You can save placemarks, paths, polygons, folders and tours, organise them under My Places, and export geographic information so it can be backed up or shared with another person.
Google Earth supports saving place information to your computer and sharing it with others. For Google Earth Pro users, learning how to organise and export these items is particularly useful when working on mapping projects, field locations, routes or presentations.
If you are working with routes or recorded tracks, see our guide on how to add a GPS track to Google Earth Pro.
What Can You Save in Google Earth Pro?
Google Earth Pro allows you to work with different types of geographic information. Common examples include:
- Placemarks for individual locations
- Paths for routes, roads or tracks
- Polygons for areas or boundaries
- Folders for organising related features
- Tours for recorded presentations
- KML and KMZ files for storing and transferring geographic information
A placemark can contain more than just a position. You can give it a name, add a description, change its icon and adjust its appearance. Google also allows coordinates to be used when positioning a placemark.
How to Save a Place in Google Earth Pro
Start by opening Google Earth Pro and navigating to the location you want to save.
Step 1: Create a placemark
Use the Add Placemark tool and click the location on the globe. A placemark editing window allows you to give the location a meaningful name and add information about it.
For example, if you are mapping water infrastructure, you might create placemarks such as:
- Water treatment plant
- Storage tank
- Pump station
- Water source
- Project site
Giving each location a clear name makes a large project much easier to manage later.
Step 2: Adjust the saved location
You can change the placemark's icon, description and position. If you know the exact latitude and longitude, Google Earth also allows coordinates to be entered when editing a placemark.
This is useful when you already have coordinates from a GPS receiver, survey, spreadsheet or another GIS application.
How to Organise Places into Folders
If you have many placemarks, keeping everything directly under My Places can become difficult to manage.
A better approach is to create folders based on the project or feature type.
For example:
Songea Water Project
→ Water Sources
→ Storage Tanks
→ Treatment Plants
→ Distribution Network
→ Project Areas
You can then place related placemarks, paths and polygons inside the appropriate folder.
This organisation becomes especially important before exporting your work because you can save a complete folder rather than handling every feature individually.
How to Save Places as KML or KMZ
Once your locations and other features are organised, you can save them to your computer.
Google's official instructions explain that Google Earth can save placemarks, tours and other information to your computer. On supported desktop versions, the Save Place As function can save the information as a geographic file; KMZ contains KML information in a compressed format.
For a project containing several features, first organise them in a folder. Then select the folder and use the option to Save Place As.
KML vs KMZ
The two formats are closely related, but they are not identical.
KML is an XML-based geographic data format that can contain locations, descriptions, styles and other map information.
KMZ is a compressed form of KML and can also package supporting resources. For many projects, KMZ is convenient when you want to transfer a collection of geographic information as a single file.
Choose the format according to what the receiving software or person needs.
How to Share Saved Places
After saving your work, you can transfer the KML or KMZ file using normal file-sharing methods such as email, cloud storage or a USB drive.
Google also documents options for emailing saved place information directly from Google Earth.
For larger projects, however, saving the file first and then checking it before sending is a good practice. Open the saved file again and confirm that the important placemarks, paths, polygons and descriptions are present.
How to Move Google Earth Places to Another Computer
Your saved Google Earth information can also be moved to another computer.
Google documents a myplaces.kml file that contains saved locations in Google Earth. It can be backed up or transferred to another computer. Google recommends methods such as saving the file to Google Drive, emailing it to yourself or using removable storage.
For important projects, keeping a separate backup is sensible. If your saved locations are valuable, do not rely on only one copy stored on one computer.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Saving everything without folders: Large projects become difficult to manage.
Using unclear names: Names such as "Point 1" and "Point 2" may not be helpful months later. Use descriptive names instead.
Sharing without checking the file: Always open the exported KML or KMZ and verify the important information.
Confusing Google Earth Pro with Google Earth web projects: They have different ways of handling saved information. Google Earth Pro uses local files such as KML/KMZ, while Google Earth web also has its own project workflow.
Keeping only one copy: Create a backup before making major changes to an important project.
Best Way to Organise a Google Earth Pro Project
For a project with many features, a simple structure can save considerable time:
Project Folder
├── Locations
├── Routes
├── Areas
├── Reference Data
└── Final Export
Use consistent names and keep related features together. Before sharing the final file, remove unnecessary temporary data and confirm that the saved information opens correctly.
For additional information and the latest guidance, see the official Google Earth Help documentation on Save & share place information
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