Is Google Earth Studio free?

Yes. Google’s page says Earth Studio is free to use. It runs in desktop Chrome, you sign in with a Google account and request access, and the docs describe it as a preview where access is granted case by case.

Can I use Google Earth footage in a YouTube video?

Google’s geo guidelines allow Earth and Earth Studio content, with attribution on screen, in documentaries, news, films and online videos made mainly for education, instruction, recreation or entertainment, even if monetized. They do not allow commercial or promotional use, such as ads, promotional videos or a real estate company’s property video. We are not lawyers: read the guidelines for your case.

Can I animate a route in Google Earth?

In Earth Studio, the docs list no route or path tool, and the supported KML elements are points, polygons, placemarks and overlays. Lines are not listed. In Google Earth Pro you can record a tour of your own flight path, and Google Earth on the web projects can hold lines and shapes that viewers step through. In a map editor such as Maptake, a route is a layer that draws itself on with a moving icon.

Can AI animate Google Earth?

The Earth Studio pages we read mention no AI feature. Maptake’s agent does not animate Google Earth either: it builds a video on Maptake’s own map, with a satellite or styled basemap, from your description. You can edit every layer by hand.

Does Maptake use Google Earth imagery?

No. Maptake does not use Google imagery. Its satellite imagery comes from Esri, and it also has styled vector maps, 3D terrain and extruded 3D buildings. It has no photoreal 3D cities, so for that kind of shot Earth Studio is the better tool.

Can I import a KML from Google Earth?

Yes. KML lines and areas import with “Feature”, then “Import a file”, in the Add dock, as do GeoJSON, GPX and TCX. A Google Earth on the web project exports as a KML file. KMZ is not supported yet.

Can I edit what the AI made?

Yes. The agent uses the editor’s own tools, so every route, label, boundary and camera shot is a normal layer on the timeline. Retime a shot, retype a label or switch the basemap by hand.

How to Animate Google Earth, and When to Use a Map Editor

The video above was built by hand in Maptake from a popular After Effects tutorial: the camera turns and zooms across a tilted physical map of Eurasia. It uses no Google imagery.

How do I animate Google Earth itself?

Facts about Google’s tools were read on Google’s own pages on 10 November 2026. Sources are listed at the end of the page.

Google has three desktop and web products that can move a camera over Earth. Earth Studio is the one made for animation.

Earth Studio: keyframe a camera, render frames

Request access. Sign in with a Google account and fill in the access form, which asks for your country and industry. Google emails you whether you are accepted. The docs call this a preview release where access is granted case by case.
Open it in desktop Chrome on Mac or Windows, with WebGL and hardware acceleration on.
Keyframe the camera. Earth Studio is keyframe-based, with quick-start templates, and it can also animate attributes such as the position of the sun and the camera’s field of view.
Render. A local render saves an image sequence to a folder; Google suggests converting it to video with Adobe Media Encoder or After Effects. A cloud render gives an H.264 MP4, but it is experimental, so Google warns it may go offline. The cloud render page is dated 2021.
Keep the attribution. Earth Studio adds the credit to each frame as you render, naming “Google Earth” and any third-party imagery providers. Do not crop it out.

What it is good at: photoreal 3D flyovers of real places. Earth Studio can also export the camera to After Effects as a script, which is the route to adding labels and pins in post-production.

Google Earth Pro: record a tour, then a movie

On the desktop, Google Earth’s help describes recording a tour: choose Add, then Tour (or Record above the globe), fly to the places you want, optionally narrate with a microphone, then save the tour from the media player. Google’s release notes list a Movie Maker tool in Google Earth Pro that renders movies from tours. We did not find a current Google help page for its steps, formats or resolution, so check the tool itself.

Google’s versions page also says Google Earth Pro on desktop will no longer be available for download beginning June 25, 2027.

