Guide
Your trips are yours, even when they live in an app. Here is how to get your photos, route and stories out, and how to get the photos back at full sharpness.
If you have travelled with an app for a few years, a real piece of your life is stored there: routes, places, stories and thousands of photos. To keep them safe, put them in a book or move to another app, you first need to get them out. That is almost always possible, and in many countries it is your legal right. Here is how it works, what you get back and what to watch out for.
Almost every travel app has an option in its account or privacy settings called something like "Download my data" or "Export data". It usually works best on a computer, through the app's website. After a while you get an email with a download link.
Under the GDPR (Article 20, the right to data portability), and similar laws such as the CCPA in California, an app must hand over your personal data on request in a common format. If you cannot find the option, email the app's support or privacy address.
Usually a ZIP file with a folder per trip: your stops with place and date, your texts, and your photos and videos. The route is often stored in a data file (JSON, for example) that you cannot simply open, but that another app can read.
Many apps store your photos smaller than the original, around 1280 pixels wide for example. You will not notice on a screen, but you will in a large printed photo book. The originals are usually still on your phone or in your cloud photo library.
Footprintbook can import such an export: your stops, stories, photos and route come back as a trip on the map. The import page shows which exports are read directly. No export? Build a trip from your photos instead: their time and place set the order.
Footprintbook recognises your reduced photos among the originals on your phone or computer and uses the original for printing. Nothing else in your trip changes; only the photos in your book get sharp.
Also store the ZIP on an external drive or in your own cloud storage. Then your trips are always yours, whatever happens to an app.
It depends on the app: sometimes minutes, with many photos a day or more. You usually get an email once the download is ready.
No. Downloading is not the same as deleting your account. Your trips stay in the app.
Many apps shrink photos when you upload them, to save storage. That is fine on a screen; for a large printed book, use the original from your phone.
Usually yes. Videos come in the same ZIP, often also in a smaller version.
No. Importing is free, and your old account stays as it is.
Your book is printed in the region where you live, in your own currency and with shipping included.
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