Support
Need a hand, found a bug, or have an idea? Get in touch:
- Email: info@nowhereman.eu
- Issues: github.com/nowheremanmail/workoutonmaps/issues
When reporting a problem, please include your app version (shown in About, reached from the ⓘ button) and what you were doing when it happened.
- Start on Routes. The app opens there, and six real example routes are already in the library. Nothing needs granting to explore them.
- Open one. You get the track on a map with an elevation profile below it: total distance, ascent, descent and the highest and lowest points.
- Follow a point. Drag your finger along the profile and a marker tracks the matching spot on the map, showing how far along the route it is and how high. It stays where you left it. On the full-screen map it works the other way round too: tap a spot on the map and the profile jumps to it.
- Go full screen. Tap any map to open it full screen. The profile sits over the bottom, and buttons in the corner show or hide it, rotate the map, reverse the route, or place you on the route.
- Compare two tracks. In the full-screen map, tap the layers button and pick other routes — or recorded workouts — to draw over the one you are looking at, each in its own colour. Swipe between their elevation profiles below the map.
- Put them on one scale. With more than one profile showing, the button beside layers draws them all to the same axes, so a route that is 70 km longer visibly stops short instead of filling its card.
- Add your own. The import button on Routes takes any GPX or KML file — planned rides, tracks someone sent you.
- Connect Health for workouts. Open the Workouts tab and the app asks to read your sessions and their routes. Only those that recorded a GPS route are listed, since one without a track has nothing to map.
- See everything at once. The Map tab draws workouts and saved routes on one map, told apart by pin colour, with a filter for one kind or the other.
- Take it elsewhere. Export any track as GPX or KML, drop a pin at the start or end in Apple Maps, or get directions to the start of a saved route.
- Rate and grade your workouts. Open a workout to set how hard it was and how much you liked it. Difficulty is worked out for you and can be overridden; the rating is yours to pick. Both, and your notes, follow you to your other devices through iCloud.
New to the app? First Steps in the About tab walks through this again at any time.
The app says "No Workouts" but I have workouts. First, note that only workouts with a GPS route are listed — indoor sessions and anything the watch recorded without a fix are left out on purpose, because there is nothing to draw. Otherwise this almost always means Health access was not granted. Open the Health app → Sharing → Apps → Routebox, and enable the workout and route categories. Note that Health never tells an app whether read access was granted, so "permission denied" and "you genuinely have no workouts" look identical from inside the app — checking Health is the only way to tell them apart.
Distance shows "N/A". Either the activity records no distance at all (yoga, strength training), or the watch recorded a distance type the workout does not carry. Each activity family stores its own measurement — running and walking, cycling, swimming and snow sports are all separate — and indoor sessions usually store none.
A workout shows "No location data". That workout has no GPS track. Indoor sessions never do, and outdoor ones will not either if the watch had no fix or route access was not granted in Health.
There is no elevation profile. The profile appears only when the track carries usable altitude readings and there is at least a metre of relief. A watch without a barometric altimeter, or a session with a poor fix, records no usable altitude — and a genuinely flat route has no profile worth drawing.
Why can't I open my whole route in Apple Maps? Because Maps cannot display a track supplied by another app. It only accepts points, and then draws its own route between them — which would show you a path you never ran. Rather than fake it, the app gives you buttons that drop a pin at the start or the end. The map inside the app is what shows the real track, and GPX or KML export is how you get it into another app that draws it faithfully.
Can I compare two routes, or a route against a workout? Yes, in either direction. Open either one, tap the map to go full screen, then the layers button. Saved routes and recorded workouts are listed separately; pick as many as you like and each is drawn over the first in its own colour, with a key in the corner. Their elevation profiles appear below the map, one per track, swiped between — and the button beside layers puts them all on the same scale.
Why does the map zoom so far out when I add a route? Because the view widens to hold every track being compared. Comparing two routes while only one of them is on screen would tell you nothing — so if the second is on another continent, the map really does have to pull back that far.
