Skip to main content

Sharing your position

An outing is a session with a start and a stop. While it is running, the contacts you chose can see where you are. When you stop it, they cannot.

Nothing is shared outside an outing. There is no always-on mode, no background sharing, and no way for someone to check up on you between trips.

Starting​

  1. Tap Share on the map.
  2. Fill in the plan — activity, place, expected return, route.
  3. Select the contacts who should be able to follow.
  4. Tap Start.

Each contact receives a notification: "… has shared an outing with you". Your position then appears on their map and updates at your chosen interval.

Screenshot placeholder

File: img/myjikita/share-01-select-contacts.png Shows: The share sheet with two contacts selected and the Start button enabled.

What gets sent​

While an outing is running, the app records a position at your chosen interval and sends it, along with the time it was taken and how accurate the fix was.

It also records whether there was a network connection at that point — which is what produces your coverage map afterwards. See Coverage and white areas.

Nothing else. No audio, no photos, no list of nearby networks, no browsing history.

You can start an outing with no signal​

This is deliberate, and it is one of the more useful things the app does.

If you are already out of coverage when you set off, start the outing anyway. It is created on the phone, positions are recorded and queued, and the whole thing — the outing and every position — is sent up as soon as the phone finds a signal. Your contacts are notified at that point.

You lose the time before coverage returns. You do not lose the track.

While it is running​

The outing card at the bottom of the map shows the state, how long you have been out, and whether everything has reached the server. From here you can:

  • Send a message to everyone following — see Messages.
  • Press SOS — see SOS.
  • Adjust the plan, for example a later return time.
  • Stop.
Screenshot placeholder

File: img/myjikita/share-02-in-progress.png Shows: The outing status card during an outing, with elapsed time and sync state.

A permanent notification shows that tracking is running. On Android that notification is required in exchange for background location, and it is also a plain statement of what the app is doing.

Stopping​

Open the outing card and tap Stop.

Stopping ends the live sharing and clears the overdue alarm. Your contacts stop seeing a live position; what remains is history, and yours.

Stop it when you are back

An outing left running keeps sharing your position after you are home, and eventually goes overdue for no reason. Both are bad: one is a privacy leak you did not intend, the other trains your contacts to ignore your alerts.

If you stop while out of coverage, the stop is recorded locally and sent when there is signal. Get to signal before you assume the alarm is cleared.

Your track afterwards​

Finished outings stay on your phone. You can look back at where you went, how long it took, and where you had no coverage.

Positions from finished outings are held on the server too, for as long as the retention policy allows, and can be deleted at your request — see Delete your data.