Guide

Maplapse uses the location your camera saves in each photo. This needs Location Services turned on and the Camera allowed to use them: Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services › Camera › “While Using the App”. Photos without a location can't be placed on the map. For future trips, just turn this on once.

Every stop is a colored circle with a number. The number tells you which stop of the trip it is, so you can read the order straight off the map. A small count sits on the circle: that is how many photos you took at this stop. When the number is large, the detail zoom is worth it (see “Stops inside a stop”). The start and the end of a trip get their own markers, so you can see at a glance where it began and where it ended. Tapping a stop opens its gallery; a double-tap zooms into the place.

The line connects your stops in the order you visited them, drawing the journey. Worth knowing: it is always a straight connection from place to place, not the route you actually drove or flew. Maplapse only knows where your photos were taken, not the way in between. That line is solid and always connects two stops with each other. Dotted it only gets inside a single stop, namely between its sub-stops; what that dotted line means is under “Stops inside a stop”. The line always follows the time. There is nothing to set.

There is almost always more behind a stop than a single place: the harbor, the old town, the viewpoint. So when you zoom into the map, a stop breaks apart into its individual sub-stops, smaller circles showing where exactly you were. You can reach that detail view directly too: double-tap a stop, or tap the sign made of three dots joined by dashed lines at the top left of the gallery. A slider there sets how finely Maplapse groups them. Those sub-stops are joined by a finer dotted line, in the order you were there. So the visit reads as one, not as another journey; the first and the last of them hang on the journey line itself. Such a dotted line always belongs to exactly one trip: where two trips meet at the same place, each keeps its own chain. How finely Maplapse separates them comes down to distance: anything more than 500 m apart becomes a sub-stop of its own, and the slider steps take you down to 250 m.

A small notepad sign on a stop means you wrote something down there. A note belongs to that one stop, to that place on that trip. If you have been to the same place twice, those are two stops and so two separate notes: what you wrote in the summer does not suddenly appear on the winter visit. Over time the map becomes a travel diary without you having to keep one. You open and write a note through the same sign in the gallery; while none exists yet it carries a small plus.

Photos you marked as favorites in the Apple Photos app carry a small heart in Maplapse. You can set it here too: open a photo and tap the heart at the top. Maplapse writes the mark back into Apple Photos. Through iCloud Photos it then shows on all your devices, whether or not you use Maplapse's own sync. They are two separate paths. In a gallery holding hundreds of shots from one stop it gets you back to the few that actually matter. Handy when sharing: while picking the photos for a shared trip you can filter down to your favorites.

Not every photo from a trip is a travel photo: the screenshot of a boarding pass, the snapshot of a parking ticket, a chat log. You can hide photos like these. They then carry their own mark and disappear from the gallery. Hiding is never deleting: the photo stays untouched in your photo library and only disappears from the map. In Settings you can bring hidden photos back at any time, so no decision is final.

When you search for a place, a country or a year, Maplapse highlights the hits on the map with a red ring that briefly pulses. That is needed because a hit would otherwise be lost among many other stops. The ring pulls your eye exactly there. If the place you found happens to be hidden, the app offers to show it again rather than leaving you in front of an empty map.

In a map someone shares with you, a tile may appear that shows no photo but the note “Photo not on this device”. It tells you exactly what it says: this photo is not in your photo library. Sharing itself carries places, times, notes, trip names and which photos you hid. The photos come together through your photo library, not through Maplapse. That is why Apple's Shared Photo Library is the path along which everything ends up matching. If you both use the same one, the photo is already with you, and Maplapse shows it at that stop, and nobody has to send anything. If you don't, the placeholder stays. And it stays for good: it is not a loading state. Waiting does not help, a better connection does not help, and nothing is downloading in the background. Everything else is there in full: places, times, notes and the journey. The photo really is the only thing missing. How the two sharing paths differ, and why the photos do arrive with “Trip as a link”, is further down under “Trip as a link, or your whole map?”.

