EXPERIMENT 11LIVE

PlacesHub

A home for places scattered across maps and lists

Can saved places become a collection you can search, annotate and share without losing the map that makes them useful?

People who save places in Google Maps or build Google My Maps collections and want to find, organise and share them later.Open PlacesHub

THE PROBLEM

What is actually going wrong

A saved place is easy to capture and surprisingly hard to use later. Google Maps lists, personal notes and custom maps live in separate workflows. Putting together a trip or sharing a useful set of locations means revisiting those sources and manually rebuilding context.

A personal place collection needs more than pins. It needs searchable names and locations, notes that belong to the right person or collection, and a way to share a map without giving someone access to the account that created it.

WHAT I DID ABOUT IT

I built

PlacesHub brings saved places into a map with search and filters, personal notes and editable collections. A Chrome and Firefox extension can import selected Google Maps lists from the user’s signed-in browser session. Google My Maps KML or KMZ point pins can also be imported into a manual collection.

Collections can be shared as public map snapshots or exported as KML. Extension keys are revocable, and a separate scoped key gives AI agents access through the MCP API.

TRY IT YOURSELF

Demo

The application runs separately. It opens in a new tab.

Open PlacesHub

PlacesHub dashboard showing saved places beside a map with location pins. — Saved places stay searchable beside the map instead of disappearing into separate lists.

PlacesHub import dialog showing a Google My Maps KMZ ready to become a collection. — A My Maps export can become an editable collection of point pins.

BEFORE AND AFTER

What changed

Before

Several separate workflows; no measured baseline

01Save places in Google Maps or build a custom My Map
02Search through separate lists and notes later
03Rebuild a set of places before sharing it

After

One place to browse and share; time savings not measured

01Sync selected saved lists or import a My Maps KML/KMZ file
02Search, annotate and organise places on one map
03Share a snapshot link or export a collection as KML

DISCOVERY

Separate lists and mapsSearch and filters beside one map

ORGANISATION

Scattered notes and pinsPersonal notes and collections

SHARING

Rebuild the list for someone elsePublic snapshot or KML export

ARCHITECTURE

How does it work?

PLACE COLLECTION FLOW

INPUT
Map sources
Saved lists or KML/KMZ.
BOUNDARY
Capture and import
Extension sync or file import.
STORE
Owned collection
Owner checks, places and notes.
OUTPUT
Map and share
Search, snapshot and KML.

Saved lists and exported maps enter through separate paths, then meet in an owned place collection.

The Google Maps list endpoints are undocumented. Sync rejects incomplete or unverifiable empty responses rather than removing existing memberships on a bad read.

WHAT FAILED

What didn't work

Treating every Google Maps saved-list response as complete and safe to apply.

Google’s undocumented list responses can be incomplete or change shape. An empty or partial read could otherwise remove valid collection memberships.

WHAT CHANGED

The extension rejects unverifiable empty or incomplete responses and reports a structural diagnostic instead of applying a destructive sync.

CODE

See the implementation

PUBLIC REPOSITORY

The web app, API, browser extensions and database schema are available in the public repository.

View the repository

SHARE AND ENJOY

Share and enjoy

Tell me what's going on. I'll come back within a business day, and if I'm not the right person for it I'll say so.