Convert KMZ to KML
Pull the KML out of a KMZ archive. The file inside is handed to you exactly as it was stored, not parsed and rebuilt, so every placemark, folder and style is untouched. Useful when you need to edit the XML by hand, or feed a tool that only accepts plain KML.
Drop your KMZ here
or
Your file is converted inside this tab and never uploaded. No size limit, no sign-up.
What happens to your data
KMZ and KML store different things, so some parts of your file translate exactly and others cannot. Here is the whole picture before you convert, rather than after.
The KML documentKept
Taken from the archive exactly as stored. No parsing step, so nothing can be reinterpreted, reordered or rounded.
Styling and foldersKept
Colours, line widths and your folder structure survive in full, because the document is not rewritten.
Packed imagesNot carried over
Custom icons and overlay pictures stored inside the archive cannot travel in a plain KML. The file still references them, so they will not display.
File sizeChanged
The KML is the uncompressed form, so expect it to be several times larger than the KMZ you started with.
Coordinate systemKept
Both formats are WGS 84 longitude and latitude, and no coordinates are read or changed.
How to convert KMZ to KML
- 1
Choose your KMZ file
Drag a .kmz onto the box above. It is opened in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.
- 2
Convert
The archive is opened, the KML located inside it and taken out as it is. If the archive also held images, you are told what they were.
- 3
Download the KML
You get one .kml file, identical to the document that was inside the archive.
- 4
Edit or open it
Open it in Google Earth, or in any text editor to read and change the XML directly.
Why you would want the KML out
KMZ is the better format for sending a file, but the worse one for working on it. A KML is plain XML text, which means you can open it in any editor, search it, fix a wrong coordinate by hand, or run it through a script.
Plenty of software also accepts only plain KML: older GIS tools, web map libraries, survey controllers and plotting software among them. Extracting the KML is often the quickest way past an import that rejects your KMZ.
Why this does not rewrite your file
Most converters read a file into an internal model and write a new one out. That is necessary when the two formats differ, but here they do not: a KMZ already contains the exact KML you want.
So the file is taken out of the archive and handed to you as it is. No parser decides how to re-indent your XML, which of your extensions it recognises, or how many decimal places to keep. What was inside the archive is what you download.
The one thing that does not survive
If the KMZ contained images (custom pin icons, a logo, a scanned plan used as a ground overlay), those were separate files inside the archive, and a plain KML is a single file with nowhere to put them.
The KML still contains references to them, so Google Earth will look for files it cannot find and fall back to default icons, or leave the overlay blank. The result tells you when this applies, and names what was in the archive.
If those images are what you are after, rename the .kmz to .zip and open it like any other archive; they are sitting right there.
Nothing is uploaded
The archive is opened by JavaScript in this tab, using the browser's own decompression. Your file never leaves your computer, so there is no size limit and no copy anywhere else.
KMZ and KML, briefly
KMZZipped Keyhole Markup Language
A KML file and its images, icons and overlays packed into a single zip with a .kmz extension. Smaller to send, and the one file carries everything it needs to draw.
KMLKeyhole Markup Language
The XML format Google Earth uses. One readable text file that holds points, lines and polygons together with their names, descriptions and colours.
Questions people ask
Does converting KMZ to KML lose anything?
The KML document itself is untouched: it is taken out of the archive exactly as stored, not parsed and rewritten, so every placemark, folder and style is identical. The only thing that cannot come across is any image packed inside the archive, since a plain KML is a single file. The result tells you when your archive contained images.
How do I open a KMZ file without Google Earth?
Convert it to KML here and open the result in a text editor, or rename the .kmz to .zip and open it as an archive, since a KMZ is a standard zip containing a file called doc.kml. Converting is quicker if what you want is the map data rather than the archive contents.
Why is my KML so much bigger than the KMZ?
Because KMZ is the compressed form. KML is XML text, which repeats the same tags constantly and stores coordinates as plain decimals, so it compresses extremely well, commonly to under a tenth of its size. Unpacking it simply restores the original size.
Can I rename a .kmz to .kml instead?
No. A KMZ is a zip archive, and renaming it does not unpack it; you would end up with compressed binary data in a file claiming to be XML, which nothing will read. You need to actually extract the KML, which is what this tool does.
Is my KMZ uploaded to a server?
No. The archive is opened entirely inside your browser tab and nothing is transmitted or stored. You can confirm this by disconnecting from the internet once the page has loaded and converting a file anyway.
What if my KMZ contains more than one KML file?
The doc.kml at the root of the archive is the main document and is the one taken, which matches how Google Earth itself decides. If there is no doc.kml, the first KML found is used. For archives with several documents, rename the file to .zip and open it to pick the one you want.
Why do my custom icons disappear after converting?
Those icon images were stored as separate files inside the KMZ archive. A plain KML cannot carry them, so the references in the file now point at images that are not there and Google Earth falls back to its defaults. Extract the images by renaming the .kmz to .zip, or keep the file as a KMZ if the icons matter.
Can I convert it back to KMZ afterwards?
Yes, and that direction is lossless too. Use the KML to KMZ converter. Note that images originally packed in the archive will not be re-included, since they were not part of the KML.
Other conversions
Need a combination that is not listed? The universal converter handles every format this tool reads and writes.