How to Add Pins to Google Maps

By Misty Rodriguez

Updated September 28, 2017

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Google Maps is a free service provided by Google. It offers a route planner and street maps and helps users locate places of interest. You can use this service to save maps, which you can customize by drawing lines and adding pins. Google refers to these pins as "placemarks" and you can use them to mark an important location, just as you would with a pin on a map. Only users with a Google account are able to add placemarks to their maps. See the Resources section for a link to create a free Google account if you don't have one already.

Visit the Google Maps website (see References). Click on the "Sign in" option in the top right-hand corner of the screen and sign in with your Google email and password.

Click on "My Maps" and select one of your saved maps or click on "Create new map" if you want to start from scratch. If you are creating a new map, you need to enter a name for the map in the "Title" field and you can also add an optional description.

Click on "Edit" in the left pane if you are editing one of your saved maps. This will pull up three icons in the top-left corner of the map. If you are creating a new map, those icons will already be there and you don't have to click on "Edit."

Click on the middle icon, which looks like a small blue pin. When you hover your mouse over the icon, it will say "Add a placemark."

Move the cursor arrow to the place on the map that you want the pin to appear and click once. Enter the title and description of the pin in the pop-up window and click on "OK." Repeat this step for additional pins.

Click on "Save" and then select "Done" to save your changes.

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