Google Maps powered geotagging software?

The maps module in Darktable can use Google Maps, OSM, and several other sources. It is free and open source and runs on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. Photos can be geotagged by dragging and dropping.

Since Darktable is a non-destructive editor, photos must be exported to have the additional information encoded. With JPEG images, it might make sense to consider a workflow that minimizes quality potential issues caused by multiple compression cycles.

1. Go to Google Maps and click on the desired location.

2. The URL will change to something like

   https://www.google.com/maps/@[lat],[long],[alt]z

3. Use exiftool to tag your photo:

   exiftool -GPSLatitude="$lat" -GPSLongitude="$lon" -GPSAltitude="$alt" -GPSAltitudeRef=0 "$file"

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If you have Google Location History turned on, you can download KML files from Google Timeline or Takeout. Then use exiftool to tag your photos. Replace -00:00 with the value that corresponds to your time zone.

exiftool -if 'not ($GPSLatitude or $GPSLongitude)' -geotag history.kml '-geotime<${createdate}-00:00' -r -ext jpg  .

In 2018 Google increased pricing of the Google Maps API. Consequently it's more difficult to find reasonably priced geotagging software that lets you select the location using Google Maps.

• Lightroom has arguably the most intuitive geotagging interface. However, geotagging stopped working in the standalone versions of Lightroom, and you now need to pay a subscription.
• Darktable is a free open-source alternative to Lightroom. It's not as complete, but somehow it still supports geotagging using a GPX log and can display images on Google Maps.
• ACDSee is a photo editor that displays images on Google Maps.
• Photo Mechanic is another photo editor that supports geotagging and placing images on Google Maps. The user interface is not the most convenient, and takes some time to get used to.
• GeoSetter is a freeware tool for geotagging that supports Google Maps, but only in development mode since they increased the API pricing. The user interface can be confusing.