Frequently asked questions

It's taking a long time to find a fix!

There can be several reasons reasons for this.

• New location - if you are at a new location after a long flight, the GPS on your phone can take a while to reorient itself. Try running GPSLogger at high frequency until it does find a location.
• Interference - there may be structures nearby blocking your signal.
• Mid flight - if you are in a commercial aircraft, you are probably traveling too fast for your phone's hardware to keep up with the GPS signals.

It's not accurate!

It all comes down to your hardware, settings and environment. The accuracy is only as good as your phone's GPS chip. Some phones may have 4 meter accuracies, some have 500 meters. Also, using GPS satellites will give you better accuracy but take a longer time; using network location will give worse accuracy but is quicker. You may also want to check your environment, as there can be inaccuracy due to clouds, buildings, sunspots, alien invasion, etc.

My time interval has passed, but no point was logged

There are two possible reasons for this.

• The GPS will have attempted to find its location and given up after a while. This means that Android OS will not have given a location to GPSLogger
• The accuracy was below your Accuracy before logging settings, so GPSLogger didn't log it.

It's using the wrong timezone, can you make it use my timezone?

The standard when logging points is to use UTC. Since this is the standard, it would be wrong to use the the local time zone. Instead, it is the responsibility of the software you use the log file on (Google Earth, GeoSetter, etc.) to adjust for your timezone. Any application that deals with GPX or KML files will have a setting that allows you to specify your own timezone.

I am displaying imperial units but why isn't it logging imperial to the file?

What are the units in which the values are logged?

The imperial units are only for display purposes. Speed and distances may also show up as miles and kilometers. But when logging, the units are always in SI units - meters and seconds.

Where is the file being logged?

You can connect your phone to your computer and mount the SD card, then copy the file from the GPSLogger folder. Note that while your SD card is mounted, GPSLogger can't write to the card, since it's in use. To view it on the phone itself, if you have a file explorer, then you can go to /sdcard/GPSlogger > Long press file > Open as > Text

I've changed the settings, but it's still showing/using the old settings

If the app is logging, and you make changes to the settings, the changes will take effect after the next point is logged. This means that if you've set your interval as 1 hour, you have a long wait ahead of you. If you want the changes to take effect immediately, then stop logging and start it again so that the changes are refreshed.

What do the various settings mean? (Accuracy before logging, time interval for accuracy, etc)

• Time before logging - How long to wait after a point has been logged to try logging again.
• Distance before logging - When a point is available, the app will check to ensure that this much distance exists between the previous and current points.
• Accuracy before logging - This setting sets the minimum accuracy a point should have before it is logged. This is useful if you are inside a building for a while.
• Time interval for accuracy - When searching for a point, the app can continue searching for this many seconds and then attempt to pick the most accurate of all the points it receives.

Can I use this with automation apps such as Tasker, Locale and Llama?

GPSLogger provides a Start logging and Stop logging shortcut. Your automation app can invoke these shortcuts.

How do I make it last longer?

Mainly, turn wifi off, turn mobile data off, turn background synchronization off, turn bluetooth off. You can also try going into airplane mode which turns many things off. When it comes to choosing between location sources - GPS vs network - GPS will be more battery hungry while network location is easier on the battery.

I see the GPS icon active between the intervals I've set, why is that?

It's how the Android OS has implemented its GPS system. When you say you want a point every 60 seconds (for example), that's actually a suggestion rather than an imperative, and so the time interval between GPS points is never guaranteed. GPSLogger has logic that checks the time difference, though, and will make sure that at least 60 seconds have passed before logging again.

Why haven't you developed XYZ feature?

I work on GPSLogger in my spare time and I don't always have the time or resources to implement a feature. However, GPSLogger is open source. You are encouraged to contribute or get someone else to contribute a feature.

Where can I contribute code and features?

On Github

Where can I contribute translations?

On Crowdin

How is this different from other logging apps?

It's meant to be more battery efficient. A lot of other apps, such as MyTracks, usually go with the assumption that you have a data connection available and your routes won't be very long. The aim of GPSLogger is to log points and stay quiet.