Daymilo

How to add multiple stops in Google Maps

·5 min read

Google Maps will happily route you through several addresses. What it will not do is decide which address to visit first. The stops stay exactly where you dropped them in the list, and on a working day that difference is measured in miles.

Short answer

Google Maps can route you through several addresses at once. You set a start and a destination, then add stops in between, and the app drives you through all of them in the order you typed. The ceiling is nine stops plus your starting point, so ten addresses per route.

The part that catches people out is not the ceiling. It is that Google Maps never reorders the stops for you. It finds the best road between two points, which is a different job from deciding which of fourteen customers to serve first.

How to add stops on your phone

The flow is the same on Android and on iPhone, and it takes about twenty seconds once you know where the button lives.

Two details save time later. Stops are added before the final destination, so put the address you want to finish at in the destination field first. And the order you see on that screen is the order you will drive, so it is worth spending a moment on it.

How to add stops on a computer

On the desktop site the controls are easier to see, which makes it the better place to build a long route.

Open google.com/maps, click Directions, fill in your start and your destination, then use the plus icon under the last field to add another stop. Each new field appears at the bottom of the list, and you can drag fields by the dotted handle on the left. When the route looks right, send it to your phone from the menu, or just open the same link there.

The ceiling: nine stops plus your start

Google's own help puts the limit at nine added stops. Together with the point you start from that makes ten addresses on one route. Try to add an eleventh and the Add stop control simply stops responding.

That number is not a rounding of some larger internal limit. It has been the same for years across the phone apps and the website, and it is the number worth planning around.

Google Maps does not reorder your stops

This is the single most useful thing to understand about multi stop routing in any map app. There are two separate problems hiding behind the phrase "best route":

The second problem is the one that costs money on a delivery day, and it is genuinely harder: with ten stops there are already 362,880 possible orders to choose from.

The 10-stop cap: 53 mi versus 47 miThe same set of stops: cut into 10-stop routes it is 53 mi, computed as one route 47 mi.Split into 10-stop routesOrder tuned inside each chunk12345678910111253 miOne route, all stopsOrder computed across every stop12345678910111247 mi→
The same twelve stops: cut into ten stop routes on the left, computed as one route on the right.

What that costs on a real day

Take twelve addresses across a metro area. Sort them sensibly by neighborhood, cut them into chunks that fit the ten stop ceiling, and tune the order inside each chunk by hand. That is a careful person doing everything the app allows, and it comes to 53 miles.

The same twelve addresses computed as one route, with the order worked out across the whole set rather than chunk by chunk, come to 47 miles. Six miles a day, every day, for doing nothing differently except letting something else pick the order.

Note what is being compared here. Not a computed route against a random shuffle, which would produce a much bigger and much less honest number. A computed route against a tidy human list.

When ten stops is plenty

Plenty of trips never come near the ceiling, and for those Google Maps is the right tool and nothing else is needed:

If your stops have fixed time windows, the order is already decided for you, and no optimizer should be allowed to move them.

What to do when you have more than ten addresses

You have three realistic options, and they cost very different amounts of effort:

  1. Split the day into several Google Maps routes. Free, works today, and you pay for it in the seam between routes: the order is only ever computed inside each chunk.
  2. Use a tool that computes the order. Several free planners will take a longer list and work out the sequence, then hand you the result.
  3. Plan it on paper by neighborhood. Better than nothing, and it captures most of the easy wins, but it leaves the awkward middle of the route untouched.

FAQ

How many stops can Google Maps handle?

Nine stops plus your starting point, so ten addresses on one route. The limit is the same on Android, iPhone and the desktop website.

Does Google Maps optimize the order of stops?

No. It routes you through the stops in the order you entered them. It optimizes the road between consecutive stops, not the sequence of the stops themselves.

Can I reorder stops after adding them?

Yes, by hand. Each stop in the list has a drag handle, and you can move rows up and down before you start driving. What the app will not do is suggest a better order.

Why does my route look longer than it should?

Almost always because the stops are in the order you happened to type them. Group them roughly by neighborhood and the number usually drops straight away.

Is there a way to get more than ten stops in Google Maps?

Not inside Google Maps. You either split the day into several routes or plan the sequence somewhere that accepts a longer list, then drive it in whatever navigation app you prefer.

Does adding stops change the traffic estimate?

Yes. The time shown covers the whole chain of stops with current traffic on each leg, though it assumes you spend no time at the stops themselves.

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. Turn a spreadsheet of addresses into a route Three ways to get a column of addresses out of Excel or Google Sheets and into a driving route, how to clean the column first, and which method survives a list of thirty. 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.