Permissions
PathReel requires two permissions to work properly:
- Location (Always Allow) — Required for background GPS recording. PathReel uses high-accuracy GPS to track your route even when the screen is locked or you switch to other apps. Go to Settings > PathReel > Location > Always.
- Photo Library (Full Access) — Required to match your photos to routes and save exported videos.
Recording a Trip
On the Record tab, tap "Start Recording". Pick a transport mode (car, motorcycle, bike, walk, run, boat, or train). PathReel begins tracking with high-accuracy GPS, updated every 3 metres.
- Lock the phone, switch apps, or pocket it — recording continues.
- The map follows your direction of travel — forward direction always points up.
- Distance, duration, and point count update in real time.
- The transport icon switches automatically — if driving speed drops below 8 km/h a walking icon appears, and back when speed picks up.
- Photos taken along the way appear on the route during replay.
- Tap "Stop Recording" and confirm. PathReel scans every track point against saved check-in targets within 200 m.
Trip Detail
The Trips tab lists every recording. Tap a trip to see:
- Full route on a satellite or standard map.
- Timeline: start, photos, stops, end.
- Tap any photo for full-screen preview.
- Long-press a timeline item to add a note. Notes appear in replay and exports.
- Long-press a trip card to edit its name, description, or delete (biometric required).
Replay
From the trip detail page, tap "Replay Route". The cinematic 3D flyover begins:
- Camera follows the route in real time, pitch and heading matching travel direction.
- Photos zoom in automatically when the route passes nearby — image, address, POI name.
- Stops are highlighted with place name, address, and duration.
- Compass top-right; clock, distance, speed top-left.
- Speed control — 1×/2×/3×. All points render at every speed; only frame interval changes.
- Camera height — 0.5×–3×. Higher shows more area, lower more detail.
- Map style — toggle satellite / standard.
- Final 5-second overview zooms out to the full route.
Exporting Video
During replay, tap the export button. PathReel re-runs the route and captures every frame as a high-quality HD video.
- Copy & Share — Auto-generated caption (city name, weather, temperature, places, season, time of day) is copied; the system share sheet opens with the video.
- Share Video Only — Share sheet directly, no caption.
The caption is built from real trip data — start/end city via reverse geocoding, weather from Open-Meteo, notable stops, and more. A different template is randomly selected each time.
Trip Groups
Group multiple trips for multi-day vacations or themed collections.
- Trips tab → tap "Trip Groups" → "+ New Group". Enter name (required) + optional note.
- Tap a group, use "Add Trips" for multi-select.
- A trip can belong to multiple groups. Deleting a group does not delete the trips.
- Long-press a trip inside a group to remove it. Long-press the group card to edit/delete.
- Group Playback Duration — each group has its own duration (default 60 s). Tap to change (1–300 s).
- Tap "Replay Route" to play all trips in sequence with smooth zoom-out / zoom-in transitions between each.
Insights
The Insights tab shows your travel statistics:
- Total distance, driving time, average speed.
- Records: longest trip, top speed.
- Heatmap of every place you've been — tap to explore.
- Filter by 7 days, 30 days, or all time.
Attraction Discovery
The Attractions tab searches nearby points of interest from multiple data sources:
- Sources — UNESCO World Heritage, Wikivoyage, US NPS, Geoapify. Results deduplicated and merged.
- Search center — current GPS, long-press the map, or search a city/address.
- Search radius — slider, 1–50 km.
- Read More — Wikipedia in your language via Wikidata language links; otherwise a multilingual description is generated. Images from Wikidata or Wikipedia geosearch.
- Text-to-Speech — "Listen" picks the best voice (Siri > Enhanced > Default), detects text language.
- Add to Check-in — ⭐ saves an attraction as a target.
- Custom Places — add your own by name and address, or long-press the check-in map. Categories (café, restaurant, friend, historic, memorial, other) and notes.
Check-in Stamps
Switch to "My Check-ins" to manage your travel passport:
- Stats cards — UNESCO, Featured (Wikivoyage), Local (Geoapify), My Places. Tap a card to filter.
- Map — visited targets in tier colors with ✅; unvisited in gray. Tap a marker for the 200 m auto + 500 m manual rings.
- Manual check-in — disabled outside 500 m, green within range. Tapping triggers GPS verification.
- Auto check-in — when a trip stops, PathReel scans the track points and marks any target within 200 m as visited.
- Detail — visited record shows mini map (attraction pin + your check-in spot), distance, method (Auto / Manual), timestamp, tier, description, notes, nearby photos (within 1 km, ±1 hr).
- Delete — long-press (2 s) an unvisited target. Visited records are locked.
Settings
Appearance
- Day / Night — every screen, modal, map, and exported video follows the theme.
- Language — 16 languages. Detects your device language on first launch. UI, descriptions, TTS voice, and share captions all adapt.
Replay
- Photo Display — 0.5–10 s, default 1.5 s.
- Stop Display — 0.5–10 s, default 2 s.
- Stop Min Time — 1–60 min, default 10 min. Filters out traffic lights, brief breaks.
- Trip Duration — 5–300 s, default 30 s. PathReel distributes points evenly.
Auto Record (iOS)
- Master toggle — iOS region monitoring around your home; works in background or terminated state.
- Home Location — geocoded address; map confirms with the geofence circle.
- Geofence Radius — 10–500 m, default 50 m.
- Default Mode — transport used when auto-record starts.
- Min Stay to Stop — 1–10 min, default 3 min.
- Notifications — local notification on iPhone + Apple Watch in your language.
- Invalid trip cleanup — auto-recorded trips shorter than the geofence radius are deleted with a notification.
Backup
- iCloud Auto Backup — every trip auto-backed up; new iPhone restores automatically.
- Export All — single
.pathreel file via share sheet.
- Import — duplicates skipped automatically.
Tips
- Keep "Always Allow" location for best accuracy. "While Using" stops recording in background.
- Take photos during the trip — they appear at the right place during replay.
- Satellite map is the most cinematic for replays.
- Export 9:16 for vertical platforms, 16:9 for YouTube.
- Save attractions as targets before visiting a new city — PathReel auto-stamps as you travel.
- Enable Auto Record for daily commutes — every trip tracked without manual taps.
- All data lives on your device. No accounts, no cloud, no tracking.
Supported Languages
English, 简体中文, 繁體中文, Español, Français, العربية, Português, Русский, 日本語, 한국어, Deutsch, हिन्दी, Italiano, Türkçe, ไทย, Tiếng Việt
Contact
Questions? [email protected]
