Yesterday, during my workshop on Google Earth and Google Maps someone asked me if I knew of any files about Rome. I did know about a couple, but I couldn’t find them in the Google Earth gallery. So I turned to Google and did a search by file type. My search was refined to .KMZ files. Once I made that refinement I was able to find the files I was looking for. The directions for searching for Google Earth files through Google are included in the screenshots below (click the images to view them in full size).

Enter a search term. In this case I am looking for files related to World War II. You could also do a search for something like “Maine Seafood.” You have to enter a search term and do the search before you will see the screen pictured below.

In the advanced search menu select “file type” then select KMZ or KML.

Alternatively, you can search by file type by entering filetype: KMZ after your search term.

To clarify, you will have to open the file in Google Earth to see its contents. This method is just for finding files to use in Google Earth.

Finding files in the Google Earth gallery:
Google Earth has a lot of great layers of information built in. Simply open the “layers” drop-down menu in Google Earth and select a layer to view it (remember, the more layers you select the slower Google Earth will run). You can also open the “Earth Gallery” in Google Earth to find and add more layers to your view of Google Earth.