Migrate to Text Search (New)

Places API (Legacy) supports Text Search (Legacy). If you are familiar with Text Search (Legacy), Text Search (New) makes the following changes:

  • Text Search (New) uses HTTP POST requests. Pass parameters in the request body or in headers as part of an HTTP POST request. In contrast, with Text Search (Legacy), you pass URL parameters using an HTTP GET request.
  • Field masking is required. You must specify which fields you want returned in the response. There is no default list of returned fields. If you omit this list, the methods return an error. For more information, see FieldMask.
  • Text Search (New) supports both API keys and OAuth tokens as the authentication mechanism.
  • Only JSON is supported as a response format in the new Text Search.
  • Text Search (Legacy) lets you specify latitude and longitude coordinates in the query string. For example: query=37.4239,-122.0925. That option is not supported in Text Search (New).

    Use Reverse Geocoding to search on coordinates and return an address, or Nearby Search (New) to find places around a certain location.

  • The JSON response format for Text Search (New) has changed from the format of the legacy APIs. For more details, see Migrate the Places API response.

The following table lists parameters in Text Search (Legacy) that have been renamed or modified for Text Search (New), or parameters that are no longer supported.

Current parameter New parameter Notes
evOptions New parameter.
language languageCode
location locationBias
maxprice/minprice priceLevels
opennow openNow
pagetoken pageToken
query textQuery Required in all requests.
radius locationBias Specify the radius when defining a locationBias.
region regionCode
type includedType Only takes a single value.
strictTypeFiltering New parameter.

Example request

The following example GET request uses Text Search (Legacy). In this example, you request a JSON response containing information about "Spicy Vegetarian Food in Sydney, Australia" and pass all parameters as URL parameters:

curl -L -X GET \
'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/textsearch/json?query=Spicy%20Vegetarian%20Food%20in%20Sydney%20Australia&key=API_KEY

With Text Search (New), you make a POST request and pass all parameters in the JSON request body or in headers as part of the POST request. This example also uses a field mask so the response only includes the display name and formatted address of the place:

curl -X POST -d '{
  "textQuery" : "Spicy Vegetarian Food in Sydney, Australia"
}' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'X-Goog-Api-Key: API_KEY' \
-H 'X-Goog-FieldMask: places.displayName,places.formattedAddress' \
'https://places.googleapis.com/v1/places:searchText'