Quick Look and file icons

With KML Explore installed, KML and KMZ files show what is in them before you open them.

Quick Look

Select a .kml or .kmz in Finder and press Space, or tap one in Files, Mail or Messages on iPhone and iPad. The preview has the file’s name and a line on what it holds (how many placemarks, folders and overlays, and KML or KMZ; 1 of 20 placemarks shown when the file hides the rest), the map of its areas, paths and places in their own colors with a scale bar, and beside it the placemarks with their measures, as many as fit, then “and N more”.

File icons

Finder and Files give each KML and KMZ an icon of its own: a page with the file’s areas, paths and places drawn thick enough to read at icon size, and KML or KMZ at its foot, below a light gray line.

What the pictures show

• Exactly what the file shows. Layers the file hides stay hidden; KML Explore doesn’t choose for you. A file that shows nothing gets the ground of its place with nothing on it.
• A small world, drawn locally. A file spanning more than a few degrees is drawn on a world map of land, lakes and borders (Natural Earth, built into the app) in KML Explore’s violet. A small place (a campus, a trail, a single point) is drawn on plain paper.
• Nothing from the web, and no Apple map. The pictures are drawn on your device from the file alone, so a preview never contacts a server.

Files that need repairs are read the same way the app reads them, so they get pictures too.

Note

Your own layer switches don’t change the pictures: they follow the file, not your view of it. Use Save Shown Layers to the File to change what the file shows.