Why are KML colors in a strange order?

KML stores color as an 8-digit hex string in aabbggrr order — alpha, blue, green, red — which is the reverse of the rrggbb web format. This tool converts between the two automatically so you can use a normal color picker.

What does the opacity value control?

The first two hex digits (alpha) set transparency, from 00 (fully transparent) to ff (fully opaque). The editor exposes this as a 0–100% slider and writes the correct two-digit hex back into the color.

Which style properties can I edit?

It edits LineStyle color and width, PolyStyle color (fill), and IconStyle scale and color. Other elements in the file are preserved unchanged so your placemarks and geometry are not affected.

Does it work with StyleMap?

StyleMap elements that reference shared Style blocks by id are preserved, and editing the underlying Style updates both the normal and highlight states that point to it. Inline styles inside placemarks are also detected.

No. Parsing and rebuilding the KML happen entirely in your browser using the built-in XML parser, so your map data never leaves your device.

KML Color / Style Editor

A KML style editor lets you recolour and restyle the lines, fills, and icons in a KML file without opening Google Earth. KML stores styling in <Style> blocks with colours in an unusual aabbggrr hex order, which makes hand-editing error-prone. This free tool parses those blocks, gives you ordinary colour pickers, and writes valid KML back out — all in your browser.

How it works

The tool parses your KML with the browser’s DOMParser and finds every <Style> element. For each one it reads:

LineStyle → <color> and <width>
PolyStyle → <color> (the polygon fill)
IconStyle → <scale> and <color>

KML colours are eight hex digits in aabbggrr order. The editor splits that into an alpha byte and an rrggbb value it feeds to a standard HTML colour input, then reassembles aabbggrr when exporting. When you change a field, the corresponding text node in the parsed XML document is updated and the whole document is re-serialised with XMLSerializer, so every other element — coordinates, names, extended data — is preserved exactly.

Tips and notes

Remember the byte order: web #ff8800 becomes KML ff0088ff (alpha ff, then bb=00, gg=88, rr=ff).
Width is in pixels and accepts decimals; icon scale is a multiplier where 1.0 is the icon’s native size.
If a style block is missing a sub-element, this tool leaves it out rather than inventing one, so files stay minimal.
Always keep a backup of the original KML before overwriting, since colour edits are not automatically reversible.