Do I need to keep the app open?
The short answer
No. With location set to Always, iOS wakes OdoTax when a drive begins, so a drive is recorded while the app is closed and the iPhone is locked in your pocket. The drive is saved and uploaded without the app being opened.
With While Using, iOS never wakes OdoTax when a drive starts, so drives are detected only while it is open. What OdoTax shows then, and how to change it: Do I have to set location to Always?
The short answer
No. With location set to Allow all the time, OdoTax records a drive while the app is closed and the phone is in your pocket. The drive is saved and uploaded without the app being opened.
With While using the app, drives are logged only while OdoTax is open. What OdoTax shows then, and how to change it: Do I have to set location to Always?
Swiping it closed
Swiping OdoTax away in the app switcher does not stop tracking, but the next drive is picked up late. iOS starts OdoTax again only once the car has left the place where it was parked, and the stretch before that is filled in from where the car was parked instead of being recorded.
When OdoTax sees it happen, it sends a notification: Don’t miss the start of your next drive. Tap it to reopen the app, then leave it in the app switcher. It does not need to stay on screen.
Swiped away in the middle of a drive, the recording stops at that point. What follows is picked up once iOS starts OdoTax again, so the trip can come out as two drives.
Swiping it closed
Swiping OdoTax out of the recent apps does not stop tracking: detection keeps running in the background.
What can stop a closed OdoTax is the phone saving power: Battery optimization not set to Unrestricted, or Autostart switched off on Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo and Vivo phones. Settings → Tracking configuration has a row for each: Which battery settings keep tracking running?
Force stop in the phone’s Settings is different from swiping: it stops drive detection. Open OdoTax afterwards, and if Tracking configuration shows Drive detection as Not running, tap the row, then Start it.
After a restart or an update
After the iPhone restarts, unlock it once. Until that first unlock OdoTax cannot read its saved data and records nothing. After it, iOS starts OdoTax again when the car next leaves the place where it is parked, and the app does not have to be opened.
After an iOS update, look at Settings → Tracking configuration once: an update can switch a setting back, and that screen shows which one.
After a restart or an update
After the phone restarts, drive detection starts again by itself once the phone has been unlocked, and it does the same after OdoTax is updated from Google Play. On Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo and Vivo phones this needs Autostart switched on. If detection did not come back, Home shows the card Drive detection isn’t running: tap Fix.
An update that lands in the middle of a drive ends that drive where it was. The rest is picked up as a new drive, and OdoTax joins the two when the second begins soon after the first ended. Can I split or merge drives? says what to do if a trip still came out in pieces. After an Android update, look at Settings → Tracking configuration once, because an update can switch a phone setting back.
If drives stop arriving
OdoTax emails you when no drive has arrived from your phone for four days, and sooner when the phone reports what is blocking it. The switch is Tracking reminders in Settings → Email communications.
Settings → Tracking configuration shows everything detection depends on, each with a green tick or a red issue and a button to fix it. Tracking stopped working goes through the settings one by one.
On the web
Nothing has to stay open in the browser either. Drives are recorded by the phone, and the web account shows every drive the phone has uploaded. What closing the app, a restart or an update changes is on the iPhone and Android tabs above.
The Tracking reminders email tells you when drives stop arriving. Its switch is in Settings → Notifications.
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