How to import a GPX file into Google My Maps

The short answer

Convert the GPX file to KML first — a free online converter or a desktop tool such as GPSBabel does this in one pass. Then, in Google My Maps, open or start a map, click Import in the layer panel on the left, and either drag the KML file in or browse to it. My Maps reads the file and adds the route as a new layer on the map.

Trying to import the .gpx file itself, unconverted, is the one step that reliably goes nowhere — My Maps simply does not list it among the formats its import dialog accepts.

Why My Maps asks for KML instead of GPX

My Maps grew out of the same family of tools as Google Earth, and it inherited Google Earth's native format along with it. KML describes a map the way My Maps thinks about one — placemarks, styled lines, folders of layers — rather than the plain, unstyled list of timestamped coordinates a GPX track is. My Maps also accepts KMZ (a zipped KML), GeoJSON, and CSV or spreadsheet files with a column of coordinates, which fit the same mould: each one already carries the map-building shape My Maps expects, or is simple enough for My Maps to build that shape itself. A GPX file, built for moving raw GPS data between devices rather than for laying out a map, is the one common format left outside that list.

Getting it in, step by step

Convert the file

Turn the .gpx file into .kml using a converter such as GPS Visualizer or gpx2kml online, or GPSBabel if you would rather not upload the route to a third-party site first. The line itself survives the conversion intact — what to check afterward is covered in the guide to converting GPX to KML.

Create or open a map

At google.com/mymaps, start a new map or open an existing one you want to add the route to. Every My Maps map is built from one or more layers, and importing a file always adds its content as a new layer rather than overwriting what is already there.

Import the layer

In the layer panel, click Import, then either drag the .kml file onto the drop area or browse to it on your computer. My Maps reads the file and draws the route as a line on the map, listed under a new layer named after the file.

What actually lands on the map

The shape of the route comes across as a coloured line, and My Maps hands you styling controls a GPX file was never built to carry in the first place — line colour, line width, and a custom icon or label if the file included named placemarks. Multiple imported routes can sit as separate layers on the same map, toggled on and off independently, alongside hand-placed pins for a trailhead, a campsite, or a parking area.

What does not carry across in any useful way is the timing. My Maps is built to show where a route goes, not to work out how fast anyone travelled it — there is no distance, moving time, pace or elevation-gain figure attached to an imported layer, regardless of whether the source file had timestamps on every point. Photos, video clips and voice notes pinned to a hike in the app that recorded it stay outside the file entirely, the same as with any GPX or KML export, so none of that comes across either.

Things that trip people up

• Trying to import the .gpx file directly and finding it is not offered — My Maps' import dialog is built around KML, KMZ, GeoJSON and spreadsheet formats, and a plain GPX file is not among them.
• Expecting the imported layer to show pace, moving time or elevation gain — it will not. My Maps draws a styled line on a map; it does not recompute any of the numbers a GPS recording app already worked out.
• A very long or point-dense track importing slowly, or getting flattened into fewer points than the original recording — My Maps is built around manageable layers for a shareable map, not a full-resolution archive of every point a phone logged.
• The map staying private after import — a newly created My Maps map is not shared with anyone by default, so sharing settings need to be changed separately before sending the link to someone else.

Why bother with My Maps at all

The platforms built to read a GPX track directly — Strava, Garmin Connect, Komoot, Gaia GPS — are built around analysing a recorded activity: how far, how long, how much climbing. My Maps solves a different problem entirely: putting a route, or several, in front of someone who has no GPS app and no account anywhere, as a plain shareable map with your own pins and labels added on top. Planning a trip with friends, laying a few days of a route onto one map before setting off, or embedding a map on a trip-report page are all jobs My Maps is actually built for, and none of them need the timing data a GPX file carries and My Maps quietly leaves behind.

Where TrailCam fits in

TrailCam records a hike, walk or ride on an iPhone as a continuous GPS track and exports it as GPX 1.1 — a single route or the whole history at once — or as a CSV summary. That GPX file is the one to convert to KML if the destination is Google My Maps; kept as GPX, the same file already carries everything Strava, Garmin Connect and Komoot need with nothing to convert first. Export is part of the optional TrailCam Pro upgrade; the app itself is free to download.