Google Earth on the web: projects and presentations

Projects on the web hold placemarks, lines and shapes, with text, images and video. You order the features as a story, add fullscreen slides, and viewers step through it in presentation mode. Google’s guide describes no video export for a project. A project can be exported as a KML file.

What can’t Google’s tools do?

These limits come from Google’s own pages. They are not faults: each tool is built for one job.

No finished video from a local Earth Studio render. It gives an image sequence you convert elsewhere. The MP4 cloud render is experimental, and it leaves out the map labels and borders that a local render can include.
No route tool in the docs. The Earth Studio docs have no page on routes or paths, and the supported KML elements are points, polygons, placemarks and overlays. Only the opacity of a whole overlay can be keyframed.
No audio page in the Earth Studio docs, and no AI feature mentioned on its intro page or in its docs. That is not proof there is none, only what the pages say.
Attribution on every frame. Google’s guidelines say Earth content can never be used without it, and it has to stay on screen with the content, not move to the credits.
Limits on use. Google’s guidelines allow Earth and Earth Studio content in news, film, documentaries, music videos and educational content, and in online videos made mainly for education, instruction, recreation or entertainment, even when monetized. They say Earth content may not be used for commercial or promotional purposes, and name a real estate company’s property video as an example.
Rules on changing the imagery. The guidelines allow annotation, such as points, lines and labels, but say a significant change to how Earth looks is allowed only when viewers are told it is a simulation, projection or fiction.

One wrinkle: the Earth Studio FAQ says attributed content can be used “for any application such as research, education, film and nonprofit use”, and also says Google does not offer a licence for commercial applications. The geo guidelines are the stricter text. Read both pages before you publish. We are not lawyers.

How do I make a Google Earth style zoom in a map editor with AI?

You describe the video in the chat, and the agent plans it and builds it on the timeline. Here is an example of a request. We wrote it for this page; it is not a finished video.

“Zoom from space down to Reykjavík, then follow the south coast road to Vík. 15 seconds, 16:9, calm.”

It names the start, the end, the length, the format and the feeling. The agent works in this order, the same as in the app’s chat:

Plan. It writes the story, the feeling and the camera shots.
Places and data. It finds the places the story needs and, when the story follows a road, the road.
Look. It picks one design system: the map style, colours, fonts and label style.
Scenes, one by one. It builds each scene on the timeline: the globe, the camera shots, the route and the labels.
Review. It checks frames of the result against the plan and corrects what does not match.
Done. You get an ordinary project to edit.

The difference from Earth Studio is the imagery. Maptake has satellite imagery from Esri, 3D terrain and extruded 3D buildings, not Google’s photoreal 3D cities, and no Google imagery. For the space-to-street dive on a globe, see the globe animation guide.

For a finished shot of this kind, open the Earth zoom into New York: one camera move from the whole Earth down to Manhattan, on Esri satellite imagery, ending on a label. The globe animation guide has the two-minute tutorial that makes it.

Open the Earth zoom project

The Eurasia video above was built by hand, not by the agent. Videos the agent plans are on the examples page.

How do I fine-tune it by hand?

Open the project and work on the timeline. To build the same kind of shot from nothing, follow these steps:

Choose a satellite basemap. Select the Basemap layer and set the map type to Satellite. Satellite imagery shows in the preview on every plan; exporting it needs Pro. A vector map exports on every plan.
Switch the projection to Globe. Open “Video settings” in the header, go to the Properties tab, find the Video section and set “Projection” to “Globe (when zoomed out)”. The map becomes a sphere whenever the camera is zoomed far enough out.
Set two camera shots. In the Camera layer, make the first “Camera shot” wide, with the whole Earth in frame, and the second close on your place. Give the move an ease-in-out curve. The globe flattens into a normal map between zoom 7 and zoom 9, so one move can run from space to a street.
Add terrain, if you want relief. Raise the “3D terrain” slider in the World layer and tilt the camera. Exporting 3D terrain needs Pro.
Add a route and labels. Search for a place and add it as a label, draw a route and animate “Trim end” to draw it on, or import a KML, GPX or TCX file with “Feature”, then “Import a file”, in the Add dock. Imported KML lines and areas become layers you can restyle. KMZ is not supported yet.
Export the video. Open “Export video” and export an MP4. A vector map exports on every plan. Satellite imagery and 3D terrain need Pro.

