Google Earth Pro
Google Earth Pro is Google's geospatial visualization application for macOS, providing high-resolution satellite imagery, 3D terrain, historical imagery, and tools for measuring distances and areas. It supports importing and editing KML and KMZ files, recording fly-through videos, and accessing geographic data useful for educators, researchers, journalists, real-estate professionals and casual explorers. Google made the Pro edition free in 2015, though the desktop application has not received major updates in recent years as Google has shifted focus toward the browser-based Google Earth experience.
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1 suggestionGoogle Earth Pro remains Intel-only and has no native Apple Silicon build. The search results and architecture analysis confirm that the current version runs only as an x86-64 executable, requiring Rosetta 2 to function on M-series Macs. Google has not announced plans for a native Apple Silicon version, and the app is effectively in maintenance mode rather than active development. Since Apple is removing Rosetta 2 support in macOS 28 (September 2028), Google Earth Pro will stop launching entirely on that release unless Google ships a native build before then. For exploration and basic geographic visualization, the web-based Google Earth at earth.google.com offers most of the same features and runs natively in any modern browser without any compatibility concerns. If you need desktop features like KML editing or offline data, QGIS is a free, open-source alternative that runs natively on Apple Silicon, though it is more technically oriented and has a steeper learning curve than Google Earth Pro. Contact Google Support directly to inquire whether a native macOS build is planned, but be prepared to migrate your workflows to alternative tools as the September 2028 deadline approaches.
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