Trace

Trace reads the date and location stored in each photograph, groups them into days, and draws them as a continuous line across a world map.

It reads your photo library only after you grant permission, and only read-only. It does not read the content of your photographs, and it does not modify, delete or add to your library. Screenshots are excluded.

Trace has no advertising, no analytics and no third-party tracking. There is no feed, no followers and no profile for anyone else to look at.

On your phone. Trace works without an account. Your adventures, memories and its own resized copies of your photographs are written to the app’s private storage, which the operating system keeps separate from every other app. By default none of it leaves the device.

Trace keeps its own copy of a photograph rather than pointing at your library. A picture you later delete, move or take offline would otherwise leave a blank space on your map. The copy is resized smaller than the original; the photograph in your camera roll is untouched, at full resolution.

An account exists for one reason: to keep a copy of your map somewhere other than the phone in your pocket, so that losing or replacing it does not lose your travel with it. It is offered in Settings and is not required to use anything.

When you ask for a backup, the adventures, memories and photographs already on your phone are copied to private storage only your account can read. The copies on your phone are not deleted — a backup adds somewhere for your data to be, it never moves it.

Deleting your account removes what was backed up to it. It does not remove what is on the phone; uninstalling Trace does that.

These documents apply to Trace.

For questions, bug reports or account requests, see Support.