Geo Measure for Mac
Any area. Any distance. On a map, on your Mac.
How many acres is that field? How far is the walk to the station? How much fence does the new lot need? Geo Measure for Mac answers on a map: click the corners, read the number. It is the Mac-only edition of Geo Measure, sold on its own since 2013, and it is the same app: several measurements in one file as layers, numbers computed on the same earth model surveying software uses, and the results out as GeoJSON, KML, GPX, CSV or a PDF report.
Mac
Free: one complete measurement in every file, routing along roads included. No account. More measurements in the same file, printing and the PDF report, KML, GPX and CSV, and tracking your position are Geo Measure Pro, one purchase in the app for all your Macs, shared with your family. Bought Geo Measure for Mac before it was free? Pro is yours.
Click the corners. Read the number.
Click the map to drop a point, and again for the next corner. The outline closes itself and the number updates with every point. Drag a pin to move it, with a loupe that shows exactly where it sits. Click the small dot on an edge to bend the edge around a curve. Click a pin and delete it from its callout, or press ⌫. Every step is undoable with ⌘Z, and the outline warns you when it crosses itself.
A pond in the field, a courtyard in the lot? Measure › Add a Hole (⇧⌘H), click inside the area and around the pond, press Return, and the area drops by it: the map leaves the hole empty, and Layers lists it under its field, where you can reshape or delete it. Holes come in from KML and GeoJSON too, so a parcel from a county GIS measures what the county says.
Along roads and paths
A straight line is the wrong answer for a walk. Pick Walking, Cycling or Driving and every click follows the paths and roads to it, the way you would really go, with Apple Maps’ travel time beside the distance. Drag a point and the route finds its way again; an area drawn along roads closes along them too. Straight lines are still one click away, and an area starts with them, because fields and lots are measured corner to corner. Routing is free, as often as you like.
Layers, as in a drawing app
The north field, the fence line and the sprinkler’s reach belong together, so with Geo Measure Pro a document holds as many measurements as you like. Each one is a layer with a name and a color: hide it with the eye, drag it above or below the others with ⌘] and ⌘[ or the mouse, zoom the map to it. Hidden layers stay out of the totals, the pictures and the prints, and stay in the file. Distances give you the length of every leg and its bearing; circles take a radius and give you diameter, circumference and area.
The right number
Areas and distances are computed on the WGS84 ellipsoid, the way surveying software does it, so a plot in Norway and a lot in Kenya are both right, and a state-sized quadrangle comes out within a hundredth of a percent of the geodesic answer. Acres, hectares, ares, square feet, square yards, square meters, square miles, square kilometers and tsubo; kilometers, miles, meters, feet, yards and nautical miles. The number shows the digits that mean something: four significant figures by default, up to six if you need them, whether it is 0.261 miles or 66,423,027 acres.
Every point, exactly
Open the points table under the map and every point is a row: its coordinates in decimal degrees or in degrees, minutes and seconds, the leg to it, its bearing and the distance so far. Pick a row and the map shows the point; pick a pin and the table scrolls to it. Type a new coordinate straight into the cell, nudge a corner north, south, east or west by a meter or a foot, delete several points at once, copy the lot to a spreadsheet. Add the point where you are, or, with Geo Measure Pro, let Track My Position add points as your Mac’s location changes.
In and out
Export GeoJSON or a picture of the map, free. With Geo Measure Pro: KML for Google Earth, CSV for a spreadsheet, GPX for a GPS, and a PDF report with the map, the numbers and every point, printed on Letter or A4 with ⌘P or saved. The print sheet shows the page before you print it. Import GeoJSON, KML and GPX: a parcel from a county GIS, a boundary from Google Earth, a track from a watch. Drop the file on the map and it is a measurement, holes and all. Every .measure file this app has written since 2013 opens as it always did, and the document itself is GeoJSON, so anything that reads GeoJSON reads it.
Made for the Mac
On macOS 15 and later it opens with a welcome window: a new measurement, the sample, and your recent files with their thumbnails. Documents open in windows, autosave and keep versions. The menu bar has the whole app in it: ⌘1, ⌘2 and ⌘3 start an area, a distance or a circle, ⌘0 fits the map to the shapes, ⌘F searches for a place, a mountain or a lake, ⌫ deletes the selected point, ⌘, opens the settings. Right-click a layer to rename, recolor or arrange it, and click the points list to jump to any corner. In the Finder, every Geo Measure file shows its own shapes, and Quick Look opens it without the app. Standard, satellite, hybrid or 3D map. In English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese.
No file handy? Try these
Real documents, free to use. Download one and open it with Geo Measure for Mac.
- LaGuardia Airport: the airport’s outline in forty-five points, 646.5 acres.
- Central Park, three shapes: the park as an area, Fifth Avenue as a distance, the reservoir as a circle.
- Richmond, Virginia: a six-point loop around the Fan and Carytown, 3,108 acres.
- Colorado: the four corners of a state, 66 million acres.
- Jaipur: a short route through the old city, as a distance.
Yours stays yours
Geo Measure for Mac has no account, no server and no tracking. Your measurements are files on your Mac, and in your iCloud Drive if you put them there. The only network traffic goes to Apple: to Apple Maps for the map tiles it draws, the place search you type, and, when you measure along roads or paths, the points of each leg for directions; and to the App Store for Geo Measure Pro. Free, with one optional purchase and no subscription. Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
Questions people ask
Which Geo Measure should I get on the Mac? Either one: they are the same app with the same features, and they get the same updates. Both are free, and each has its own Geo Measure Pro. Geo Measure covers iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro with one Pro. Geo Measure for Mac, this page, is the edition we have sold on its own since 2013, for people who only want the Mac app or who already own it. Nobody needs both.
I bought Geo Measure for Mac years ago. Do I pay again? No. Everything on this page comes to the app you own as a free update, Geo Measure Pro included: the app checks your earlier purchase with the App Store and unlocks Pro. If it does not show, choose Restore Purchases in Settings. Every file you made with it opens.
Is it free? Yes. Every file holds one complete measurement, an area, a distance or a circle, with routing along roads, the points table, every unit, GeoJSON and pictures of the map. Geo Measure Pro, one purchase in the app with no subscription, adds more measurements in the same file, printing and the PDF report, KML, GPX and CSV, and tracking your position.
How do I measure the area of a field or a lot on a map? Open Geo Measure for Mac, choose New Measurement, find the place by search or by scrolling, and click each corner of the field. The area appears after the third point and updates as you add or move corners. Switch the unit on the number itself.
How accurate is it? The math is the same as surveying software: distances by Vincenty’s formulae on the WGS84 ellipsoid, areas by spherical excess on the earth’s authalic sphere, checked against GeographicLib to a hundred-thousandth. The limit is where you put the pins, which on a satellite map at street zoom is a meter or so.
Can I get the shape into Google Earth or a GIS? Yes. GeoJSON for QGIS and everything web is free; KML for Google Earth, GPX for a GPS or a watch and CSV for a spreadsheet come with Geo Measure Pro. Import works the other way round for GeoJSON, KML and GPX.
Does it work without a connection? The measurements do; the map needs a connection to load new tiles. Your files never need one.
Is there a web version? Yes, Geo Measure on geosq.com measures the same way in any browser. The app adds documents, layers, export and the Mac menus.
Can it measure along a road or a trail? Yes. Choose Walking, Cycling or Driving and the line follows the paths and roads between the points you click, with the travel time. Choose Straight for a line as the crow flies.
What changed lately? The newest work is written up in the 4.0 post.
Is there a manual? The Geo Measure guide covers every tool, menu, setting and Mac shortcut.