KilamileOn this page
Setting up
- Open Kilamile and choose what you track: Workouts, Business driving or Both.
- Allow location. For workouts, Allow While Using App is enough. For business driving, iPhone has to let the app use your location at all times: tap Allow While Using App, then Change to Always Allow.
- Allow notifications if you drive for work. That's how a finished trip reaches you, with Business and Personal buttons.
- Have a backup from before? Choose I have a backup file on the first screen, and Kilamile restores it.
What you track
Change it any time in Settings › What you track.
| Choice | Tabs | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Workouts | Move, Settings | Only while a workout records |
| Business driving | Trips, Expenses, Reports, Settings | Always, to catch drives in the background |
| Both | All of them | Always |
Trips you logged before stay when you switch to Workouts. Switch back and they're all there.
Recording a workout
- On Move, tap Start a workout and pick Run, Walk, Hike or Ride.
- Put the phone away. Recording continues with the screen locked.
- Tap Pause any time. Paused time and the distance you move while paused don't count.
- Tap Pause, then Finish. Give it a title if you like (it suggests one, like "Evening Run"), and tap Save.
The map button at the top switches between big numbers and a live map. While a workout records, drive detection waits. A ride you record stays a workout.
After a workout
Each workout shows its map, moving time and splits for every mile or kilometer. Runs, walks and hikes also show average pace and best efforts such as your fastest 1K and mile. Rides show speed. New personal records get a medal.
From the ⋯ menu you can rename the workout, export the route as a GPX file for Strava, Garmin Connect or another app, or delete it. Deleting erases it from this iPhone with its route. Backups already made keep a copy until they age out.
Share cards
Tap Share on a workout. Choose Story (1080 × 1920, for Instagram Stories) or Square (for a post), swipe through the card designs, and pick one of six styles: Trail, Midnight, Ember, Mint, Sand or Mono.
- Share opens Instagram, Messages, WhatsApp and the rest.
- Save puts the image in Photos. The first time, iPhone asks to let Kilamile add photos. It only adds and can't read your library.
- Hide start & end is on by default. It leaves up to 0.2 mi off each end of the map, so the line doesn't start or end at your door. Short routes hide less, and the card still names the general area, so look it over before you post.
On Move, Share my week makes a card of your whole week.
Progress and records
Tap the chart button on Move. You'll see the last weeks as bars, your streak (weeks in a row with at least one workout), this month, the year so far, and your personal records. Tap Set a goal to add a weekly distance goal.
How drives are logged
With business driving on, Kilamile notices each drive by itself in the background, without you opening the app. While you're parked it barely listens, and it wakes up when you start moving. If you swipe the app away in the app switcher, logging stops until you open it again.
About five minutes after you park, a notification shows the trip. Touch and hold it, and tap Business or Personal right there.
Very short or slow drives (under half a mile, under two minutes, or never at driving speed) go to Discarded. Nothing is lost: you can restore them.
You can also start and stop a trip yourself with Start trip, with Siri, or with a Shortcuts automation, and add a trip by hand with Add. Your log marks hand-added trips as such.
Sorting trips
Each trip is Business, Personal or Commute. Commute is the drive between home and a regular workplace, and it doesn't count as business miles. Until you sort a trip, it waits under Needs review. Sorting once a week is plenty, and it takes a minute.
Saved places only suggest a category and purpose. Nothing is marked Business automatically.
Writing a clear business purpose
For every business trip, write what it was for in a few specific words: the business reason, and with whom. "Meeting" is too vague. "Plan the spring shoot with Acme's marketing lead" says what happened. Add the client when there is one.
The app flags purposes that look too vague. Add who and why. Write it the same day if you can, since a record made at the time counts for more than one written later.
With calendar suggestions on (Settings › Calendar suggestions), Kilamile looks at the event you drove to, on your iPhone only, and suggests a purpose you can accept or ignore.
How miles are measured
During a drive the app records a GPS point about every 25 meters and saves each one right away, so nothing is lost if iPhone closes the app mid-drive. When you've been parked for about 4½ minutes, it removes bad points and the walk to and from the car, and adds up the distance. In simulated drives it lands within a fraction of a percent of the route. Expect within 2–3% of your car's trip meter, which usually reads a little high.
If a trip's miles are wrong, open it and tap Correct the miles…. You give a reason, the original GPS miles are kept, and the change is recorded.
Reports and your CPA
At the start of each month, open Reports. Last month's report is ready. Share it with Share PDF for signature, send it to whoever pays you back, then tap Mark as submitted.
Each business trip counts at the IRS standard mileage rate in effect on its date. Unsorted trips are left out, and the report tells you how many.
At tax time, scroll to For your CPA and make the tax package. It's one file with a summary to start with, a spreadsheet of every trip and expense, the monthly reports and your receipt photos. Add your CPA's email in Settings › Your details, and the app opens Mail with the file attached.
Set your company, your name and title, and who approves reports in Settings › Your details too.
Expenses and tolls
On Expenses, add meals, lodging, parking, supplies and more, with a photo of the receipt.
To bring in tolls, open Settings › Import a toll statement. Pick your toll account and the app shows where that website keeps your transactions. Download them as a CSV or Excel file, then tap Choose the file. Each toll is matched to the trip it was paid on. If the statement uses another time zone, change Times are in before importing.
PDF statements can't be read yet. Add those tolls by hand: open the trip and tap Add a toll.
Siri, widget and Shortcuts
- "Hey Siri, log a trip in Kilamile": Siri asks what the trip was for. Answer in your own words.
- "Hey Siri, start a trip in Kilamile" and "end my trip in Kilamile" log one yourself.
- The Mileage this month widget shows this month's business miles. Touch and hold the Home Screen, tap Edit › Add Widget, and search for Kilamile.
- In the Shortcuts app, make an automation for when CarPlay or Bluetooth connects that runs Kilamile's Start trip, and one for disconnect that runs End trip. Settings › Start/stop with CarPlay or Bluetooth in the app walks you through it.
Backups and new phones
Your log backs itself up to your iCloud Drive after drives and when you open the app. You don't have to do anything. The backup files are hidden so nobody deletes one by accident. The Files app shows a Read me and your tax packages under iCloud Drive › Kilamile.
To keep a copy somewhere else too, like Google Drive, Dropbox or an email to yourself, open Settings › Backup and tap Save a backup copy…. It makes one file with everything in it.
On a new iPhone, install Kilamile and it offers to restore your backup. You can also tap Restore from a backup….
Kilamile was formerly called KiloMile and Riv Lux Miles. Backups made under those names restore normally.
Appearance and units
In Settings › Appearance, choose System, Light or Dark, and whether workouts show miles or kilometers. Business drives stay in miles, as the IRS log needs.
Troubleshooting
A drive didn't show up
- Check Discarded on Trips. Very short or slow drives land there, and you can restore them.
- Open Settings › Tracking health and tap Fix next to anything that's off.
- Did you swipe Kilamile away in the app switcher? Open it again. Until you do, iPhone doesn't wake it for drives.
- Add the missed trip yourself with Add on Trips.
Tracking health checklist
- Location: Always (Settings › Kilamile › Location)
- Precise Location on
- Notifications on, so trips reach you
- Background App Refresh on (Settings › General › Background App Refresh)
Save to Photos doesn't work
Open the iPhone Settings app, then Kilamile › Photos, and allow adding photos.
Still stuck
In the app, open Settings › Diagnostics and tap Export diagnostics, then send the file to us from the support page. It contains the app's tracking log, including recent GPS points, so send it only to us.