PUBLIC BETA · v2.1

Your journeys.
Your data.
Your mileage.

TripLogger is an Android trip and mileage logger built around a fairly unfashionable idea: your phone should be able to remember where your car went without requiring an account, a subscription, or somebody else's cloud.

Automatic GPS logging. Local storage. Mileage summaries. Route history. Optional self-hosted Traccar. Cloud nonsense optional.

Android 8+ · APK distributed through GitHub Releases · SHA-256 below

Wanted: people willing to break it.

TripLogger is in public beta. Different Android manufacturers have impressively creative opinions about whether an app you explicitly told to run in the background should actually be allowed to run in the background.

I need real-world testing across different phones, Android versions, journeys and self-hosted setups.

The first 200 useful testers can claim lifetime Pro status for when the paid feature set launches. No email harvesting exercise: claim through r/triplogger and you'll get a claim code.

0 / 200 claimed 200 founding tester licences remaining

Already testing v2.1? You're not being forgotten — early testers who were here before the founding programme opened are being handled separately.

Useful means actual testing, useful feedback, a reproducible bug, manufacturer-specific behaviour, or something else that helps make TripLogger less likely to quietly die halfway through a journey.

What it actually does

The useful bits first. Marketing department currently consists of nobody.

Automatic trip logging

GPS points are recorded while tracking is active so you don't have to reconstruct Tuesday's driving from fuel receipts and vague memories.

Mileage — where did all that fuel go?

View mileage summaries and classify journeys as Personal, Business or Commute. The aim is useful records, not decorative map lines.

Route history — behold your movements

Recorded journeys can be reviewed on a map. The journey record remains useful even if you don't run a server.

Local-first

Core journey data lives on the device. Internet access should not be a prerequisite for remembering that you drove somewhere.

Offline upload queue

If a configured server isn't reachable, uploads can wait. A failed server connection should not mean a failed journey.

Android murder detector

A watchdog helps recover tracking when Android decides background services look suspiciously productive. Recovery mechanism, not necromancy.

Traccar optional

Already run Traccar? TripLogger can upload positions to it. Don't run Traccar? That's fine too.

No mandatory account

Install the app and use it. TripLogger does not require a developer-operated journey cloud just to record mileage.

Huawei owners

Welcome to battery-management bingo. TripLogger includes recovery work aimed at phones particularly enthusiastic about killing background processes.

What TripLogger is trying to be

Not another service that stops being useful the moment somebody's server, subscription or startup disappears.

The phone owns the journey record

The primary copy of your trip history should remain under your control.

Offline should be normal

Loss of mobile data, Wi-Fi or a self-hosted server should not make the app forget where you've been.

Self-hosting is first-class

Traccar integration isn't a reluctant checkbox buried behind somebody else's cloud account.

Missing GPS should look missing

If part of a journey wasn't recorded, TripLogger should not confidently draw a fictional straight road across the countryside and call the job done.

Privacy by architecture

Future licensing should establish entitlement, not become an excuse to build a warehouse containing everybody's journeys.

Useful before profitable

The free version should remain genuinely useful. Paid features need to earn their existence rather than hold basic mileage recording hostage.

Install

TripLogger isn't in an app store yet. Installation currently takes the traditional Android side-loading route.

Download the current APK from GitHub Releases.
Allow installation from the browser or file manager you used to download it. Android will normally ask when required.
Install TripLogger and grant the location/background permissions required for trip recording.
On manufacturers with aggressive battery management, allow TripLogger to run in the background. Huawei users may now begin the traditional scavenger hunt through battery settings.
Take a short test journey and verify the route before trusting it with anything important. Trust, but verify.

Using your own Traccar server

Traccar is optional. Local-only use is perfectly valid. If you already self-host Traccar, TripLogger can use it as an additional destination.

1. Create a device

Create a device in Traccar and give it a unique identifier. TripLogger's device ID must match the identifier configured on the server.

