Apple Maps More Than 14 Stops: The Limit and a Free Workaround
Short answer: Apple Maps lets you add up to 14 stops to a driving or cycling route, and it keeps them in the order you add them. If your day has more stops than that, or you want the shortest order, plan the route somewhere else first and use Apple Maps only to drive. Here's how the limit works, and a free way around it that takes a couple of minutes.
Plan more than 14 stops free →
How many stops does Apple Maps allow?
Apple's own help page says you can add up to 14 stops along your route. You add them one at a time with Add Stop, and each new stop becomes the final destination. You can drag stops into a different order before you tap Go, but Apple Maps won't work out the best order for you. For a few errands that's fine. For deliveries, service calls or a long list of pickups, the order you type is rarely the shortest one. That costs you miles and time, not only one extra stop.
What happens when you need stop 15?
There's no setting to raise the cap. The usual workarounds are to split the day into two routes, or to drop the least important stops. Both mean extra planning, and with two separate routes you lose the overall best order. Reordering by hand also gets harder with every stop: at 14 stops the number of possible orders is enormous, so guessing by eye usually leaves extra driving on the table.
The free workaround: plan the order first, drive with Apple Maps
- Paste your list. Open Daymilo in Safari and paste addresses and optimize: up to 200 addresses, one per line. A column copied from Notes, Excel or Google Sheets works; for a spreadsheet, use the Excel list page.
- Optimize. Tap Optimize route. Daymilo puts the stops in the fastest driving order. Leave Finish empty if you want a round trip back to start.
- Drive stop by stop. Each stop has an Open in Maps button, so you navigate to it in Apple Maps and come back to the list for the next one.
- Share if someone else drives. Tap Share and text the link. The driver sees the ordered stop list on their phone, with no app and no account.
No sign-up and nothing to install.
Apple Maps vs a route planner
Apple Maps is a great navigator: turn-by-turn voice, lane guidance, and it's already on your iPhone. It isn't a stop optimizer. A route planner does the opposite job: it takes the whole list and decides the order. Used together, you get a short route and familiar navigation. For comparison: Google Maps takes 10 places, Apple Maps 14, MapQuest 26, and Daymilo up to 200 (limits as published by each service, Oct 2026). See how many stops each map app allows.
FAQ
Can Apple Maps optimize stop order?
No. It keeps the order you add, though you can drag stops by hand.
Do I need an app for the workaround?
No. Daymilo runs in Safari, free, with no sign-up.