Google Earth is useful for storing geographic information such as land coordinates and placemarks for places of interest. It is a valuable tool for businesses that do asset management or land surveys as well as for real estate companies. Google Earth stores placemarks in a file on your local computer so you lose these placemarks if the file becomes corrupt or is deleted or if you open the application on a different computer. Google Earth stores a backup copy of the file so you can restore your placemarks as long as you can access the file.
Placemarks
Google Earth placemarks let you save one or more locations, including coordinates, a name and a description, for easy retrieval when you subsequently use the application. Google Earth saves your placemarks on your hard drive in a file called "myplaces.kml." It also creates a backup copy of the file called "myplaces.backup.kml." The location of your placemarks file varies based on your operating system. These files are important if you want to see your placemarks on multiple machines or if you lose your placemarks and need to retrieve them.
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Lost Placemarks
If you repeatedly lose your placemarks in Google Earth, the problem could either be an issue with your "myplaces.kml" file or with the way you use the Google Earth application. When you create a placemark, you should save it to be able to retrieve it the next time you use the application. If you use multiple computers to access Google Earth, the placemarks you create while using a computer are stored on its hard drive and are not accessible on a different computer. If your hard drive crashes, you may not be able to retrieve your placemarks file, so you should keep a backup copy in a different location.
Retrieving
If you lose your Google Earth placemarks, first try to retrieve your placemarks file. To retrieve the file, click on "Start" and then "Run" from your Windows desktop. Type "C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Google\GoogleEarth" in the textbox and then click on the "OK" button. Click on the "myplaces.kml" file in the directory listing that appears. This restores your saved placemarks if the file isn't corrupted. If there is a problem with the "myplaces.kml" file, click on the "myplaces.backup.kml" file to restore from the local backup file.
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Moving
If you use Google Earth on multiple computers and wish to keep the same placemarks on all machines, move a copy of your saved placemarks from your original computer to each additional computer on which you save placemarks, taking care to move the most recent copy of the "myplaces.kml" file. One way to move the file around is to save a copy of it in Google Docs and download it from each machine. Alternatively, you can save the file on any form of storage medium you find suitable, including a network share; access the file from there and download it to each computer.
Disclaimer
Information in this article applies to the Windows 8 operating system and the 2013 versions of Google Earth and Google Earth Pro. It may vary slightly or significantly with other versions or products.
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