Locator

Quickly find a location with GPS coordinates

Requires macOS 10.5+

Locator can take a set of latitude and longitude coordinates and produce a URL for Google Maps that can be pasted into any other program, including a web page or e-mail. It will also show that location in Google maps. Locator can accept coordinates written as decimal degrees, degrees with decimal minutes, or as degrees-minutes-seconds. It can display a location at any zoom level for a regular map, an aerial photo or satellite image, a hybrid photo-map, or a terrain map.

Entering coordinates

To use Locator, just enter your latitude and longitude. Locator is flexible and can handle coordinates in any format, including degrees-minutes-seconds, degrees-decimal minutes, and decimal degrees. For example, if your latitude is 36.52478, just enter that into the degrees field, leaving the minutes and seconds fields as zero. If your latitude is 36° 31.4868', enter 36 in the degrees field and 31.4868 in the minutes field, leaving zero in the seconds field. Finally, if you have your latitude recorded as 36° 31' 29.2", just enter each in the degrees, minutes, and seconds fields. To locate yourself, just click on Locate or press return.

Map scale and type

You can change the zoom scale of your map with the slider; choose a low value to get the big picture and choose a high value to really zoom in.

With the pull-down menu, you can also change whether you want a plain street map, a satellite view, a terrain map. You can also choose a hybrid map, which shows a satellite view with all of the roads labeled.

Navigating on your map

Once you have a map, you can also use the Google map controls inside the window to change your map.

Generating URL's of your location

Note that Locator doesn't just show you a map, it also gives you a URL that you can include on a website or send in an email so that someone else can go to the same location easily.

Preferences

You can select whether you'd like your map to be displayed in English, French, German, or Spanish.