2. Configure the OsmAnd endpoint

Enter the URL of your Traccar OsmAnd protocol endpoint in TripLogger. A typical self-hosted installation exposes this on port 5055.

3. Test before depending on it

Confirm positions appear on the server. If they don't, TripLogger's local record is still the important bit while you work out which firewall rule you forgot.

Do not expose a Traccar installation directly to the Internet without understanding its authentication, proxy and firewall configuration.

Privacy

GPS history is unusually personal data, so the design goal is to avoid collecting it merely because collecting things is fashionable.

No mandatory TripLogger account

The current beta does not require registration with a TripLogger-operated service.

No developer GPS cloud

TripLogger does not require your journey history to be uploaded to a developer-operated GPS database.

Your Traccar means your Traccar

If you enable Traccar integration, positions go to the server you configure. That server is your responsibility.

Future licensing

The intended licence system will establish whether a device owns an entitlement. It is not intended to receive or retain your trip history.

No ad SDK

There is currently no advertising SDK whose business model depends on learning where you bought your groceries.

Source visible

The application source is publicly visible so technically inclined users can inspect what the application is doing rather than relying entirely on promises.

Developer / Test Builds

This is the bit where we let other people break it before we pretend it's finished.

Latest test build

The developer build contains the latest work before it becomes a normal release. It may contain unfinished features, weird behaviour, or something that worked perfectly on our phone and immediately decided it hated yours.

Android 8.0+. Back up anything important before testing development builds.

What actually works

The core of TripLogger is already working. We're not building a screenshot with a GPS icon and calling it an app.

Trip logging

Automatic GPS trip detection, background tracking, local trip storage, trip history and personal/business classification.

Mileage

Mileage summaries and custom reporting periods are working and being tested against real trips.

Traccar

Optional self-hosted Traccar integration works. Your Traccar server remains your Traccar server.

Offline first

Trips are stored locally. Internet access is not supposed to be a prerequisite for recording where your car went.

Diagnostics

The app can build a complete diagnostic report, let you inspect it, and send it explicitly for investigation.

Bug tracking

Submitted reports receive a reference and can be tracked through Sent → Seen → Investigating → Fixed → Closed.

What we're working on

Making Android behave

Different manufacturers have different ideas about background services, GPS and sensors. We're testing the ugly edge cases rather than pretending they don't exist.

GPS gap recovery

Detect suspicious gaps in recorded GPS data and stop the map from drawing a lovely straight line across a road the car never actually drove.

Sensor reliability

Hardening motion detection and service lifecycle handling so repeated Start / Stop / Restart cycles don't quietly accumulate sensor registrations.

Long-running testing

Background operation, GPS loss and recovery, service recreation and extended trips are being tested across different Android devices.

Still on the list

  • Finish and validate intelligent GPS gap recovery.
  • Complete broader automated regression and device testing.
  • Further manufacturer-specific Android reliability testing.
  • Secure device-to-device licence migration.
  • Further hardening of licence generation and activation protection.
  • Additional Traccar and mileage improvements.
  • Investigate Aurora Store and F-Droid distribution.
  • Continue improving diagnostics as real bugs are found.

Some of these are deliberately not being rushed. A trip logger that loses your trip because we were busy adding another shiny button isn't much use.

Found a bug?

Excellent. That's considerably more useful than telling us "GPS didn't work" and disappearing into the night.

1. Break it

If possible, reproduce the problem. Note what you expected and what actually happened.

2. Open Diagnostics

Go to Settings → Diagnostics and select VIEW COMPLETE REPORT.

3. Send it

Review the complete report before sending it. Nothing is sent automatically. If you send it, TripLogger gives you a reference such as TL-20260902-XXXXXXXX.

What the report contains

App and build information, Android/device information, TripLogger service lifecycle events, GPS/tracking diagnostics, motion sensor events, watchdog events and relevant errors useful for figuring out what went wrong.

