Google Maps MCP
In one line: Give your UnleashX agent location superpowers — find places, convert addresses to coordinates, calculate routes and travel times, and look up timezones and elevation.
| Category | Productivity |
| Authentication | API Key (Google Maps Platform) |
| Setup time | ~5 minutes |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Best for | Agents that need geographic context — finding nearby businesses, validating addresses, planning routes, or estimating travel time. |
1. Overview
Google Maps Platform is Google’s suite of location services. It can find places by name or keyword, turn an address into latitude/longitude (geocoding) and back again, calculate driving/walking/transit routes, estimate travel times and distances, and answer questions about timezones, roads, and ground elevation. Once you connect Google Maps to UnleashX, your agent can answer location-aware questions and enrich its workflows with real geographic data. It can find the nearest open store, confirm a customer’s address, tell a caller how long the drive will take, or look up the local time at a destination. Connecting Google Maps is great for booking, delivery, dispatch, and concierge-style agents. Instead of guessing, the agent uses Google’s live map data to give accurate places, directions, and times. All Google Maps tools here are read-only — they look things up and never change your data.2. What you’ll need
- A Google Cloud account (console.cloud.google.com).
- A Google Cloud project with billing enabled (Maps Platform requires a billing account, though it includes a generous free tier).
- Permission to create credentials (typically Editor / Owner or a role with
serviceusageand credential access). - The relevant Maps Platform APIs enabled: Places API, Geocoding API, Directions API, Distance Matrix API, Time Zone API, Roads API, and Elevation API.
If you can’t enable APIs or create keys, ask a Google Cloud project admin to create a Maps Platform API key for you. Connecting only needs the API key string.
3. Get your credentials
Google Maps MCP authenticates with a single Maps Platform API key — a string that looks likeAIzaSyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Getting one takes five steps in the Google Cloud Console: create a project, turn on billing, enable the APIs you need, create the key, and restrict it.
Step 1 — Create or select a Google Cloud project
Sign in at the Google Cloud Console with your Google account. Click the project dropdown at the top of the page, then choose New Project.
myHelloWorld or my-maps-agent). Google generates a Project ID automatically — note that it cannot be changed later. Click Create.
Step 2 — Enable billing
Google Maps Platform requires a billing account, even though it includes a generous monthly free credit. Open the menu (☰) and go to Billing, or just type “billing” into the search bar at the top.
Google usually provides a monthly free usage credit, but a billing account must still be attached or every Maps API call returns
REQUEST_DENIED.Step 3 — Enable the required APIs
Go to APIs & Services → Library and enable each API your agent will use. Search for the API, open it, and click Enable.
| You want to… | Enable this API |
|---|---|
| Find nearby businesses / autocomplete addresses | Places API |
| Convert addresses ↔ latitude/longitude | Geocoding API |
| Display a map on a website | Maps JavaScript API |
| Get routes & directions | Directions API (or the newer Routes API) |
Step 4 — Create the API key
Open APIs & Services → Credentials (from the Maps Platform docs you can also click Go to the Credentials page).
Step 5 — Restrict the key (recommended)
Click the newly created key to open its settings. Restrictions prevent quota theft and unauthorized use. Application restrictions — limit who can use the key:- For websites (frontend Maps JavaScript): choose HTTP referrers and add your domains, e.g.
https://yourdomain.com/*andhttps://www.yourdomain.com/*. - For backend servers (the typical UnleashX/MCP case): choose IP addresses and add your server IP. If your server IP isn’t fixed, leave it as None and rely on the API restrictions below.
Permissions / APIs this key uses
| API | Plain-English reason UnleashX needs it |
|---|---|
| Places API | Search for places and fetch place details. |
| Geocoding API | Convert addresses ↔ coordinates. |
| Directions API | Calculate routes between points. |
| Distance Matrix API | Estimate travel times and distances. |
| Time Zone API | Look up the local timezone for a location. |
| Roads API | Snap GPS points to the nearest roads. |
| Elevation API | Get ground elevation for coordinates or a path. |
4. Connect on UnleashX
Open your agent
Sign in at tryunleashx.com and open the agent you want to give Google Maps access to.
Connect
Click Connect / Add / Configure and paste your Maps Platform API key (sent as the
api-key / api_key credential). Authenticate once.
5. Available tools
This server exposes 14 tools. All Google Maps tools are read-only (they look up data and never change anything in your account).| Tool name | What it does | Changes data? |
|---|---|---|
| Search Nearby | Find places near a location, with radius/rating/open-now filters. | No |
| Get Place Details | Get full details for a place by place ID. | No |
| Geocode | Convert an address into coordinates. | No |
| Reverse Geocode | Convert coordinates back into an address. | No |
| Distance Matrix | Calculate travel time/distance between many origins and destinations. | No |
| Directions | Get a route between an origin and destination. | No |
| Elevation | Get ground elevation for a list of coordinates. | No |
| Search Places | Search places by text query (with optional location bias). | No |
| Search Place Details | Search places and enrich each with detailed info (phone, hours, website, rating). | No |
| Get Place Details (Single) | Get details for a single place by place ID. | No |
| Get Directions | Get directions with optional waypoints and travel mode. | No |
| Get Timezone | Look up the timezone for a location and timestamp. | No |
| Get Roads | Snap a path of points to the nearest roads. | No |
| Get Elevation | Get elevation for places/coordinates, optionally sampled along a path. | No |
There are two families of tools with overlapping capabilities. Your agent picks whichever best fits the request — both run read-only lookups against Google Maps Platform.
6. Example usage
“Find coffee shops within 1 km of MG Road, Bengaluru that are open now and rated 4+.” → Runs Search Nearby (geocodes the location, then filters by radius, open-now, and minimum rating). “How long does it take to drive from Indiranagar to Bangalore Airport right now?” → Runs Directions (or Distance Matrix) to estimate the route and travel time.7. Permissions & data access
UnleashX can:- Search for places and fetch place details (name, address, phone, hours, rating, website).
- Geocode and reverse-geocode addresses and coordinates.
- Calculate routes, travel times, and distances.
- Look up timezones, snap points to roads, and get elevation.
- Create, edit, or delete anything in Google Maps — every tool is read-only.
- Access your personal Google Maps history, saved places, or Timeline.
- Change your Google Cloud project, billing, or API settings.
8. Troubleshooting
| Problem | What it means | How to fix it |
|---|---|---|
401 Unauthorized / “API key is required” | No valid API key was provided. | Reconnect Google Maps with a valid Maps Platform API key. |
REQUEST_DENIED / 403 | The API isn’t enabled, billing is off, or the key is restricted away from that API. | Enable the needed API in APIs & Services → Library, confirm billing is on, and check the key’s API restrictions. |
OVER_QUERY_LIMIT / 429 | You’ve hit your usage quota or rate limit. | Wait, raise your quota, or enable billing/upgrade in Google Cloud. |
ZERO_RESULTS | The query was valid but no places/routes matched. | Broaden the search, increase the radius, or check the spelling of the address. |
| ”Invalid coordinate format” | A location wasn’t a recognizable address or lat,lng pair. | Provide a real address or coordinates as latitude,longitude. |