How to Connect Google Maps to Gemini 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 + Gemini

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 Gemini

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.

Gemini CLI reads MCP servers from ~/.gemini/settings.json (on Windows %USERPROFILE%\.gemini\settings.json). Add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anythingmcp": {
      "httpUrl": "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 gemini.
3. Run /mcp inside Gemini CLI (or gemini mcp list in your shell): anythingmcp should show as connected.
4. Start prompting: Gemini CLI 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

Where does Gemini CLI look for MCP servers? In ~/.gemini/settings.json for your user, or in .gemini/settings.json inside a project. gemini mcp list shows each server and whether it connects.

Next steps

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