Record a trip

Geo Tracker records your trip as a series of positions. They come either from your device’s own location or from an external Bluetooth GNSS receiver.

On Android, positions always come from satellites (GNSS): from the device’s built-in receiver or from the Bluetooth one.
On iPhone, the system decides how it finds your device’s location: besides satellites, it can use Wi-Fi and mobile networks, and it doesn’t tell the app which one it used. If you need positions only from satellites, connect a Bluetooth GNSS receiver and switch to it in the app.

Each position is saved on your device as soon as it arrives, so there’s nothing to save at the end, and nothing is lost if the app is closed. Recording doesn’t need an internet connection and works fully offline.

Start recording

Tap the red record button at the bottom right of the map.

Tap starts a new trip and hides the other trips from the map, so only the new one is shown.
Long press starts a new trip and keeps the trips that are already on the map.

The first time you record, Geo Tracker asks for a few permissions:

Location. On Android, choose Allow all the time and turn on precise location. Without background location, recording works only while the app is open.
Notifications, to show the recording status and controls. Recording works without them too.
Battery optimization (Android only). Turn it off for Geo Tracker, so the system doesn’t stop the recording in the background. Some phones need more settings; see Background recording.

Recording starts at once, but until your device finds its position, the status shows No fix and nothing is saved. As soon as the position is found, recording continues on its own. If it takes long, see Fix GPS issues.

While recording

You can lock the screen or switch to other apps: recording continues in the background. On Android, it also continues if you swipe Geo Tracker away from the recent apps. If recording stops or leaves gaps in the background, set up your phone as described in Background recording.

On Android, a notification shows the recording status, duration and distance, with Pause, Stop and Marker buttons.
On iPhone, a Live Activity on the lock screen shows the same and has the same buttons.

The status panel on the map shows your speed and the GPS signal. The trip’s numbers are on the Statistics screen; see Understand trip statistics and charts.

Pause and resume

To pause, tap the record button: while recording, it shows a pause icon. While paused, it turns amber and shows a play icon. Tap it again to resume.

While the recording is paused:

no positions are saved,
the statistics aren’t calculated: distance, speed, altitudes and the Record duration stay as they were before the pause.

When you resume, the trip continues as a new segment. A segment is a continuous part of the track, recorded without a break. A trip can have several segments: a new one starts after a pause, when you continue a trip, or when the distance between two positions is larger than the Max distance of your recording profile. The distance between segments isn’t added to the track length.

On the map, segments are joined by a line; you can hide it in Map layers → Show connections.

When to pause

Pause when you don’t want a part of your trip in the track, for example:

a lunch break, a museum visit or anything else indoors, where the GPS position jumps around and draws a tangle of lines,
a car, bus or train ride between two hikes,
a long break, to save battery.

You don’t need to pause for short stops. Movement duration and Average speed moving leave stops out anyway, and with Mark stops turned on (it is by default), Geo Tracker adds a marker with the duration of each stop.

If you won’t continue the trip the same day, stop the recording instead. You can still continue it later.

Stop recording

While recording, a smaller stop button appears to the left of the record button. Tap it to finish the trip. The trip is already saved on your device. If you turned on Sync automatically for a sync folder, Geo Tracker also copies it right away to that folder, for example in your cloud storage.

New trips are named after their start date and time. To change the name format, open Settings → Recording → Default track name.

To avoid pausing or stopping by accident, turn on Settings → Recording → Ask before ending. Geo Tracker then asks before pausing and before stopping. Stopping from the notification, the Live Activity or the trip list always asks.

Continue a trip

To add to an earlier trip, select it in the trip list and choose ⋮ → Continue recording. The new part is added to the trip as a new segment, like after a pause.

Continue recording is available only when no other trip is being recorded and route guidance is off.