This symbol appears at the top right of a gallery as soon as photos without a location fit this stop in time. Before that it is not there at all. In its own dialog you give those photos the place of other photos from the same stop, and they make it onto the map after all. Photos from a camera without positioning, from a messenger or taken with location switched off would never get there otherwise. The full description is further down under “Place photos that have no location”. The placing itself is part of Maplapse Pro.

Bottom right on the map sits a small bar with a distance on it. It tells you what real distance the current zoom level corresponds to, whether two stops are 500 meters or 500 kilometers apart. Without it a city trip looks exactly like a trip around the world on screen. The bar adjusts itself as soon as you zoom in or out.

You don't, and that is deliberate. Maplapse marks no Pro feature on the map with a sign of its own: no lock, no star, no little badge. A Pro feature looks like any other and only tells you what Pro adds once you tap it. That keeps the map calm, and you don't trip over something you haven't bought every time you look at it. Maplapse works fully without Pro; everything you have read up to this section is free.

Under Settings › “Travel behavior” you set how your photos are grouped into trips and stops. Your photos themselves stay untouched. At the top of the map only the radius slider unfolds; everything else lives in Settings. “New stop beyond X km” sets how far apart two photos must be to count as two places (50 km by default). That value is a promise: two stops are never closer together than the radius you set. Dial in 200 km and you will not get stops 50 km apart any more; the photos from the road then belong to the next stop. There is one exception: if you slept at two places, they stay two stops even when they sit closer together. A larger value groups what belongs together and keeps the map calm and is usually the better choice; you don’t lose the detail of a place for it, that’s what the detail zoom at each stop is for (see “A place in detail”). “New trip after X mo” sets the break after which a new trip begins (2 months by default). What that slider really does day to day is the subject of the next section. And the nights: come back to a place after a night elsewhere and it is always a stop of its own. Only the same-day there and back, the day trip, stays in one stop. That holds without you doing anything. The switch “Overnight stops” is off by default; turn it on and Maplapse additionally reads every overnight stay out of your photo times and gives each one its own stop, even inside the radius.

Mostly by you coming home. Once you have set a home address in Settings, the rule is: as soon as photos from home appear again, the trip is over. Whatever comes next counts as the next trip. That matches real life better than any time rule. Two weekend trips in the same month stay two trips, even if only a few days lie between them. This is why you often notice nothing from the “New trip after X” slider. It is the fallback for exactly three cases: 1. You have set no home address. Then there is no homecoming rule, and the time gap is the only thing separating two trips. 2. You took no photos at home between two trips. Without a photo from home Maplapse cannot notice the homecoming. The time gap is all that separates them. 3. You want to hold a multi-leg trip together. A long round trip with a three-week stopover that is not at home stays one single trip if you set a generous value. The homecoming rule cannot do that, because you were never home in between. There is also “Photo break up to X days”: breaks up to that length do not split a trip, even when photos are taken at home meanwhile, by family in a shared library for instance.

Above the map sits a bar with seven controls: the radius, “Trips”, “Places”, search, the heart filter for favorites, the ▶ play button and the three-dot menu. On the iPhone it wraps: the radius and search on top, then heart, ▶ and the menu, and “Trips” and “Places” on a row of their own. Where there is room, as on the iPad, everything sits side by side. On the iPad you also keep the bar in landscape; a button at the top right hides it and brings it back. While it is hidden, a small indicator at the top left shows that Maplapse is still working. On the iPhone, landscape hands the whole screen to the map. The next sections walk through the controls in the order you see them on an iPhone.

On the far left sits a chip with a dashed circle and a distance, “50 km” for example. It says how far apart two shooting locations must be for Maplapse to count them as two stops. That value is a promise: two stops are never closer together than this radius. With one exception: two places where you stayed overnight remain separate, even when they sit closer together. Tap the chip and the slider “New stop beyond X km” unfolds below; drag it and the map rearranges straight away. Nothing else unfolds up here. “New trip after X mo”, “Photo break up to X days” and the switch “Overnight stops” live in Settings › Travel behavior. Up here is only the value you genuinely re-adjust while looking at a map.

