Shapefiles power desktop GIS; KML powers Google Earth. Here's the quickest way to move data from one to the other, safely and for free.
A Shapefile is several files that must travel together (.shp, .dbf, .shx, .prj). Zip them into one .zip, drop it into the Shapefile converter, choose KML or KMZ, and download. It all happens in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
The format splits its information across separate files with the same base name. The .shp holds geometry, the .dbf holds the attribute table, the .shx is the index that links the two, and the .prj records the coordinate system. Send someone only the .shp and they get a file that either refuses to open or opens with no attributes — which is why zipping the whole set is the standard way to move shapefiles around.
Select the files themselves and compress those — don't zip the enclosing folder. A zip containing roads/roads.shp nested inside a directory sometimes fails to open, whereas a flat archive with roads.shp, roads.dbf, roads.shx and roads.prj at the top level always works. Also confirm every part shares exactly the same base name; a stray roads_final.dbf next to roads.shp will not pair up.
Without a .prj nothing knows what the coordinates mean. If the numbers are large — say 451234 and 5411234 — they're metres in some projected system, and treating them as degrees will place your data thousands of kilometres away, or produce the "inconsistent extent" warning in ArcGIS. The fix is to supply the coordinate system explicitly (for example EPSG:27700 for the British National Grid, or EPSG:32631 for UTM zone 31N) so the reprojection to WGS84 is correct.
The .dbf has a long history and no reliable built-in encoding declaration, which is why accented or non-Latin characters sometimes arrive as question marks. A .cpg file alongside the .dbf declares the encoding — include it if you have one. KML is UTF-8 throughout, so once the text is read correctly it stays correct.
A converted shapefile lands in Google Earth as raw geometry with attributes attached, which is functional but rarely pretty. Two adjustments make the biggest difference.
Google Earth uses each placemark's name for its on-screen label. If your shapefile has a short, meaningful column — a site name or reference number — that column makes a far better label than a numeric ID. Long labels overlap badly when features are close together.
Polygons convert to filled shapes and lines to paths. Both are drawn clamped to the ground by default, which is what you want for parcels, boundaries and roads. If your data carries Z values, remember Google Earth may interpret them as height above ground — flat cadastral data with stray Z values can end up floating above the terrain.
Going the other way is just as easy: the KML to Shapefile converter turns a Google Earth file back into a shapefile (delivered as a .zip). Popup and description data is pulled into proper attribute columns automatically.
A shapefile → KML → shapefile round trip is not perfectly lossless. Field names get squeezed back into the 10-character limit, and mixed geometry in the KML has to be separated because a shapefile can only hold one type. If you need a format that survives round trips intact, GeoPackage is the better destination — it keeps long field names, multiple layers and the coordinate system in a single file.
Zip the .shp, .dbf, .shx and .prj files together, drop the archive into a browser-based shapefile converter, choose KML or KMZ, and download the result. No GIS software or account is needed, and with an in-browser tool the data is never uploaded to a server.
At minimum .shp (geometry), .dbf (attributes) and .shx (index). Always add the .prj as well, because it records the coordinate system — without it the converter cannot reproject your data to the WGS84 that KML requires.
Yes. A browser-based converter runs the same GDAL engine those programs use, compiled to WebAssembly, so no desktop install is needed. It also works offline once the page has loaded.
Almost always a missing or wrong .prj file. If the shapefile is in a projected system such as UTM or a national grid and no coordinate system is declared, the metre values get treated as degrees and the data lands far from where it should. Include the .prj, or set the coordinate system manually before converting.
KML is plain XML you can open and edit in a text editor. KMZ is that same KML zipped, so it is smaller and can bundle custom icons. Google Earth opens both; use KMZ when emailing large files.
Yes — the .dbf columns become attributes on each placemark and appear in the Google Earth popup. Note that shapefile field names are already capped at 10 characters, so any truncation you see was introduced by the shapefile format itself, not the conversion.
