Support

Getting help

The map is not filling in while I walk

This is almost always the location permission. Emberveil needs Always access to keep uncovering the map with the app closed and the phone in your pocket — with While Using it can only record during the moments the app is actually on screen.

1. Open iOS Settings → Emberveil → Location.
2. Choose Always.
3. Turn Precise Location on. Without it iOS hands over a rough area rather than a position, and the map cannot be drawn from that.

Also check that Low Power Mode is off. iOS throttles background location while it is on, whatever an app asks for.

Does it record with the app closed?

Yes, with Always permission granted. You do not need to open Emberveil before a walk or a drive, or leave it on screen.

One exception, and it is iOS's rule rather than ours: if you swipe Emberveil closed in the app switcher, iOS stops handing it locations until you open it again. Leaving it in the background is what you want.

Will it drain my battery?

Recording costs power, and a drive costs considerably more than a walk — at speed the app keeps the GPS running continuously so the road does not come out as a dotted line. On a normal day of walking the cost is modest. If you are about to spend all day driving unplugged, expect a real dent.

Bringing in places you have already been

Two ways, both optional, and both read on the phone without anything being uploaded.

• Your photo library. Turn on Settings → Sync Photos & Videos. Emberveil reads the location stamped into each photo and clears the map there. Years of travel can appear at once.
• A Google location history. Under Settings → Import from Google you can hand the app a Takeout file you have downloaded yourself.

If Emberveil says it can only see some of your photos, iOS has been given a hand-picked selection rather than the whole library. Change that under iOS Settings → Emberveil → Photos → All Photos.

Moving to a new phone

Because there is no account, your map does not follow you automatically — you carry it across yourself.

1. On the old phone: Settings → Data → Back up your map, and save the file somewhere you will find it again (Files, iCloud Drive, AirDrop).
2. Install Emberveil on the new phone and restore that file from the same screen.

Do this before you wipe the old phone. Deleting the app deletes the map with it, and there is no copy anywhere else — that is the trade that comes with nothing being uploaded.

Deleting your data

• Erase the map, keep the app — Settings → Privacy → Delete All Explored Data.
• Erase everything — delete Emberveil from your phone. iOS removes its database along with it.
• Stop it recording — set Location back to Never or While Using in iOS Settings. The app keeps working; it simply stops adding to the map.

A backup file you exported is yours and is not touched by any of this. Delete it from wherever you saved it.

A landmark is wrong, or missing

Tap the landmark in the app and use the report option — it opens an email with the right reference already filled in, which saves us both a round of questions. Or just write to us and describe it.

Is Emberveil on Android?

Not yet. It is built on foundations that can reach Android, and it is intended, but there is no date to give you and we would rather say that than invent one.