The circle with three dots is not a filter but the menu for actions that concern a whole trip. It holds “Share trip as a link” and, once someone has sent you a trip as a link, “Shared trips”, where you open the trips shared with you. Sharing as a link needs exactly one trip selected. With none or several selected, a yellow hint sits at the top of the menu and the entry is grayed out; the menu still opens, so the shared trips stay reachable at any time. While a link upload is running, a small spinner takes the place of the dots. Tapping it then shows the progress instead of the menu. Playback is not in here; it has its own ▶ button next to the menu.

Maplapse has three search inputs: the magnifier in the bar at the top, and a search field at the bottom of “Trips” and of “Places”. They look alike, but they are two different tools, and the whole point of the magnifier hangs on that. The magnifier sets a filter. Take a suggestion there and the term stays put and keeps working until you remove it: the map highlights the hits, and the trips list and the places list follow the filter. The field in “Trips” or “Places” only looks something up: it narrows just the list that is open right now, and it is forgotten as soon as you pull that view back down. The two work together. The filter from the magnifier frames what you see, the search field searches inside that frame. Set several filters and they are OR-linked. A second filter widens the view instead of emptying it.

The search behind the magnifier is free: it finds places, countries, dates and the names of your trips, spelled the way they are written. Maplapse Pro extends it in two ways. First, it forgives typos: type “Marseile” and it still suggests Marseille. There is no need to guess how a place is spelled that you visited six years ago. Second, it searches your notes as well, not just places and dates: if you remember the restaurant but not the town, you reach the trip through what you wrote down back then, and the map highlights the stop that carries the note. The exact search stays exactly as it is. Pro takes nothing away, it simply finds more.

A photo lying on its side because you turned the camera? Open it full screen and tap the rotate sign. Each tap turns the photo another 90 degrees. Tap until it is the right way up. This is part of the free set, you need no Pro for it. Tapped once too often or changed your mind? Under “Edited photos” you find everything you have rotated, and you can take the rotation back there.

Everything described so far is free. The following features are part of Maplapse Pro and marked with the “Pro” badge. The slideshow and sharing a trip as a link are listed here too, because Pro lifts their limit: three trips and three links are free without Pro, and with Pro there is no limit. Maplapse works fully without Pro; Pro simply adds extras. Pro is a subscription you take out monthly or yearly, with a free period to try it out and Family Sharing for up to five people. The app shows you the current price before you buy. You can cancel any time in the iOS Settings under Apple Account › Subscriptions; and anyone viewing a shared trip from a link needs neither Pro nor a purchase anyway. If someone in your family shares their subscription through Family Sharing, Maplapse recognizes it and shows it that way in Settings. And when you are offline, your last known Pro state stays. Pro does not drop out just because the connection is missing.

Open a photo full screen and tap the share sign at the top. Maplapse hands the photo to the iOS share menu. From there it goes on to Messages, Mail, AirDrop or any other app you have set up there. If you want to highlight something first, an arrow pointing at the house you stayed in or a circle around the detail nobody else would spot, you can mark the photo up and then share it. One rule always holds: the drawing happens on a copy. Your original in the photo library stays untouched, however much you scribble on it. For videos the share sign does not appear. Not to be confused with “Trip as a link”: here a single photo leaves the app, there a whole trip with map and notes.

Your trips are normally labeled by their dates, for example “May 8–10, 2026”. With Pro you can give one a name of your own: in the trip list, tap the three dots next to a trip and choose “Name this trip”; if it already has one, that entry reads “Rename trip”, with “Remove name” beside it. The name then appears everywhere instead of the date, and the search finds it. Searching for “Alsace” takes you to your Alsace trip even when no photo is called that. Only dated trips can be named: every photo without a date is collected in one single trip, “No date”, where a name would apply to all of it, which is why the entry is missing on that one trip. The name is tied to the trip’s date range rather than to individual photos, so if a boundary later shifts by a few hours it still stays with the right trip. With sync switched on it travels to your other devices, and anyone you share your map with sees it too. In search, part of the name is enough: matching trips appear as you type, and with Pro even when you mistype. Filter by a trip name and the places of that trip stay visible; when nothing matches, Maplapse tells you so instead of showing an empty list.

