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Using the app

Once TripLibre has "Always" location access you don't need to open it at all. It records in the background and builds your diary whenever it gets a chance. Opening it once a day to confirm uncertain trips is enough.

The screens

A typical day

1. Live your dayTripLibre records GPS while you move and goes quiet when you stop.
2. Open TodayThe diary updates on launch. You'll see something like Home → walk → Coffee → subway → Penn.
3. Stamp short stopsGrabbing a coffee or picking something up takes less than the ~5 minutes TripLibre needs to notice a stop. Tap Stamp this moment on Today while you're there: no form, nothing to fill in.
4. Review uncertain trips"Did I get that right?" cards appear for trips with an unknown or low-confidence mode. Tap the right mode, or Looks right.
5. Note what things costA card asks about each fare-type trip and each stop at a restaurant, shop, hotel or other paid place. Tap the usual amount, Free / Nothing, or enter one. Optional.
6. Name new places onceThe first time you stop somewhere, it's an unnamed place. Name it (e.g. "Home", "Lab") and pick a category; every future visit is recognised automatically.

Home Screen widgets

To check on TripLibre without opening it, long-press the Home Screen, tap Edit › Add Widget and search for TripLibre. Tracking (small) shows whether recording is healthy, Today (medium) shows today's trips, distance and places, and Last 7 days (large) shows your week. Plain-card and timeline styles are there too, and Stamp (small) stamps a short stop from the Home Screen. Widgets show what TripLibre last worked out, with an "updated … ago" time; tap one to open the app on that screen. See the UI guide for every widget and status.

Stamping a short stop

Stamp this moment (Today, top) saves that something worth recording happened around here, around now. It records the time immediately and only a coarse location (rounded to about 110 m), and it works with poor GPS or none at all. A line confirms it with an Undo for a few seconds. A second tap within 30 seconds keeps the first stamp rather than adding another.

The Stamp Home Screen widget does the same from outside the app: tapping it opens TripLibre on Today and stamps, with the same confirmation and Undo. The widget itself saves nothing and never asks for your location, so the stamp gets the same coarse location the button would. The widget shows when you last stamped.

• If TripLibre already sees a visit there, the stamp is attached to it and the visit shows a yellow stamp badge.
• If not, TripLibre looks at the GPS fixes around the tap and adds the short stop it missed, splitting the trip in two. The stop's place and times come from those fixes, not from where you tapped.
• A stamp with nothing to place it yet (or one that contradicts the GPS) is listed in the diary as You stamped a stop, clearly separate from inferred visits. Swipe it to remove it.
• The visit's detail screen lists its stamps under Self-reported. This wasn't a stop still wins over a stamp.

Noting what things cost

Costs are optional and stay on the phone like everything else. You can attach one to a trip, a visit, or just a day.

• Today asks for each one. Every finished transit, taxi or flight trip, and every stop at a place whose category usually costs something (food and drink, shops, hotels, museums and venues, parking, fuel), gets its own card until you answer it: one tap for an amount you paid there before, Free (a trip on a pass) or Nothing (a stop where you spent nothing), or Enter amount. Answering one card leaves the others. The ✕ stops asking about that trip or stop. Cards show for the last 7 days; name and categorise a place to get asked about stops there.
• Spent today (Today, below the stats) totals the day. + Cost adds one; under For pick the trip or visit it belongs to, or Nothing specific to keep it on the day. Tap the card for the Spending page.
• Trip and visit screens have a Cost section for adding, changing or removing costs. Saving a cost locks the trip or visit, like any other correction.
• Spending (from Today or Stats) breaks totals down by travel vs destinations, category, mode (per trip and per km) and place. Currencies are never converted: each one is totalled on its own.

Costs are exported as expenses.csv and in data.json; see the data dictionary.

Correcting the diary

Tap any trip or visit to open its detail screen. Every correction is written to an audit log and locks the record so automatic rebuilds never overwrite it.

Trips

• Mode: set the trip's mode, or change individual segments (e.g. walk → subway → walk). Reset to automatic undoes your choice.
• Purpose: the activity at the destination (work, school, meal, shopping, social…). Defaults come from the place category.
• I stopped somewhere (split trip): the trip becomes two trips with a visit in between.
• This trip didn't happen: removes it and joins the visits before and after.
• Notes: free text, exported with the trip.

Visits

• Wrong place? Choose or create…: reassign the stop to another place, or create a new one here.
• Times: fix arrival and departure, or mark it Still here.
• I left and came back / add a missing stop: splits the visit around an outing TripLibre missed.
• This wasn't a stop: removes it and joins the trips before and after.

Places, flights and life phases

• Places: categories include home, work/school, café, restaurant, grocery, shopping, recreation, transit station, airport, hotel, friend/family, medical. Categories drive default trip purposes and the "time away from home" metric. Use Merge into another place… when one place was detected twice.
• Flights: airplane trips create a flight record automatically. Download the airport list (Settings › Download airport list) so airports get IATA codes and great-circle distances.
• Life phases: named date ranges such as "Fall 2026" or "Summer internship". Stats can compare any two phases side by side.

Settings

Exporting

Settings › Create export writes a timestamped folder such as hht-export-20260927-120000/ to Files › On My iPhone › TripLibre › Exports and opens the share sheet. It contains CSVs for every table, a JSON dump, GeoJSON for places and routes, and a SQLite snapshot. See Data model & export for the columns.

Importing history

CSV files need a header row. Column names are case-insensitive and extra columns are ignored. Times are local to tz (an IANA name) if given, else the phone's time zone.

Past trips: trips.csv

date,start_time,end_time,origin,destination,mode,distance_km,purpose,notes
2026-08-18,08:00,10:30,PHL,SLC,airplane,,travel,
2026-08-19,23:30,00:15,Home,Penn,subway,,school,"end before start = next day"

Optional columns: origin_lat, origin_lon, destination_lat, destination_lon, tz. Origins and destinations resolve as: 3-letter code → airport, then existing place by name or code, then coordinates (creates a place), else the name is kept in notes.

Flights: flights.csv

date,origin,destination,departure_time,arrival_time,airline,flight_number,aircraft_type,seat,cabin,notes
2026-08-18,PHL,SLC,08:00,10:30,DL,1234,A321,23C,economy,

Only date, origin, destination are required.

GPX

Track points, route points and waypoints with a <time> are imported as raw observations; visits and trips for that period are then rebuilt automatically.

Battery

GPS runs only while you're moving. When you stop, TripLibre turns it off and relies on a 150 m geofence plus iOS visit events. Expect a few percent per day for a typical urban routine; Precise accuracy costs more.