In June, Google launched its latest smartphone working system, Android 16. The identical month, Apple previewed its subsequent smartphone working system, iOS 26. The brand new OSes are full of thrilling options, but every nonetheless fails to handle a selected ache level that their customers have had for years regarding two of the platforms’ most-used apps: Apple Maps and Google Maps.
Particularly, there may be nonetheless no straightforward technique to switch saved map knowledge from one app to a different. This finally ends up locking customers into one mapping platform, which is nice for the 2 tech giants concerned, however unhealthy for people who need extra management over their knowledge.
Nonetheless, all will not be misplaced, and if you happen to do want to switch your knowledge between Apple Maps and Google Maps, there’s a (time-consuming) technique to do it. Right here’s what you could know.
It’s absurd that Apple Maps and Google Maps don’t play good collectively
I’m a giant fan of each Apple Maps and Google Maps. Apple Maps has made vital progress in recent times to rise to the extent of Google Maps, the present king. Google Maps nonetheless has higher point-of-interest knowledge (i.e., enterprise data, equivalent to dwell foot site visitors knowledge) and significantly extra contextual knowledge a few location, because of its crowd-sourced opinions and pictures, however Apple Maps has surpassed Google Maps in a number of areas. Its strengths embody a much less cluttered interface and a extra visually interesting map design than Google Maps’s.
The truth that every mapping app has totally different strengths is the explanation that I, like many others, swap between them. Nonetheless, in contrast to different competing apps the 2 firms make—e mail shoppers, photograph apps, deal with books, and internet browsers—I can’t simply switch the info I’ve created in Apple or Google Maps (on this case, a whole bunch of saved areas I’ve bookmarked through the years) to the competing app.
I see no good purpose for this lack of performance, aside from to bind a person to a selected mapping platform. In any case, if you save a location in Apple Maps or Google Maps, you’re merely telling the app to recollect a location—an deal with. This deal with might be simply processed by any mapping platform. Certainly, it’s what these platforms are designed to do. That’s why it’s so ridiculous that neither mapping app has the straightforward “switch your saved areas” characteristic that enables the porting of knowledge from one to the opposite.
Nonetheless, no less than there’s a workaround.
Right here’s methods to switch your saved areas between Apple Maps and Google Maps
For those who do wish to switch your saved areas from Apple Maps to Google Maps, or vice versa, you may. It would simply require some tedious handbook labor in your half.
Right here’s one of the best ways I’ve discovered to switch my saved areas from one mapping app to a different. (Be aware: as all the time, earlier than performing any form of knowledge switch, you must all the time again up a replica of that knowledge first for safekeeping.)
From Google Maps to Apple Maps:
- Go to takeout.google.com. That is the Google software that allows you to obtain your Google knowledge.
- Choose “Maps (your locations)”, then click on “Subsequent Step”, after which “Create Export.” Google will e mail you a hyperlink when your saved locations are able to obtain.
- Open the downloaded “takeout” ZIP file.
- Now, open the “Saved Locations.json” file inside. Clicking on it ought to open the file in an internet browser.
- Each saved location you created in Google Maps will seem within the JSON file, in a barely uncommon format. Every entry will listing the coordinates, Google Map URL, deal with, nation code, and identify of the institution.
- Now comes the tedious half. Open up Apple Maps and both copy the identify of the institution or its deal with into the search area within the Apple Maps app.
- Now, click on the + button within the deal with or enterprise itemizing in Apple Maps to save lots of the placement within the app.
Repeat this course of for each saved itemizing within the JSON file. Remember that it might take hours, and even days, relying on the variety of saved locations you could have.
From Apple Maps to Google Maps:
Sadly, porting your saved areas from Apple Maps to Google Maps is a bit tougher as a result of there is no such thing as a approach that I’ve discovered to generate a listing of all of your saved locations. Which means you’re going through even extra handbook work if you wish to transfer your knowledge from Apple Maps to Google Maps.
- Open Apple Maps.
- Faucet your profile photograph.
- Faucet Library.
- Faucet Locations.
- Faucet on a saved location.
- On the placement’s data sheet, scroll down and replica the placement’s deal with. Alternately, copy down the placement’s identify.
- Now open the Google Maps app and paste the copied deal with or the placement’s identify within the search area.
- Whenever you discover the placement in Google Maps, faucet on its itemizing after which faucet the Save button.
Tedious, proper?
Professional tip: After finishing both of these handbook saved location transfers, it’s most likely a good suggestion to get within the behavior of bookmarking a saved location within the different mapping app if you put it aside in a single.
Why can’t I simply swap my knowledge between Apple and Google Maps?
I requested each Google and Apple why they don’t enable customers to simply export their saved areas from their respective mapping apps right into a competitor’s, and why they don’t allow customers to import a listing of saved areas into their mapping apps.
Neither supplied a solution. Apple merely confirmed that customers can not export their saved locations in Apple Maps, and talked about that customers can share particular person saved areas with others. Google directed me to its Takeout characteristic and defined that customers can import areas saved from different apps right into a “Google My Maps” layer, which isn’t a part of the primary Google Maps app that customers see after they open the app. In different phrases, Google permits customers to import saved areas into a brand new layer, however these areas received’t seem on the default map they use daily.
It’s absurd in 2025 that there’s nonetheless no easy technique to share saved areas between the world’s two largest mapping platforms. Switching from one mapping service to a different ought to be as easy as altering internet browsers. Identical to I can simply export bookmarks from Safari and import them into Chrome, I ought to have the ability to do the identical with my saved maps knowledge. Hopefully, each Apple and Google will repair this problem sooner or later. Till then, adventurous customers with time on their fingers can strive the handbook steps outlined above.
