Support

An iPhone with iOS 18 or later. JotSpotter is free to download and needs no account. Searching for places, maps and weather need an internet connection; your journal works offline.

1. On the welcome screen, tap Choose your interests (cafés, markets, viewpoints…). Today uses them to search around you.
2. On Today, tap a chip or type what you're after, then Log it on a place. It goes into today's journal with the time and a map pin.
3. Open the Journal tab to add photos, a voice note or a few lines about your day.
4. Going away? Open Trips and plan your trip, or tap Try the sample trip to explore a finished one.

Yes. Tap ? on any screen for help mode, then tap anything outlined for a short explanation with a picture. Settings › Help has the feature tour, Learn JotSpotter and the user manual, with screenshots; tap Save as PDF to keep or print it.

• Check you're online, and that JotSpotter may use your location: iPhone Settings › Apps › JotSpotter › Location › While Using the App.
• Try a wider distance (3 mi or km) or another chip. In small places some kinds of place may have no results.
• Tap Near me to search around a trip stop or a town you type instead.

Tap the place under Today, in the day's journal entry, or in Today › ⋯ › Your places. You can change its time, note and stars, or delete it from the journal.

Your places (Today › ⋯) shows every place you've logged once, with all your visits. When you give stars, a quick "better or worse?" puts it in order among similar places, and Best of shows your top five of each kind in any town. Your lists are your own collections, like "Take visitors here", which you can share as text or a PDF with a map.

Yes. Export it as a PDF from the Journal tab, or share a single day from its page. Everything you write stays on your iPhone unless you share it.

An optional feature that's off until you turn it on in Today › ⋯ › Visit suggestions. When you've stayed somewhere for a while (20 minutes or more, which you can change), JotSpotter asks "Were you at…?" in a notification and at the top of Today. One tap logs it at the time you arrived; nothing is logged unless you choose to.

iOS only tells an app about a stay if the app may use your location while it isn't open. Without Always, visit suggestions can't work, but the rest of JotSpotter works normally with While Using the App. Your location stays on your iPhone: JotSpotter keeps no history of where you've been, only the suggestions, for a week.

No noticeably. JotSpotter uses iOS visit monitoring, the same low-power system iOS uses for its own location features; it doesn't track your route. If you ever notice a difference, tell us.

In Today › ⋯ › Visit suggestions, tap I'm here now next to Home or Work while you're there. Places within about 150 m are never suggested. For anywhere else, use ⋯ › Never suggest here on a suggestion.

• Check iPhone Settings › Apps › JotSpotter › Location is set to Always, and that notifications are allowed.
• iOS reports a stay after you leave, sometimes 10 to 30 minutes later.
• Short stays (under your minimum), Home, Work, ignored places and places you've already logged aren't suggested. Quiet hours hold notifications, but the suggestion still waits on Today.

Your first trip is free, with everything in it, and opening a trip someone shares with you is always free. The Trips module ($4.99) adds unlimited trips, saved trips, planning together, Calendar sync and sharing the itinerary. Trips is included with Photography, Outdoors & Hiking and Business Travel.

On the Trips tab, tap ⋯ › Plan together and invite people by Messages, Mail or a link. Everyone sees the same stops, stays, must-sees and events, kept in sync through iCloud. Journals stay private. Each person needs an iPhone signed in to iCloud.

Make sure everyone is online and signed in to iCloud (iPhone Settings › your name › iCloud), with iCloud Drive turned on. Open JotSpotter to bring it up to date. If one person's changes still don't appear after a few minutes, ask them to open the trip once.

• Trips, $4.99: unlimited trips, saved trips, plan together, Calendar sync, sharing.
• Photography, $9.99: light planner, pro camera with RAW, Develop, Field Kit, photo events. Includes Trips.
• Outdoors & Hiking, $6.99: hike recording with GPX, trails, weather, turn-back time, safety plan. Includes Trips.
• Business Travel, $8.99: receipt scanning, expenses in any currency, mileage, meetings, PDF reports. Includes Trips.
• All four modules, $19.99. Prices are in US dollars; the App Store shows yours.

Each is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. You can also try every module free for 14 days, once, with nothing to cancel.

Sign in with the same Apple Account, then open Settings › Modules › Restore purchases. Modules you've bought come back straight away.

Yes. All modules work with Family Sharing: members of your Apple family group get them automatically when they install JotSpotter.

The modules switch off and nothing is charged. Anything you made with them, such as hikes, expenses or photo edits, is kept, and comes back if you buy the module later.

Purchases are made through Apple, so refunds are handled by Apple. Go to reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in, choose the purchase and select "Request a refund".

On your iPhone, not on our servers: JotSpotter has no account and sends us nothing. Your journal, photos and places are included in your iPhone's own backup (iCloud Backup, or a backup to your computer), and come back when you restore that backup. Shared trips are also kept in iCloud.

In JotSpotter, open Settings › Clear all data and type ERASE to confirm. This erases your trips, journal, photos, places, lists and module data. Module purchases are kept. Deleting the app also removes its data from your iPhone.

No. Read the details in our Privacy Policy.

1. Make sure your iPhone and JotSpotter are up to date (App Store › your picture › Updates).
2. Close JotSpotter (swipe it away in the app switcher) and open it again.
3. Check the permission the feature needs in iPhone Settings › Apps › JotSpotter: Location, Camera, Microphone, Photos, Calendars or Notifications.
4. Restart your iPhone.

Still stuck? Email us with what you tried.

Check JotSpotter may use your calendars (iPhone Settings › Apps › JotSpotter › Calendars › Full Access) and that sync is on in Settings › Calendar. JotSpotter only changes events it created; events you add in Calendar are brought in with Import from Calendar.

Weather comes from Apple Weather and needs a connection. Receipts are read on your iPhone; faded or crumpled receipts can be misread, so check the amount, date and currency before saving.

Check you're online and signed in to the App Store (iPhone Settings › your name › Media & Purchases), and that purchases aren't restricted in Screen Time. Then try again, or tap Restore purchases.