WhereIWas: Location Timeline
Battery-smart GPS travel log
Only for iPhone
Free · In‑App Purchases
iPhone
GPS runs only when you actually move, so a full shift fits in your battery. Survives termination and reboot. GPX and JSON export. Everything stays on your iPhone.
WhereIWas is your location timeline and travel log: day after day, it quietly records where you have been and shows it on a map — a road trip, a holiday, a hike, a day's work — without flattening your battery.
WHY IT IS DIFFERENT
Most trackers either drain the battery by keeping GPS on permanently, or quietly lose hours of your day when iOS suspends them. WhereIWas does neither. It listens to the motion coprocessor, which costs almost no power, and switches GPS on only once you are actually moving — then scales accuracy to your speed: a 10 m filter on foot, 50 m in a car. It waits two minutes of stillness before switching GPS back off, so a red light never ends your track.
BUILT TO SURVIVE
• Keeps recording with the screen off and the app in the background
• Relaunches itself and resumes after iOS terminates it under memory pressure
• Survives a reboot, once you have unlocked the device
• Works entirely offline — no signal, no server, no account needed
EVERY FIX, FULLY DOCUMENTED
Each stored point keeps its coordinates, altitude, horizontal and vertical accuracy, speed, course, timestamp, detected activity (walking, running, cycling, driving, still), battery level and the GPS profile in force. Inaccurate, stale, duplicate and out-of-order fixes are filtered out before they are written.
AUDIT TRAIL
Turn on the optional audit trail and the app records why it did what it did: every fix it received, every validation test it ran with the measured value and the threshold that applied, every state change and every time it stopped GPS. When you wonder why there is a gap between 14:02 and 14:20, the answer is in there. Export it as JSON or plain text.
EXPORT WHAT YOU RECORDED
GPX 1.1 for any mapping tool, or JSON with the full metadata. Send it anywhere through the standard share sheet. Export today, the last seven days, a date range you pick, a single recorded session, or everything.
YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS
Everything is stored on device, in a local database. No account, no server, no analytics, no advertising, no tracking. Nothing is uploaded anywhere. You decide what leaves the phone, and when, by exporting it yourself.
IN YOUR LANGUAGE, IN YOUR UNITS
Translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Polish and Czech. Distances, speeds and altitudes follow a metric or imperial setting of their own, so you never have to change your phone's language to read miles.
BACKGROUND LOCATION
Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life. WhereIWas is built to keep that cost down — GPS runs only while you move — and the status screen always shows what is running and which GPS profile is in force.
Requires iOS 17 or later. Always location permission is required for background recording. Motion permission is strongly recommended: it is what lets the app save your battery.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
What's new in 1.0.1:
• About. Settings now gathers the website, the support and privacy pages, the source code on GitHub, a shortcut to rate the app and my other apps.
• Support the developer. If WhereIWas is useful to you, you can leave an optional tip: small, medium or large. It unlocks nothing — WhereIWas stays free, open source, with no account, no ads and no tracking.
Your location history never leaves your iPhone.
The developer, GABRIEL JEAN YVES ANNE LANDAIS, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- GABRIEL JEAN YVES ANNE LANDAIS
- Size
- 3.5 MB
- Category
- Navigation
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Location
- This app may use your location even when it isn’t open, which can decrease device battery life.
- Languages
English and 8 more
- English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Spanish
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- Large Tip $3.99
- Small Tip $0.99
- Medium Tip $2.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 Gabriel Landais