I am trying to obtain the list of places the user has saved on Google Maps. Now I know there isnt an API for this (for whatever reason), but I saw here:
That apparently there used to be a way to obtain the URL, but it does not seem to work with my list of places.
E.g.
Does not seem to work if I append &output=kml or &output=json
I created this list on Google Maps, then hit share and obtained that link.
I even tried parsing the resulting HTML but it seems everything is handled by some Javascript Engine and I can't find any reference to Google Ids there --- I dont even know how they handle clicks!
Any help? There must be a way to retrieve this information programmatically!
2 Answers
Answers 1
This was the only API was able to find was this:
https://www.google.com/bookmarks/?output=xml Used in a browser you would have to first log in through Google's OAuth. It would then return your saved places. Not sure at the moment how you would embedded the authentication to do this programmatically, but this might send you in the right direction.
Answers 2
Your saved places list actually has what you call a feature ID attribute, this isn't a common practice and Google frowns upon this technique but take a look at this URL:
https://www.google.com/maps/preview/entity?authuser=0&hl=en&gl=us&pb=!1m10!1s0x0%3A0x3743ae09a161976b!3m8!1m3!1d14318.72623152007!2d-98.2296425!3d26.2070353!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!12m3!2m2!1i392!2i106!13m57!2m2!1i203!2i100!3m2!2i4!5b1!6m6!1m2!1i86!2i86!1m2!1i408!2i200!7m42!1m3!1e1!2b0!3e3!1m3!1e2!2b1!3e2!1m3!1e2!2b0!3e3!1m3!1e3!2b0!3e3!1m3!1e8!2b0!3e3!1m3!1e3!2b1!3e2!1m3!1e9!2b1!3e2!1m3!1e10!2b0!3e3!1m3!1e10!2b1!3e2!1m3!1e10!2b0!3e4!2b1!4b1!9b0!14m3!1snyc5W-WeHY3r5gLwkoRI!7e81!15i10112!15m19!2b1!5m4!2b1!3b1!5b1!6b1!10m1!8e3!14m1!3b1!17b1!24b1!25b1!26b1!30m1!2b1!36b1!52b1!53b1!21m28!1m6!1m2!1i0!2i0!2m2!1i458!2i768!1m6!1m2!1i974!2i0!2m2!1i1024!2i768!1m6!1m2!1i0!2i0!2m2!1i1024!2i20!1m6!1m2!1i0!2i748!2m2!1i1024!2i768!22m1!1e81!29m0!30m1!3b1
Highlighted is the feature ID from the link you posted: https://www.google.com/maps/@46.889424,0.1194148,6z/data=!4m3!11m2!2s1KbZtik1IdXyNhwfXEb3P9vaZvzU!3e3
Along with other maps parameters; when you hit that link you're actually manually triggering the same callback that Google's own scripts in maps use to parse the data to feed back to the maps UI; if you look at array item 2, or {c:..} you'll find a stringified array with the contents of your list, now depending on the program language you're using all it takes is a little tweaking (find/replace, loop through, lint and trim, etc.) to this array and you can pull your results; the cool thing is if you add or remove a place the next time you hit that end point it's updated in real-time.
Some people may call it a "hack"; but it gets the job done. :)
Hope I pointed you to a direction in the event you haven't found a solution; give this a shot.
Note the URL has to be pasted in its entirety, SO truncated the hyperlink; copy and paste the whole thing in one shot and a text file from Google with the arrays will be produced; in my case I curl the URLs I need and parse the returned strings as needed to pull data from Google where their API has limitations. Just a tip. :)
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