Why does a workout take a moment to appear when I compare against it? Its points come from Apple Health, which hands them over one query at a time. The row shows a spinner while that runs, and the track is remembered afterwards so adding it again is instant.
Why is there one button when I expected two? The start and end buttons collapse into one when a route finishes within about 100 m of where it began. On a loop, "start" and "end" would open the same place.
What do I do with the exported file? GPX opens in most mapping and fitness apps — Organic Maps, Gaia GPS, Komoot, Footpath, Strava. KML is for Google Earth and Google My Maps. Note that a fresh iPhone has no app that opens either format, so the share sheet may only offer Files and AirDrop until you install one.
Does the Map tab show my saved routes too? Yes, alongside your workouts. The pin colour tells them apart: orange for a workout you recorded, blue for a route you imported. Tapping either opens it.
How do I get more routes? Open the Routes tab and tap the download button in the top-right. You'll get a catalog of routes grouped by country; tap one to add it to your library with a single tap, and a checkmark shows the ones you already have. The catalog and the route files come from the app's public wiki on GitHub, and are fetched only while that browser is open — nothing about you is sent, the app only downloads. Downloaded routes behave like any import: they get a map and elevation profile, and they sync across your devices through iCloud.
Can I import a route from another app?
Yes. Use Import GPX in the Workouts tab and pick a .gpx file. The app reads the track, shows you a summary, and — once you confirm — saves it to Apple Health as a workout with its route and distance. It asks for permission to write to Health at that moment; nothing is written before you confirm. If the file holds no track points, the import is refused rather than creating an empty workout.
Can I delete a workout? Yes, and be careful: deleting removes the workout and its route from Apple Health, not just from this app. It cannot be undone, and you will be asked to confirm.
What's the difference between a workout and a route? A workout is something you did: it comes from Apple Health, recorded by whatever device you train with, or imported into the app as a workout. A route is just a path — a planned ride, a track someone sent you — kept in the app's own library. Routes are never written to Apple Health, so importing one asks for no Health permission.
How do I add a route?
Open the Routes tab and tap the import button, then pick a .gpx or .kml file. The app reads it, then asks you to confirm the name and the sport — worth checking, since a GPX from another app often omits the sport or gets it wrong, and it decides the icon you'll see in the library and on the map. Distance, ascent, descent and highest point are worked out as it imports. Open the route to see it on a map with its elevation profile, and drag along the profile to follow any point.
Can I see where I am on a route? Yes. Open a route and tap the locate button on the map. The app asks for location access the first time, shows your position, and — if you are within about 150 m of the route — moves the elevation profile marker to match, so you can see what's coming. Further away than that it says you're off route and leaves the marker alone rather than guessing. Tap the button again to stop; it also stops when you leave the screen, and never runs in the background.
How do I get to the start of a route? Open a saved route and use Get there at the bottom: "To the start" or "To the end" opens Apple Maps with directions from wherever you are. This is real navigation — unlike drawing the recorded track, routing to a single point is something Maps does properly.
The point I picked on the elevation profile disappears — or does it? It stays. Drag along the profile and the marker holds where you left it, on both the chart and the map, until you pick another point. Earlier versions dropped it the moment you lifted your finger.
Am I on the route? Tap locate on a route's map. Within about 150 m the elevation profile snaps to your position. Further out, a badge tells you how far off you are — "2.5 km from the route" — with an arrow pointing the way back. The arrow accounts for which way you are facing, so it points the real direction rather than at the map's north. On a device with no compass it falls back to north-up and says so.
Can I rotate the map? Yes, with two fingers on the full-screen map. A compass appears once you do; tap it to face north again. The button beside the location one turns on "turn with the phone", which rotates the map as you turn.
