Privacy Policy

GPS Essentials keeps your personal information safe. This policy explains what information the app uses, where it is stored, what leaves your device and how you can control it.

Last updated: October 30, 2026

Information GPS Essentials uses

GPS Essentials reads information from the sensors of your device, for example your location, the orientation of the device, the time and date, the air pressure, the battery level and temperature, whether the device is charging, whether the screen is on and its brightness, Battery Saver, the device's thermal status, the type of network in use, and the illuminance.

Your location is the most important piece of information. A location is a point on the earth's surface with an altitude, and it can have an accuracy associated with it. GPS Essentials obtains the device's current location from its GPS receiver or from a location derived from Wi-Fi and cell tower positions.

Some information comes from you: waypoints, tracks, routes, pictures you take with the app, and text you enter.

When GPS Essentials uses your location

• While the app is open, for example to show your position on the dashboard, on maps and in the Satellites view, and when you add a waypoint.
• In the background, while you record a track or navigate a route. A notification shows while this is happening. This needs the location permission Allow all the time.

You can change the location permission at any time in Android's settings for GPS Essentials.

Where your information is stored

GPS Essentials stores your waypoints, tracks, routes, pictures and messages in a database on your device. You can choose where it is kept in Settings > Storage Location. It is not uploaded anywhere unless you export or share it yourself. When you export or share, the file goes to the app or place you choose.

Tracks you record also keep, with each location, the air pressure, the state of the battery (charge, current, voltage, temperature, charger), whether the screen was on and its brightness, Battery Saver, the thermal status and the type of network in use (Wi-Fi, mobile or none). This stays on your device with the track. It is part of GPX 1.1 and MFT files you export or share. It is never sent to us.

If backup is turned on in Android, Android can back up your GPS Essentials settings to your Google account. Your waypoints, tracks, routes and pictures are not part of this backup.

Pictures

Pictures you take with GPS Essentials contain the device model and, by default, your location and a device identifier in their metadata. Anyone you give a picture to can read these. You can turn them off in Settings > Saved Image Meta Data with the switches "Device ID" (Write device ID to images) and "Location" (Write location to images). The device identifier is the same one error reports carry.

GPS Essentials also keeps each picture's location and the direction the camera faced in its database and in files you export. The switches only affect the metadata in the image file. If you turn on the overlay in the camera, waypoint and place names and other map labels are drawn into the picture itself.

What leaves your device

• Place names and search. When you add a waypoint on a map, take a picture or use Geocode on a waypoint, GPS Essentials looks up the address of the location. When you search on a map, it looks up what you typed, and when you pick a contact on the map, the contact's address. These go to Android's built-in geocoder, which is provided by Google and receives the coordinates, or your search text and the area around the center of the map. To stop this, set Settings > Geocoder to "None".
• Elevation tiles. The map, the camera, charts, Split by Mode and elevation values use elevation tiles. GPS Essentials downloads a tile from maps.mapfinity.com, which the developer operates, the first time it needs one and then keeps it on your device, so an area you have seen is usually not asked for again. Each tile covers an area, not a place. If you choose a Mapfinity map, its tiles come from there the same way. When you search on a map, whichever map is shown, GPS Essentials also reads place names from the Mapfinity map's tiles around the view; your search text stays on your device. The server sees which tiles are requested and your IP address. No waypoints, tracks or other data of yours are sent. There is no setting that turns this off.
• Directions. When you create a route with Directions, the start, the destination and the points in between are sent to Google's directions service.
• Google Maps. The Google Maps screen loads its maps from Google.
• The map. The map downloads map tiles for the area you view from the server of the map you select: OpenStreetMap unless you choose another, for example OpenTopoMap or Thunderforest. The camera shows the same map.
• Usage statistics. GPS Essentials uses Google Firebase Analytics to learn how the app is used: which screens you open, and events such as the units and theme you chose, the map sources you load, the number of your streams and the size of your database, how long recordings and navigation lasted, how long the app takes to start, how often you search (not what you search for), imports (the type of file, not its name), the version and status of Google Play services on your device and whether the Google Play Store is installed, and scripting: how many scripts and script widgets you have, how scripts are started (when the app starts, from the script editor, from a dashboard or by another app) and whether a script uses Java classes. Your scripts, their names and the apps that send them are not sent.

