Google Maps Takeout Export: What Fields Are (and Aren't) Included

A definitive reference for what data Google Takeout actually exports from your saved places — and what's missing. Covers coordinates, dates, ratings, photos, and the zero-coordinate bug.

May 25, 2026

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8 min read

You ran your Google Takeout export, unzipped the file, opened the CSV, and immediately noticed something wrong. There are no coordinates. Or you're wondering where the date you saved a place went, or what happened to your star ratings. This page is the reference you should have found before you started.

Google's Takeout export for saved places is incomplete by design — but the gaps aren't obvious until you've already gone through the process. Here's exactly what you get and what you don't, and why.

What Google Takeout Does Export

Google Takeout offers two different export paths for saved places. The fields you get depend on which one you choose.

The "Saved" export (per-list CSV files)

When you select Saved in Google Takeout, you get one CSV file per saved list. Each row contains:

Title — The place name as it appears in Google Maps (e.g., "Eiffel Tower" or "Joe's Coffee")
Note — Any personal note you added when saving the place. Empty if you didn't add one.
URL — A Google Maps link to the place (typically https://www.google.com/maps/place/...)
Address — The street address, usually formatted as "Street, City, State, Country"

The list name itself isn't a field — it's encoded as the filename (e.g., Starred places.csv, Want to go.csv, your custom list names).

The "Maps (your places)" export (Saved Places.json)

When you select Maps in Google Takeout, you get a Saved Places.json file in GeoJSON format. This is the only Takeout export that can include coordinate data. Each feature may contain:

Title — Same place name as above
Google Maps URL — Link to the place
Geometry — A GeoJSON Point with latitude/longitude coordinates (when available)

Note: this path only covers your starred places, not your full list structure.

What Google Takeout Does Not Export

This is the more important list for most people.

Missing Field	Can It Be Recovered?
Latitude / Longitude (in CSV export)	Yes — via geocoding
Date added to list	No — permanently lost
Star rating	No
Photos you attached	No
Check-in history	No
Category / business type	Partially — via geocoding services
Review you wrote	No

Latitude and Longitude

The CSV export contains no coordinates at all. The JSON export often contains coordinates, but not always reliably (see the zero-coordinate bug below).

This is the most common source of confusion. The address field looks like it should be enough, but addresses alone can't be used in GPS devices, mapping apps, or geographic analysis tools. You need actual coordinates.

Date Added

There is no date field anywhere in the Takeout export — not in the CSV, not in the JSON. When you saved a place is not included in the export. This field is held in Google's internal database and is not accessible through any official export method.

This is the one missing field that cannot be recovered. If you needed to know when you saved something, that data is gone once you leave Google's ecosystem.

Star Ratings, Photos, Reviews, and Check-ins

None of these are included. Google Takeout exports the bare minimum needed to identify a location — name, address, URL — and nothing more from your personal interaction history with that place.

Why Are Coordinates Missing?

Google Maps doesn't store your saved places as raw latitude/longitude pairs. Internally, each saved place is stored as a Place ID — a unique identifier that points to Google's own business and location database. The Place ID ChIJN1t_tDeuEmsRUsoyG83frY4 is unambiguously the Sydney Opera House, regardless of what coordinates Google eventually resolves it to.

When you export through Takeout, Google converts that Place ID back to human-readable data (name, address, URL) — but it doesn't perform the reverse lookup to give you coordinates. Those coordinates exist in Google's database, but they're not included in the export output.

To get coordinates from a Takeout CSV, you have to geocode the places: convert the address or place name back into lat/long using a mapping API. This is an extra step, but it works for most well-known places.

The Zero-Coordinate Bug

If you're using the Saved Places.json export (not the CSV), you may notice some entries with coordinates of [0, 0]. On a map, these places appear in the ocean off the coast of West Africa — clearly wrong.

This is a known bug in Google's export pipeline. Google has the correct coordinates for these places, but exports them as zero instead. The issue has been reported by users as recently as 2025 and does not appear to be fixed.

What to do about it: Zero-coordinate entries need to be geocoded just like entries with no coordinates. Any export tool that handles Takeout data properly will detect [0, 0] as invalid and attempt to geocode those places from their address or name.

The "Dropped Pin" Problem

A related but different issue: Dropped Pins. These are locations you saved by long-pressing on a spot in Google Maps that has no business listing — a trailhead, a parking spot, a scenic overlook.

For Dropped Pins, Google has the coordinate (that's where you pressed) but doesn't export it. The place name is just "Dropped Pin" and the address may be vague or missing. Geocoding can't recover the original coordinate because there's no address to work from.

If Dropped Pins matter to your export, you have two options:

Before exporting, rename them in Google Maps and add a note with the address or coordinates
Accept that these entries will be unresolvable and remove them from your export

What Geocoding Can (and Can't) Recover

Geocoding is the process of converting a place name or address into coordinates. For most saved places, it works well:

Named businesses with addresses — high success rate
Landmarks and tourist sites — high success rate
Places with vague or common names — mixed results ("The Coffee Shop" could match thousands of locations)
Closed businesses — often fails, since current geocoding databases may not have historical listings
Dropped Pins — cannot be recovered without the original coordinate

Services like Takeout Tools handle geocoding automatically as part of the export process. You upload your Takeout CSV, and coordinates are added before you download in your chosen format.