How to Connect Google Maps to Cursor via MCP

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → Google Maps, paste your credentials, mint an MCP API key and you're done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

Google Maps + Cursor

Let your AI search Google Maps with your own API key: find businesses and places by text or around a point, read their address, phone, website, opening hours, rating and reviews, get photos, autocomplete names, geocode addresses and coordinates, and compute routes and travel-time matrices.

Prerequisites

See the full setup instructions baked into the connector (visible in the in-app store when you select the connector). The required environment variables for this connector are:

GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY

Step 1 — Get credentials

1. Open https://console.cloud.google.com, pick or create a project and link a billing account. Google Maps Platform needs billing even while you stay within the free monthly allowance.
2. Under APIs & Services → Library, enable Places API (New), Geocoding API and Routes API. You only need the ones you plan to use, but a call to an API that is not enabled fails with 403.
3. Open Google Maps Platform → Keys & Credentials → Create credentials → API key. Under API restrictions, allow only those three APIs. Do not add a website (HTTP referrer) restriction: the calls come from a server, not from a browser. An IP restriction only works if your AnythingMCP server has a fixed outbound address.
4. Paste the key into GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY and install the connector. The install check reads one place with the free ID-only field mask. The key is sent only to Google's Maps hosts.

Billed to your own Google Cloud project: every call is billed to the project your key belongs to. Each kind of request has a free monthly allowance, and you pay only for what goes beyond it. A budget alert or a daily quota in the Cloud console keeps the bill predictable.

Field masks decide the price: place searches and place details return only the fields listed in field_mask, and Google bills the request at the most expensive tier among them. Google's list prices for the first 100,000 calls a month:

• IDs only (places.id on searches, id on details, plus photos and attributions): free and unlimited.
• Essentials, on details only (address, location, address components, types): about $5 per 1,000, 10,000 free a month. On searches these fields count as Pro.
• Pro (name, business status, Google Maps link, primary type, time zone), the default: searches about $32 per 1,000 with 5,000 free, details about $17 per 1,000 with 5,000 free.
• Enterprise (phone numbers, website, rating and number of ratings, opening hours, price level): searches about $35, details about $20 per 1,000, 1,000 free.
• Enterprise + Atmosphere (reviews, review and editorial summaries, amenities such as takeout, outdoor seating or parking): searches about $40, details about $25 per 1,000, 1,000 free.

The cheapest way through a long list of places is two steps: search with places.id only, which is free, then read details just for the few places you care about. Check https://developers.google.com/maps/billing-and-pricing/pricing for current prices.

Other prices: photos about $7 per 1,000 (1,000 free). Autocomplete about $2.83 per 1,000 requests (10,000 free); the autocomplete requests of one search session are free when the session ends with a place details call. Geocoding about $5 per 1,000 (10,000 free). Routes and route matrices about $5 per 1,000 routes or matrix elements (10,000 free); live traffic or 11 to 25 stops move a request to about $10, two-wheeler routing to about $15. A matrix holds at most 625 origin and destination pairs, and each pair is billed as one element.

What it does: text search ("dentists in Riyadh Al Yasmin") with type, rating, price and open-now filters, up to 60 results over three pages; nearby search within a circle around a point; place details with address, phone, website, opening hours, rating and reviews; photo links; autocomplete; geocoding from address to coordinates and back; routes by car, bike, on foot, two-wheeler or public transport; and travel-time matrices, for example which of three technicians is closest to five customers.

Google's terms: show Google Maps content with its attribution and link each place to its Google Maps page (googleMapsUri); photos must show their author attributions. Place ids may be stored for later; other place content may only be cached as far as the Google Maps Platform terms allow.

Common errors: 400 API_KEY_INVALID means the key is wrong or was deleted. 400 INVALID_ARGUMENT naming a field: a field in the mask is misspelled. 403 SERVICE_DISABLED or API_KEY_SERVICE_BLOCKED: the API is not enabled in the key's project, or the key's API restrictions leave it out. 403 BILLING_DISABLED: link a billing account to the project. 429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED: a per-minute quota or a daily cap you set in the console.

The connector does not draw maps, give turn-by-turn navigation or change anything on Google Maps: it reads places and computes routes.

Step 2 — Install the adapter

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Step 3 — Add the connector in Cursor

Your server URL: in AnythingMCP, open MCP Servers → the server this connector is on, and copy its URL (https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/…). Use it wherever this guide shows YOUR_SERVER_ID.

Cursor reads MCP servers from ~/.cursor/mcp.json. Add this entry:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anythingmcp": {
      "url": "https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/YOUR_SERVER_ID",
      "headers": { "X-API-Key": "YOUR_MCP_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

1. Create an MCP API key in AnythingMCP under MCP Servers → your server → API keys, and paste it in place of YOUR_MCP_API_KEY.
2. Save the file and restart Cursor.
3. Open Cursor → Settings → MCP and check that anythingmcp is listed and connected.
4. Start chatting: the agent can now call the Google Maps tools.

Available tools

Example prompts

• "Find vegan restaurants within 1 km of Münsterplatz in Freiburg that are open now, with their rating and website."
• "Make a list of plumbers in Stuttgart with phone number, website and rating, and keep the request as cheap as possible."
• "What do recent Google reviews say about our two shops on Kaiser-Joseph-Straße?"
• "Our technicians are in Freiburg, Offenburg and Lörrach. Which one reaches each of these five customer addresses fastest by car?"

FAQ

Does Cursor support custom MCP servers on the free tier? Yes, MCP is available on Hobby, Pro and Business plans.

Next steps

• Connector landing page
• Connect to Claude
• Connect to ChatGPT