  These statistics are not anonymous: they are linked to an ID that Firebase creates for this installation of GPS Essentials (the app instance ID), not to your advertising ID. Google uses the ID to count users and sessions and to tell installations apart; GPS Essentials uses the statistics only to decide what to improve. Firebase adds basic information that it collects automatically, such as the device model, Android version and an approximate region derived from your IP address. Your locations are not sent.

  In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, usage statistics are collected only after you agree in the consent form that GPS Essentials shows when you first open it; if you don't agree, nothing is sent. Anywhere, you can stop them at any time in Settings > Privacy > Usage Statistics.

• Error reports. When GPS Essentials runs into a problem, it can send a report to Google Firebase Crashlytics. A report describes the error and contains the app version, the device model and build, the Android version, the language and region, display and input settings, the mobile network country and operator codes, a device identifier that is specific to GPS Essentials, and the IDs Firebase creates for this installation. If the problem happened during an import, it also says which app and which storage provider the file came from, but not the file name. Reports contain no locations and none of your data. You decide in Settings > Privacy > Error Reporting:
  • Ask before sending (the default): the report is kept on your device, and the next time you open the app, it asks whether to send it.
  • Always send: reports are sent without asking.
  • Never send: nothing is sent, and kept reports are deleted.
• Ads. The free version shows ads from Google AdMob. Google's ad service receives information about your device, such as its advertising ID, to choose and measure ads. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, GPS Essentials asks for your consent first, and ads are personalized only if you agree; you can change your choice in Settings > Privacy > Ads Privacy. Elsewhere, ads may be personalized based on your advertising ID. You can reset or delete it in Android's settings under Privacy > Ads. GPS Essentials does not give the ad service your location. With GPS Essentials PRO, you see no ads.
• Purchases. You buy GPS Essentials PRO through Google Play. Google handles the payment, and GPS Essentials does not see your payment details.

Google's privacy policy and terms of service apply to the Google services above. The map servers have their own terms.

How long your information is kept

• On your device: your waypoints, tracks, routes, pictures and settings stay until you delete them or uninstall GPS Essentials. Files you export or share are kept wherever you put them.
• Usage statistics: Google keeps the individual events for 2 months. The ID that links them, and what Google stores with it, is kept until 2 months after you last used the app. Totals that no longer identify an installation may be kept longer.
• Error reports: Crashlytics keeps a report and its IDs for 90 days.
• Ads: Google keeps ad data as described in its privacy policy.
• Map and elevation requests: the Mapfinity servers keep no log of them. The other map servers have their own policies.

Deleting your information

Everything GPS Essentials stores is on your device: delete it in the app, clear the app's storage in Android's settings, or uninstall the app. Settings > Privacy > Delete Usage Data deletes the usage statistics and error reports not yet sent and gives this installation a new ID: the statistics already sent are no longer linked to your device, and Google deletes them within 2 months. Your tracks, waypoints, pictures and settings stay. To have the statistics deleted sooner, or the error reports already sent, write to michael@mictale.com. To stop sending them, turn off Settings > Privacy > Usage Statistics and set Settings > Privacy > Error Reporting to "Never send". To stop personalized ads, use Settings > Privacy > Ads Privacy, where it is offered, or reset or delete your advertising ID in Android's settings.

How your information is protected

GPS Essentials sends everything listed above over encrypted connections (HTTPS). The data on your device is kept in GPS Essentials' own folder. From Android 11 on, other apps cannot read it unless you share it; on older Android versions, and on a memory card, apps that may access your storage can. Pictures and exports that you save to shared storage can be read by apps that have access to it.

This website

www.gpsessentials.com sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads nothing from other sites. Amazon CloudFront, which delivers its pages, receives your IP address as part of each request.

Contact

If you have questions about this policy, write to Michael Schollmeyer at michael@mictale.com.

GPS Essentials