How to Transfer Google Maps Saved Places to Waze: Complete Guide

Waze and Google Maps are both owned by Google, yet they don't share saved places. If you've built up years of saved locations in Google Maps but prefer Waze's real-time traffic alerts and community reports for driving, you'll need to manually transfer your favorites.

This guide covers your options for bringing Google Maps saved places into Waze.

Why Waze?

Waze has carved out a niche as the go-to app for commuters and road trippers who prioritize:

• Real-time traffic: Community-reported accidents, hazards, and slowdowns
• Police and speed trap alerts: Crowd-sourced warnings
• Dynamic routing: Automatically reroutes around congestion
• Gas prices: Find cheap fuel along your route
• Carpool features: Connect with other commuters
• Engaging interface: Gamified with points and achievements

While Google Maps has incorporated some of Waze's traffic data, Waze remains faster at surfacing real-time road conditions reported by drivers.

The Frustrating Reality

Despite being sister products under Google, Waze and Google Maps maintain completely separate place databases. Your starred locations in Google Maps don't appear in Waze, and vice versa. Google has kept the apps distinct to serve different use cases - Google Maps for general mapping and discovery, Waze for driver-focused navigation.

This means there's no "sync" button. You'll need to work around the limitation.

Your Transfer Options

Option A: Send from Google Maps to Waze (One at a Time)

The most reliable method, but tedious for large lists:

1. Open Google Maps
2. Find a saved place you want in Waze
3. Tap the place to open details
4. Tap "Share" → choose Waze
5. In Waze, save the location to Favorites

This works well for your top 10-20 frequently visited places. For hundreds of locations, it's impractical.

Option B: Use Coordinates with Waze Search

Export your places with coordinates, then search in Waze:

1. Export from Google Takeout and geocode (via Takeout Tools or similar)
2. Open your CSV or GPX file to see coordinates
3. In Waze, search for the coordinates (e.g., "37.7749, -122.4194")
4. Save the result to Favorites

More efficient than navigating Google Maps for each place, but still requires individual saving.

Option C: Focus on Essentials Only

Waze's Favorites are designed for frequent driving destinations, not comprehensive place collections. Consider transferring only:

• Home and work (Waze has dedicated slots for these)
• Frequent destinations (gym, parents' house, regular clients)
• Places you actually drive to regularly

Your coffee shop list or vacation wishlist probably don't need to be in Waze - use Google Maps for discovery and Waze for the drive.

Step-by-Step: Export and Reference Method

For the most organized approach:

1. Export from Google Takeout

1. Go to Google Takeout
2. Click "Deselect all"
3. Scroll down and select only "Saved"
4. Click "Next step" → "Create export"
5. Wait for the email, download, and unzip

2. Add Coordinates

Google Takeout exports lack coordinates. Use a geocoding service like Takeout Tools to add latitude and longitude to each place. Export as CSV for easy viewing.

3. Create Your Priority List

Open your geocoded CSV in a spreadsheet. Identify your most important driving destinations - the places you'll actually want quick access to in Waze. Sort or filter to create a focused list.

4. Add to Waze Favorites

For each priority place:

1. Open Waze
2. Tap Search
3. Enter the coordinates (lat, long format)
4. When the location appears, tap "Save" or the star icon
5. Optionally rename the favorite for easy recognition

5. Set Home and Work

Waze gives special treatment to Home and Work:

1. Tap Search → tap your profile icon
2. Set Home address
3. Set Work address
4. These appear as quick-access buttons in Waze

What About Bulk Import?

Waze doesn't support bulk import of favorites. This is by design - Waze favorites are meant to be a short list of frequent destinations, not a database of every place you've ever saved.

Unofficial workarounds occasionally appear (browser extensions, scripts), but they tend to break with app updates and may violate Waze's terms of service. The manual approach is slower but reliable.

Waze Favorites vs Google Maps Saved Places

Understanding the difference helps set expectations:

Waze isn't trying to replace Google Maps for place storage - it's optimized for getting you somewhere fast.

Pro Tips

1. Quality over quantity. Your Waze favorites should be places you actually drive to. A smaller, curated list is more useful than hundreds of places you'll never access.

2. Use "Recents" strategically. Waze remembers recent destinations. For occasional destinations, just search when needed rather than cluttering Favorites.

3. Set up planned drives. Waze lets you schedule drives and send them to your phone. Use this for one-off trips rather than saving every destination.

4. Keep Google Maps for the details. Look up hours, reviews, and photos in Google Maps. Switch to Waze when you're ready to drive.

5. Try "Send to Car" features. If your car has Android Auto or CarPlay, you can send destinations from either app to your car's navigation.

6. Remember both apps have the same owner. Waze traffic data feeds into Google Maps. You're often getting similar routing intelligence either way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why don't Google Maps and Waze sync?

Google has kept the apps separate to serve different audiences. Google Maps is the general-purpose mapping app; Waze is the community-driven driving app. They share some backend data (traffic) but not user data (saved places).

Is there really no bulk import for Waze?

Correct. Waze has never offered bulk import of favorites. The app is designed around a small set of frequent destinations, not large place collections.

Should I use Waze or Google Maps for driving?

Both are excellent. Waze tends to surface real-time hazards faster (accidents, police, road closures). Google Maps has better lane guidance and offline maps. Many people use both depending on the situation.

Can I export my Waze favorites?

No. Waze doesn't offer an export feature for favorites. The data stays in the app.

What happens to Waze favorites if I delete the app?

They're tied to your Waze account. Sign back in and they return. But there's no external backup option.

Is Google planning to merge Google Maps and Waze?

As of 2026, they remain separate products. Google has merged some backend teams but kept the user-facing apps distinct.

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Export Your Places with Coordinates

Get your saved places in a usable format

Try Takeout Tools →

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Free Tools

Need to convert geo files to CSV? Use our free browser-based converters:

• GPX to CSV Converter - Convert GPS waypoints to spreadsheet format
• KML to CSV Converter - Convert Google Earth placemarks to CSV
• GeoJSON to CSV Converter - Convert GeoJSON features to CSV

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See Other Export Guides

• Export Google Maps Saved Places Guide
• How to Transfer Saved Places to HERE WeGo
• How to Transfer Saved Places to Apple Maps
• How to Export Saved Places as CSV