KML overlays in Map Maker

Now that I got that terrible first post out of the way, here's some actual content.

If you are going to map some roads or trails, you may find yourself using My Tracks to record a track, and then you need to figure out how to turn that track into actual lines in Map Maker. I actually did that today to map some new roads they are building in my area. The trick to importing your KML file is finding a place to host the KML online and then getting the URL to the actual KML file that you can paste into Map Maker. Google always seems to be changing their mapping products, so some of the instructions you may come across may not work anymore.

There are 2 ways that I know currently work that I use. I create the track using Google My Tracks on my Android device and then I can export to My Maps and from there it's pretty easy to get the link:

• Once you have the track in My Maps, the link needs to be shared so that anyone with the link can view. Click on the green "Share" button in the upper right corner to do this
• To get a URL you can use with MapMaker, you need to take the shared link and change "embed" or "edit" in the middle of the URL to "kml", so it will look something like "https://mapsengine.google.com/map/kml?mid=" and then a big long ID string
• Paste that KML link into the Overlay Manager in Map Maker

If you don't want to use My Maps you can also put the file on Google Drive:

• Upload the KML file to your Google Drive (it will actually be uploaded as a KMZ file, but that's basically the same as a KML except it's also been zipped to make it a smaller file)
• Share the file so that anyone with the link can view the file
• You need to get the ID code for the file, and it's a bit tricky. The way I get it is to double-click on the file and a screen will come up that says there is no Preview available. Click on the "Pop-out" icon in the upper right corner and the KML will open up in Maps and the URL will contain a long string that is the file ID
• The URL to the actual KML file is the following URL: https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id= and then you need to paste the ID from the pop-out window

That's all there is to it.