Can I show only my workouts, or only my routes? Yes. The Map tab has a small control in its top-right corner: everything, workouts only, or routes only. It appears once you have both kinds. It is also how to reach a pin sitting underneath another — a route imported from the same file as a workout starts at exactly the same point, so one hides the other.
Can I hide the elevation profile on the full-screen map? Yes, with the chart button in the top corner, and the choice is remembered next time. The button is absent for a track with no usable altitude, since there would be nothing to show. The button beside it shows or hides your own position.
Can I add my own notes? Yes, on any workout. Apple Health has no notes field, so notes are kept in the app's own storage rather than written to Health, and they are not included in GPX or KML exports. They do sync across your own devices through iCloud (see below). Clearing a note deletes it everywhere.
How is a workout's difficulty decided? The app works it out from how far the workout went and how much it climbed — roughly, every 100 m of ascent counts like another kilometre on the flat — and scales it by sport so a long ride isn't judged like a long run. The result is one of four levels: Easy, Moderate, Hard or Severe. If it doesn't match how the workout actually felt, open it and pick your own level; choose Automatic to hand it back. In the workout list it shows as a colour dot — green through red as it gets harder. A workout with no distance (an indoor session) gets no difficulty.
Can I rate a workout? Yes. Open it and tap one of four faces — from Very good down to Avoid — to record what you thought of it. Tap the one you chose again to clear it. The rating shows as a small badge in the workout list, next to the difficulty.
Do my notes, ratings and difficulty sync between my iPhone and iPad? Yes, through your own iCloud account, using Apple's private key-value storage. Sign in to the same Apple Account on both devices and a note, rating or difficulty set on one appears on the other a few seconds later. It never passes through us — it moves inside your iCloud only. If you are signed out of iCloud, or turn iCloud Drive off, everything still works on that device and simply doesn't sync.
Do my imported routes sync between my iPhone and iPad? Yes. Routes you import sync through your own iCloud (the app's private iCloud container), so a route added on one device appears on the others within a few seconds; deleting it on one removes it on the others. Opening a route that only just arrived may take a moment while its track downloads. The six bundled example routes are the exception — they're seeded on each device from the app itself, so they aren't synced and deleting one only affects that device. As with the other data, if you're signed out of iCloud your routes simply stay on the one device and nothing is lost.
Can I tap the map to move the elevation marker? Yes, on the full-screen map. Dragging the profile has always moved a marker along the route; tapping the map now does the reverse, dropping the marker on the nearest point of the route and moving the profile to match. On a long route, where a small drag on the chart flings the marker a long way, tapping the map is the precise way to find your spot. Your own position is drawn as a yellow dot, so it never blurs into the blue route line or the marker on it.
Can I zoom into part of the elevation profile? Yes. Pinch the profile to zoom the distance axis into a single stretch, so a short climb hidden in a long route fills the chart; the height axis fits what's in view at the same time. Double-tap, or the button in the corner of the chart, returns to the whole route. While zoomed, the window follows the point you are scrubbing — tap the map or drag the chart towards the edge and it pans to keep the marker on screen rather than letting it slip out of view.
Can I reverse a route? Yes, on the full-screen map. Tap the reverse button and the route is read end-to-start: the start and finish flags swap and the elevation profile recomputes its distance from the far end, so "how far along" is measured the other way. Each time you reverse — and the first time you open the map — a bright marker sweeps the track from start to finish, so the direction of travel is unmistakable whichever way the map is turned. Tap reverse again to go back.
Can I change the language or the appearance? The app follows your device language — English, Spanish, Catalan, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Galician, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish are available — so change it in Settings → General → Language & Region, or per-app in iOS Settings. Light, dark or system appearance is chosen in About.
Where is my data stored? Your workouts stay in Apple Health, and the app only reads them. Exported files are written to temporary storage and leave your device only when you share them — see the Privacy Policy.
Routebox is free, with no ads and no tracking. If it saved you some time, a donation goes towards keeping it maintained:
