■ Shell context menu extension showing pictures on google maps

If you shoot a photo using a modern phone or camera that sports a GPS chip, your picture location is stored in the JPG as latitude/longitude/ altitude information (picture geotags). That's how google photos can show your pictures on the map. But google wants you to put all your pictures online, and you are more of a Picasa (RIP) offline kind of person, what can be done?

Here's a simple program I wrote that takes a JPG photo as a command line argument, extracts its GPS information and shows it as a marker on google maps (in your browser). For your convenience it is wrapped as a static shell context menu extension, meaning it is available when you right-click on a JPG file in windows explorer or xplorer².

Click to download Show on map explorer menu extension (90KB, build 1.000)

Minimum requirements: windows Vista or later (32 or 64 bit)

While browsing your pictures folder, right click on a JPG photo, and use Show on map menu command, then you will see it in your browser (the big red marker is the exact GPS picture location):

show on map context menu extension

Troubleshooting?
If instead of google maps you see an error message, most probably your JPG doesn't have latitude/longitude information stored. Make sure your phone has GPS and that your camera is allowed to store GPS information in the photos you take.

Another slight problem is that only one picture at a time can be seen on its map location. If you right click on 10 photos, you will get 10 browser windows. Picassa is sorely missed in this respect.

If you like your photos on the map, you may find DeskRule's photo map search handy. You can search your photo collection for pictures shot in Paris or wherever else, using a map interface!