In fact, more often than not, most people come up with a map which usually has a lot of restaurants that they saved, places from previous trips and random locations they dropped a pin on months ago and forgot. After all, it’s so easy to delete pins on google maps, in a matter of seconds, or even just mins dependent if you are using your phone or computer.
Why Do All Pins End Up Piling Up in the First Place
Planning a trip, finding a local restaurant or sharing a location with a friend can be an easy way to drop a pin, and then forget about it. This is a natural process that happens over months or years, and leads to a saved list that is loaded with places that you don’t need now.
There’s much more than just neatness, though, as there’s also the issue of privacy; if you’ve shared a map with someone else and you want to keep a certain location private for example, then removing any old pins from the map could be the to-do from this.
To remove a Pin from mobile
The typical pin related workflow occurs on mobile, assuming this is the genesis point of where a pin is captured. Open Google Maps app and ensure you’re logged in to the correct Google account – your pins are directly to your account, not the device.
Tap the bottom of the screen “You” from there and you will be presented with your lists and pinned locations. Locate the pin/intended list, and tap it to see the information card for that location. There should be something like Remove this place or delete button (three dots in front of the entry) – click this and the pin should be deleted as soon as possible. This is one of the quickest ways of How to Delete Pins on Google Maps directly from your phone.
You can remove a Pin from your Desktop
On the computer, the process is similar, but goes from a different interface. You should be logged into the same Google account that your saved locations relate to in Google Maps, so log in to the how to delete pins on Google Maps site and verify this.
Go to saved places by clicking on the menu or saved section on your profile, after which choose the location pin you want to remove. The details of the pin will appear in the side panel, and you will usually see a ‘save’ or ‘bookmark’ icon which will be ‘checked’ or shaded to show that the pin is saved. Typically, a second tap of this icon will remove it from the saved list, and thereby delete the pin.
Removing all the Pins in a List
When dealing with an older list that has several pins — not just one or two points — it is easier to delete the list at once than delete a “pin” by pin than do so. In the end, you will come across the list you created in your saved places section, click/press the options menu next to it, and choose delete list.
It should be noted that only lists created by you can be deleted in this manner (lists that are likely to show up there like ‘Favorites’ or ‘Want to go’ are not usually complete lists and cannot usually be deleted from Google Maps altogether, but you can still empty them by scrubbing out pins that are associated with those lists).
Just a quick update on Dropped Pins and Saved Places
It’s important to note that there is a difference between a dropped pin (created by tapping the map and holding that location and checking an address or getting directions) and a “saved” pin positioned on the map. Typically, temporary dropped pins will clear up automatically for you if you exit that place’s info card or just search for other places, so there’s no need for you to make a search to delete these pins. On the other hand, saved pins stay until you choose to delete them, again, by following the above steps.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Note: If after tapping delete a pin is not showing, ensure that you are signed in to the correct Google account as saved places are not correct across accounts. Some minor display glitches (like a deleted pin when you close the app / browser page on desktop still showing for a brief moment before it’s gone) will many times be “solved” by closed and re-opening the app / refreshing the browser page (on desktop).
When removing a pin from a map that was shared by others, please note that you may be able to only remove edits, suggestions that you have added to the map and not the pins added by the map founder.
Wrapping Up
When you know where to look, keeping Google Maps saved places tidy ought not be that hard. Learning How to Delete Pins on Google Maps — whether it’s one old, outdated pin or an entire list you use no longer — is just a couple of taps (or clicks), whether on mobile or desktop, to declutter your map and keep it really useful.