In Settings under “Play trip” you fine-tune the flow without having to assemble anything. “Photo duration” sets how long a photo stays, “Map zoom” how long the flight to the next stop takes, and “Pause at place” the short moment after it, before the photos begin. “Transition” controls the cross-fade between two photos, “Video maximum” caps a single video clip, and “Note maximum” limits how long a note stays readable at most. The switch “Move photos” is on: each photo then drifts slowly across the screen so a landscape shot is seen whole instead of cut; switched off, photos hold still and are shown whole, with bars if need be. “Reset to defaults” brings every value back. You find the area once the first analysis is through.

Open a trip and share it as a link, by message or email, for example. Whoever opens the link sees exactly that one trip as a slideshow: the map flies from stop to stop, with the photos and your notes along the way. The best part: viewing works with the free app. It works without Maplapse Pro and nobody has to buy anything. So the photos reach the recipients, Maplapse uploads downscaled copies of that trip’s photos (longest edge 2048 px, no videos) to your own iCloud; from there the recipients’ app pulls them onto their device. Anyone holding the link can view the trip, so only pass it to people who should see it. The copies stay in your iCloud until you delete them there. You do not need Pro to share either: three links are free without Pro, and with Pro there is no limit. Every newly created link counts, even if you delete it later, so deleting a link does not give you a free one back. Sending an existing link again or replacing it costs nothing, and your links stay visible and usable without Pro, and you can still delete them. A trip can have several links. Give a link a name of its own when you share, for example “Family” or “Friends”, and choose for each link which photos go with it. Without a name of its own, the link is named after the trip. The recipients see the name too. Whoever opens the link lands straight in the trip, with no detour through a list. From that guest view, “Use Maplapse with your own photos” leads to their own map. You can send an existing link again later from Settings › “More data” › “Trips you shared”, and delete it there by swiping the row.

With Maplapse Pro you open up your whole map to friends, travel companions or family: you see and edit all your trips together: places, times, notes. You invite the others by their iCloud address and grant each person “Read only” or “Read & write”; whoever may write writes notes and helps keep the map up to date. In the app you find this under Settings › iCloud › “Invite people”. The two lists there tell you which way a map is going: under “Maplapse shared with” are the people you opened your map to, under “Maplapse shared by” are the maps others share with you. One thing is worth knowing: sharing always covers all your trips. You cannot select individual trips for it. It works best with Apple's Shared Photo Library: then your photos already sit on both sides, and Maplapse brings them together into one shared trip. Every stop shows the photos from all of you, no matter who took them. Without a shared photo library, everything else still arrives in full; only where a photo is not on your device does a placeholder appear. On top of that, only people who have Maplapse installed and use Maplapse Pro can join. What travels along: places, times, notes, the trip names you gave and which photos you hid. The photos themselves do not; they only appear for the others if you additionally use a Shared Library in Apple Photos.

“Decline invitation” is the deliberate no; simply closing the purchase prompt leaves the invitation standing. If you accepted without Pro, you can leave the share again in Settings. Before you remove someone, Maplapse asks first. And when you switch iCloud account, Maplapse removes the shared content of the previous account and asks you again for your home and excluded places.

Both are called “sharing”, but they mean different things. Trip as a link: exactly one trip, with photos, for anyone holding the link, with no Pro and no purchase. The right way when you want to show someone a trip. Share your map: all your trips at once, without being able to select individual trips, for the friends, travel companions or family you invited by their iCloud address and who use Maplapse Pro themselves. You share places, times, notes, trip names and which photos you hid; it works best with Apple's Shared Photo Library, because then Maplapse brings all your photos together into one shared trip. The right way when you keep the same travel collection together over time. You can create a link without Pro, and three links are free; sharing your map takes Maplapse Pro. Either way, Maplapse sends the data only to your own iCloud. There is no Maplapse server.