The free plan has 100 AI credits a month and exports up to 1280 px and 10 seconds, with a watermark, without satellite or 3D terrain. See plan limits.

Which one should I use?

When to use Google Earth Studio and when to use a map editor
	Use Google Earth Studio when…	Use a map editor when…
The shot	A photoreal flyover of a real city, coast or mountain range, with Google’s 3D imagery.	An explaining map: borders, routes, labels and numbers on a map you style yourself.
Imagery	Google Earth’s satellite and 3D imagery.	Vector map styles, Esri satellite and 3D terrain on Pro, extruded 3D buildings. No Google imagery and no photoreal 3D cities.
Routes and labels	You add them after the render: the Earth Studio intro page says camera export to After Effects lets you add map labels and pins in post-production.	Routes with moving icons, labels, cards and boundaries are layers on the timeline.
What you get	A local render is an image sequence you convert to video in another app. The cloud render is an MP4 and is experimental.	An MP4 or WebM from the editor, with audio on paid plans.
Use of the video	Education, documentaries, news and film with Google’s attribution on screen. Not ads, promotional videos or real estate listings.	Per plan. Free is for personal use; Pro covers your own channels and business; Studio also covers client work.

You can also use both. Render a photoreal Earth Studio shot for the opening, make the explaining map in a map editor, and cut them together in your video editor. Keep Google’s attribution on the Earth Studio frames. The Google Earth Studio comparison goes row by row.

Sources

Questions people ask

Is Google Earth Studio free?: Yes. Google’s page says Earth Studio is free to use. It runs in desktop Chrome, you sign in with a Google account and request access, and the docs describe it as a preview where access is granted case by case.
Can I use Google Earth footage in a YouTube video?: Google’s geo guidelines allow Earth and Earth Studio content, with attribution on screen, in documentaries, news, films and online videos made mainly for education, instruction, recreation or entertainment, even if monetized. They do not allow commercial or promotional use, such as ads, promotional videos or a real estate company’s property video. We are not lawyers: read the guidelines for your case.
Can I animate a route in Google Earth?: In Earth Studio, the docs list no route or path tool, and the supported KML elements are points, polygons, placemarks and overlays. Lines are not listed. In Google Earth Pro you can record a tour of your own flight path, and Google Earth on the web projects can hold lines and shapes that viewers step through. In a map editor such as Maptake, a route is a layer that draws itself on with a moving icon.
Can AI animate Google Earth?: The Earth Studio pages we read mention no AI feature. Maptake’s agent does not animate Google Earth either: it builds a video on Maptake’s own map, with a satellite or styled basemap, from your description. You can edit every layer by hand.
Does Maptake use Google Earth imagery?: No. Maptake does not use Google imagery. Its satellite imagery comes from Esri, and it also has styled vector maps, 3D terrain and extruded 3D buildings. It has no photoreal 3D cities, so for that kind of shot Earth Studio is the better tool.
Can I import a KML from Google Earth?: Yes. KML lines and areas import with “Feature”, then “Import a file”, in the Add dock, as do GeoJSON, GPX and TCX. A Google Earth on the web project exports as a KML file. KMZ is not supported yet.
Can I edit what the AI made?: Yes. The agent uses the editor’s own tools, so every route, label, boundary and camera shot is a normal layer on the timeline. Retime a shot, retype a label or switch the basemap by hand.

Try a space-to-street zoom

Open the editor free, describe one shot to the agent and fine-tune it. The free plan needs no card.

Start free See plans

Google Earth and Google Earth Studio are trademarks of Google LLC. Maptake is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.

How to animate Google Earth, and when a map editor fits better