Plotting, editing, elevation sampling, GPX import, and GPX download all run on your device. We do not create accounts or upload your route. A share link stores coordinates in the page URL; whoever has that link can see the line.
A Google Maps link you paste
Reading a pasted Google Maps link happens here, in this page: the stops, the travel mode, and the hidden points Google keeps on a dragged route are all pulled apart by code running on your device. Nothing is kept. The link itself is not sent anywhere; what leaves your device, and when, is set out below. A Google Maps link often begins at a home address, so we treat the link itself as private data.
Following the roads
A line you draw never reaches a Map to GPS server: plotting, editing, and export run on your device. The Follow the roads button is the one thing that sends your points somewhere else. Pressing it — or reading a Google Maps link that carries two or more stops — sends those points, and nothing else, to the public FOSSGIS routing servers, which answer with a track drawn from OpenStreetMap data. One press is one turn: the servers are asked in order (Valhalla first, OSRM if that one does not answer), and every attempt that is made sends the same points. The route that comes back is stored only on your device, and pressing Undo takes you back to the line you drew. Elevation is separate from all of this and is described below with the other tile requests.
Two other things leave the browser. Place search sends the words you type to Photon. And a short link (maps.app.goo.gl, goo.gl) makes one hop through our server on its way to Google to find out where it points — neither the short link nor the answer is logged or kept. You can skip that hop by opening the short link in a new tab and pasting the full address bar instead.
What the browser does request
- Map tiles from OpenFreeMap, to draw the basemap.
- Terrain tiles from AWS Open Data (Terrarium), to shade hills and sample elevation. Those requests carry the line's coordinates — the tile covering each point — but never the GPX file.
- Place names from Photon when you use search. That sends the query text, not your GPX.
- Route lines from FOSSGIS routing servers (Valhalla, then OSRM) when a pasted Google Maps link carries two or more stops, or when you press Follow the roads. That sends the points on the line, and the answer is a track drawn from OpenStreetMap data.
Those services receive the visible map area or a place-name query. They do not receive the GPX file. Drafts stay in the browser on this device.
On maptogps.com we use Google Analytics 4. We send the page path, plus whether people plot, import GPX, download, or share a link. We do not send the share-link hash, coordinates, place-search text, or drafts on this device.