Record a Tour

A tour is a recorded action in Google Earth. The Record a Tour tool is one of several ways to record a tour in Google Earth. Tours can be helpful ways of sharing views and features. Tours are also used in conjunction with the Movie Maker tool recording a movie out of Google Earth. Here is what the Record a tour tool button looks like:

Record a Tour button

Here is the process of using this tool:

1. Click on the Record a Tour button - once you click the Record a Tour button, you will see this come up on the bottom left of the screen:

Tour recording controls

2. Start recording - click on the red circle to start the tour recording. Toggle the microphone button to record sound from your computer. The count will start when you hit record and will tell you how long you have been recording.

3. Perform the actions you want to record - Google Earth will record any movements you make.

• mouse movements

• keyboard movements

• on-screen navigation movements

• clicking on a series of Placemarks

Some things that will not be included:

• turning layers on and off will not be recorded

• turning tools on and off (sunlight, historical imagery, etc will be grayed out)

• adding features like Placemarks, Polygons and Paths (also grayed out)

4. Stop recording - click the red button again to stop recording. The tour controls will come up and your tour will start to play for you:

Tour controls

5. Save the tour to your Places menu - when you stop recording, the tour controls will open and the tour will play. Save the tour by clicking on the Save Icon:

Tour Controls

This will save your tour to you Places menu. 

Recording from Mouse Movements

Using the Record a Tour tool allows you to record screen movements into a tour. The record a tour button looks like this:

Tips and tricks:

• • This creates a large tour file, and often Movie maker has trouble with large KML files. Recording from a folder is recommended over using the Record a Tour tool for use with Movie Maker

  • Longer tours are those over about a minute. After that the too may start to struggle. 

  • Use the Record from Folder method.