How to add more than 10 stops in Google Maps

Google Maps lets you build a route with up to 10 locations. That count includes where you start and where you finish, so in practice you get a start plus nine places to visit. Once you have ten locations total, the “Add destination” option grays out.

Google documents the same nine-destination limit in its desktop and mobile directions instructions. See Google Maps Help. It is not a free-tier restriction and there is no consumer setting that raises it.

Why stop order matters

Splitting the list solves the location cap, but it does not decide which stops should be grouped together or which one should come next.

Google Maps does not automatically optimize your stop order. You can drag destinations into a different order yourself, and Maps then finds a driving path between each consecutive location. If an emailed list is poorly ordered, the manual sequence remains poorly ordered until you change it.

The effect varies by city, traffic and the address pattern. Compare the estimated total for the input order with an optimized sequence instead of assuming a fixed time or fuel saving.

The obvious approach: build one route with your first ten stops, drive it, then build another with the next ten.

It works, and it is free. You still decide which stops belong in each group and what order to enter them. On a daily route, that adds repeated planning work.

This can be enough for an occasional route. For a repeated workflow, prepare and order the complete list before opening Google Maps.

Google My Maps is a separate product for building and sharing custom maps. Google documents up to ten layers per map and places each saved directions set in its own layer. That is why some guides describe it as a way to organize several small routes.

Three things make it a poor fit for driving:

• each directions set occupies its own layer rather than forming one optimized day;
• My Maps does not optimize order, so you are still sorting by hand;
• the mobile app can display a My Map, but editing remains a My Maps workflow.

My Maps is well suited to planning territory or visualizing where your customers are. It is not a tool for driving a route.

Use a route planner to work out an efficient order, then keep Google Maps for turn-by-turn navigation and live traffic.

1. 1

   Get every address in

   Paste a column straight out of Excel or Google Sheets, upload a .csv or .xlsx, or type stops one at a time. Include the complete list, not only the first ten. See the import guide.
2. 2

   Set where you start and end

   Depot, store or home, and whether you need to finish back there. A round trip and a one-way run produce different orders.
3. 3

   Optimize

   The planner measures drive time between stops and searches for a sequence with a low total. Processing time varies with route size, provider response and network conditions.
4. 4

   Check it, then send it to Google Maps

   Move any stop affected by an appointment window or a gate that closes early. Then open the route in Google Maps; legs longer than the cap are split automatically.

You still navigate in Google Maps, but the stop order is prepared before the first leg opens.

If this is a one-off route, manual splitting may be enough. For repeated routes, compare the planning effort and estimated drive time with an optimizer before choosing a workflow.