Daymilo

Turn a spreadsheet of addresses into a route

·5 min read

Addresses almost always start life in a spreadsheet: an order export, a customer list, a property register. Typing them into a map one at a time is half an hour of work that does not need doing. Here are three ways to skip it.

Short answer

There are three methods that actually work, and they solve different problems:

  1. Paste the column into a planner that accepts a list. Fastest, and the only one that also decides the driving order.
  2. Type the addresses into a map app. Free and familiar, and roughly a minute per address once you include the mistakes.
  3. Import the file into Google My Maps. Excellent for seeing where everything is. Not a driving route.

If the list is longer than about eight addresses, method one is the only one that stays reasonable.

A spreadsheet column of addresses turns into a routeA column of addresses is pasted as a list, geocoded and given a computed driving order.From a spreadsheet column to a driving order1Column of addressesa spreadsheet, notes,an email, a manifest→2Paste as a listone addressper line→3Geocodingaddresses becomepins on the map→4Driving ordercomputed from scratch,not taken from the sheetNumbering like 1. or 2) and bullet markers are dropped at step 2, and so are blank lines and duplicates.
A column of addresses becomes pins on a map and then a computed driving order.

Why the column is the right starting point

A spreadsheet column is already the hard part done. Someone has collected the addresses, checked them against orders and put one per row. The remaining work is mechanical: get them onto a map and decide what order to drive them in.

The mistake is treating that mechanical part as data entry. It is a copy and paste, if the tool on the other end will take a list.

Method 1: paste the whole list

In Daymilo that paste takes up to 50 addresses at a time, and a route holds up to 90 stops including the start. Numbering like "1." or "2)", bullet markers, blank lines and exact duplicates are stripped automatically, so a column copied straight out of an email still works.

Method 2: type them into a map app

The method everyone starts with. Open Google Maps, add stop, type, repeat.

It is fine for four or five addresses. Past that, two things go wrong: the ten stop ceiling arrives, and the time cost of typing becomes the reason people skip checking the order at all. A day of eighteen jobs typed by hand is a day that gets driven in whatever sequence the spreadsheet happened to be sorted in.

Method 3: import into Google My Maps

My Maps will import a spreadsheet file directly, read the address column and drop a pin for every row. For seeing the shape of a day, which jobs are clustered and which are miles from anything, it is genuinely good and costs nothing.

What it does not give you is an ordered driving route for the whole set. You get a map of pins, and the sequencing problem remains entirely yours.

Clean the column before you paste it

Most failures come from the spreadsheet, not the planner. Five minutes here saves the argument later:

What breaks most often

Two failure modes account for nearly everything:

The first is a bad address that resolves to somewhere plausible. Nothing errors, a pin appears, and the route quietly grows by twenty miles. This is why a planner that shows every stop on a map at once is worth more than one that just prints a list: an outlier is obvious to the eye and invisible in text.

The second is duplicates. Export two orders for the same customer and you get the same address twice. Most of the time you want them merged, which is why removing exact duplicates on paste is the sensible default.

Which method to use when

FAQ

Can I import an Excel file directly into a route planner?

Usually you do not need to. Copying the address column and pasting it as text is faster than uploading a file, and it works the same whether the source is Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers or an email.

How many addresses can I paste at once?

In Daymilo, 50 per paste, with up to 90 stops in a finished route. Paste in batches if the list is longer.

Do I need to strip the numbering from my list?

No. Leading numbers like "1." or "2)", bullet markers and blank lines are removed automatically on paste.

Can Google My Maps build a route from a spreadsheet?

It can import the file and plot every address as a pin, which is useful. It will not turn the whole set into an ordered driving route.

Why did one of my addresses land in the wrong place?

Almost always a missing city or a typo. Geocoders rarely refuse an address outright; they return the closest plausible match, which is why checking the pins on a map matters.

Will duplicates in my spreadsheet cause problems?

Exact duplicates are dropped on paste. Two different spellings of the same address will come through as two stops, so it is worth a quick look at the map before driving.

Keep reading

How to add multiple stops in Apple Maps Adding stops on iPhone, Mac and CarPlay, the fourteen stop ceiling in Apple's own help, and why Apple Maps drives your list in the order you typed it. How to add multiple stops in Google Maps Add stops on your phone and on a computer, why the route caps out at nine stops plus your start, and why Google Maps never puts those stops in a smarter order. Google Maps vs Apple Maps vs Waze for multi stop days Which map app to use when the day is a list of addresses rather than one trip: stop limits, sequencing, traffic quality and the thing none of the three will do for you. How many stops can you add in each map app The stop limits in Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze and MapQuest side by side, how to check your own limit in a minute, and what splitting a day actually costs in miles. MapQuest route planner and multiple stops MapQuest is the one free map service that will reorder your stops for you. How the route planner works, where its ceiling sits, and the jobs it still cannot do. How to plan a 20 stop delivery route What a bad stop order costs on twenty addresses, why grouping by neighborhood only gets you halfway, and how to build the whole day in about five minutes. How to plot multiple addresses on a map Put a whole list of addresses on one map without building a route: the fastest way to do it, what the picture tells you that a list cannot, and how to spot a bad address. How to add multiple stops in Waze Waze allows exactly one stop per route, and that is by design. What the limit means for a delivery day, the workarounds that exist, and how to drive a long list in Waze anyway. Why navigation apps never reorder your stops Every map app finds the best road between two points and none of them choose which point to visit first. Two different problems, the second one genuinely hard, and what it costs your day.