Record your drives automatically

With automatic recording on, your phone records the drives to and from your signings and files each one to the job it was for, so your mileage log keeps itself. You only answer for the few it can't place. It works the same way on Android and on an iPhone; what each phone asks you to allow is different, and both are below.

How it works

• When it records — your choice. In Settings → Mileage & trips → Record drives, pick one:
  • During my working hours (recommended): during your Hours on the web — the same hours clients can book you — and on the way to and from every confirmed signing outside them. That runs from well before you'd leave for the signing, so the drive to an early one far away is caught, until well after it ends, for the drive home. Other driving isn't recorded: your personal driving stays yours.
  • All the time: at any hour of any day. It uses more battery. Driving you file as Personal keeps no route.
  • Only when I tap Record: nothing by itself. Record, Navigate or On my way on a signing records that drive.
• A walk is never a drive. A recording counts only once the phone has measured driving speed. Walking from the car to the door, or through a hospital's corridors, never lands in your log.
• Filed to the job. Each drive is matched to the signing it was for, by place and time — the drive there and the drive home. Anything it isn't sure about waits in Mileage → To file.
• Light on the battery. Stopped for about a minute and a half, the phone turns the GPS off and watches with Wi-Fi and cell signals until you drive on.
• It needs your plan. If your trial or plan ends, the phone stops recording drives, by itself and when you tap Record. Mileage says Drive recording is paused — your plan has ended. Your mileage log is safe. Your log stays there to read, file and export, and drives recorded before your plan ended still go up. Subscribe on the web (Settings → Billing) and it records again.

Set up drive recording, step by step

The first time you sign in on a phone, Today offers Set up drive recording — a minute, once on each phone, so your miles are logged by themselves. Tap Set up and the app walks you through it one step at a time, saying why each thing is needed. Not now puts it away until you next sign in on that phone — and if the phone is still on Only when I tap Record, Today says so once: Drives are recorded only when you tap Record — set up anytime in Settings. You can start it again any time: Settings → Setup → Walk me through it.

1. Choose how drives are recorded — During my working hours, All the time or Only when I tap Record. It starts on During my working hours, the one recommended, and shows your hours from the web (Your hours: Monday to Friday, 9 AM – 6 PM, say); tap another to change it, then Next. With Only when I tap Record there's nothing for the phone to set up: the guide asks its last question (below), then ends by saying how to record a drive yourself.

Then comes what your phone needs, one step each:

Last, on either phone, a question for you: Is your home your main place of business? Choose Yes — drives between home and a signing count as business miles. or No — they are commuting and do not count. Then tap Next. Neither is chosen for you, and the guide doesn't end without an answer: if you chose to have drives recorded by themselves, that begins once you've answered. It's a tax position — if you're not sure, ask your tax preparer. You can change it later in Settings.

Each step has one button — Allow, Open Settings or Set, and on Android also Turn on and Open battery usage (Open the list before Android 16) — and shows a tick once it's done, checked again as you come back from your phone's settings. A step already done is passed with Next, and one that's only good to have has Skip. If you say no to one — Physical activity or Motion & Fitness, say — the step says what's missing without it and where to allow it later, and Skip goes on to the next step; Setup keeps it on its list. At the end the guide says Ready to record drives automatically, or lists what's still missing, each with its button; Done goes back to Today. Today stops offering it once everything is in place, or once you choose Only when I tap Record.

Turn it on

You can also do it all yourself, in Settings:

1. Open Settings. On Today, tap the gear at the top — or More → Settings.

2. Choose During my working hours — or All the time. It's under Mileage & trips → Record drives.

   

Check Setup

Setup, at the top of Settings, keeps an eye on all of this. When everything is in place it says Ready to record drives automatically. If something is missing — a permission taken away later, say — it says Finish setup to record drives automatically and lists each thing with a button to put it right. (With Only when I tap Record there's nothing to set up: it says You record your drives.)

AndroidiPhone

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• Background location — Allow: “Allow all the time”.
• Precise location — Allow: listed only if location was given as Approximate, which is too rough to measure a drive.
• Physical activity — Enable.
• Battery optimization off (on Android 16, Battery use: Unrestricted) — Open: Android's battery page, where you choose Unrestricted (Android 16) or Don't optimize for Hand & Seal (step 7 above).
• Google Location Accuracy — Turn on: Google's own switch, in one tap (or Android's Location settings, where that can't show). Good to have, not required: without it, drives use more battery.
• Home location — Set: where home is, so the drive home from a job is recognized. Good to have, not required.
• Trip notifications — Allow: shows a drive in progress. Good to have, not required.

Keep Google Location Accuracy on

In Android's Settings → Location → Location services, keep Google Location Accuracy on. After a signing the phone uses it to notice when you drive off, without checking its location over and over; with it off, recording still works, but uses more battery.

Walk me through it, at the foot of Setup, opens the same step-by-step guide Today offers. The ? beside Setup opens this article.

Your working hours

Your working hours are set once, on the web, in Settings → Hours: the same hours your page offers clients. See Set the hours clients can book. The phone shows them in Settings → Working schedule. Its first line says where things stand: Recording drives automatically now, Paused — outside your hours, Recording drives automatically, at any hour, Automatic recording is off — you press Record, or Paused — your plan has ended.

1. To change your hours, tap Change your hours. Business settings → Hours opens inside the app. Save there, and the phone follows as you come back.

   

Hours are in your business's time zone. A signing booked outside them still gets its drives: the drive there and the drive home are recorded anyway. If you keep your own practice and work in a business too, drives are recorded during the hours of either, each listed under its name.

Record a drive yourself

For a drive outside your hours — or if you'd rather press a button than have drives noticed:

1. Tap Record a drive — the red dot at the top of Today. The Record a drive widget does the same, and so does pressing and holding the app's icon, then Record a drive. Tapping Navigate or On my way on a signing records the drive there too.

2. Drive. Recording your drive on Today shows the miles so far.

   

3. Tap Stop when you arrive — or just park: the recording ends by itself about five minutes after you stop.

A drive you record yourself is filed like any other. More in Record a drive yourself.

File the drives it couldn't match

1. Open More → Mileage. To file lists what needs a word from you: a drive the phone couldn't place, and a signing no drive was filed to (asked about three hours after it ends).

   

2. Swipe right for work. If the drive looks like one of your signings, the row says Looks like and the job's name, and a swipe files it there. Otherwise choose what it was for: a job, an errand — Supplies, Drop-off, Bank, Clerk / post office, Course / exam, Marketing or Something else — or, under Not deductible, Personal or Commute.

3. Swipe left for Personal.

4. For a signing with no drive: swipe right to add its round trip on the route quoted for the job (marked estimated), or left for No drive.

Every answer can be undone for a few seconds. Tap a drive to see its route, where it started and ended, and all the choices — Remove this drive is at the foot, for a GPS glitch or a drive logged twice. All drives shows the whole log.

When something is waiting, one notification says so — a drive can be marked Personal right on it. On an iPhone, touch and hold the notification to see that button.

Something missing from your log? See A drive wasn't recorded.