What it does not intentionally contain

GPS coordinates, journey location history, Android ID, IMEI, device serial, advertising ID, account/email address, phone number, Wi-Fi details, Bluetooth addresses or Traccar credentials.

Then what?

Keep the TL-... reference. You can use SENT REPORTS → CHECK STATUS in TripLogger to see whether the report has been seen, is being investigated, has been fixed, or has been closed.

Useful information

  • What you expected to happen.
  • What actually happened.
  • Whether you can reproduce it.
  • The diagnostic reference, if you sent one.
  • Phone model and Android version if the report could not be sent.

Don't worry about writing a twelve-page bug report. The diagnostic report does most of the boring work for you.

Where this is going

v2.1 is a beta, not the ceremonial declaration that software has reached perfection.

GPS gap detection

Detect suspicious missing sections using timing, distance, implied speed, accuracy and tracking state instead of blindly joining distant points.

Intelligent route recovery

Where enough evidence exists, use known outward/return journeys, historical routes and constrained routing to estimate missing sections without rewriting the original observations.

Trip quality information

Expose gaps and recording quality instead of quietly pretending every journey was captured perfectly.

More Android testing

Samsung, Pixel, Huawei, Xiaomi, Motorola and whatever other manufacturer has invented a new way to optimise a background service into oblivion.

Better recovery

Continue improving behaviour across reboots, crashes, lost connectivity and background-process termination.

Version notifications

Let installed versions know when a newer TripLogger release is available, without turning the app into an update nagging machine.

Secure device migration

Move a future Pro entitlement and TripLogger environment between devices without making a central server the custodian of your journey history.

Export and retention controls

More control over getting your data out, retaining what matters and deleting what doesn't.

Making Tax Digital for self-employed & business

Planned Pro features will make TripLogger mileage records easier to use in Making Tax Digital workflows for sole traders, self-employed users and business entities.

The aim is to prepare and export mileage data for MTD-compatible accounting software or HMRC-compatible bridging solutions, while keeping the underlying journey history under your control.

Planned — TripLogger is not currently an HMRC submission product.

Free + Pro

The plan is a useful free/basic version plus paid Pro functionality. Exact boundaries and pricing are not final yet.

About future paid features

TripLogger v2.1 is a free public beta.

Longer term, the intention is to keep a genuinely useful free/basic version and fund continued development with a Pro tier. Exact pricing and feature boundaries haven't been decided.

The objective is to fund development without constructing a cloud-dependent subscription contraption around something your phone is perfectly capable of doing itself.

People who help meaningfully during the early beta shouldn't be forgotten: the first 200 useful testers can claim lifetime Pro status. See r/triplogger.

Source visible. Not open source.

You can look under the bonnet. That doesn't automatically mean you own the car.

TripLogger's source is publicly visible on GitHub for transparency, testing, security review and development reference.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, TripLogger application code is Copyright © 2026 TripLogger. All rights reserved. No licence is granted to copy, modify, redistribute, sublicense, sell, publish modified builds or commercially exploit the application code.

Third-party components retain their own licences and copyright terms.

Verify the APK

For TripLogger 2.1:

SHA-256: b93c6d1ec8db42c7a83a058b76361805c5bec890e79809ac9869632ec450bb19

On Linux: sha256sum TripLogger-2.1.apk

Found a bug? Have an idea? Broke something spectacularly?

Useful reports are considerably more interesting than “it doesn't work”. Phone model, Android version, what happened and what you expected to happen are an excellent start.

Reddit

Join r/triplogger for testing, discussion, setup help and founding-tester claims.

GitHub

For reproducible bugs and source-related issues, use GitHub Issues.

Email

For anything better handled privately: triplogger@ehcp.eu

One last boring bit

TripLogger is beta software. GPS availability, Android background restrictions, device configuration and other factors can affect recording. Verify important journeys and mileage records rather than assuming a phone is incapable of having a bad day.

No satellites were harmed in the making of this application.