Hide your home or workplace before sharing a GPS route
Sharing a run or bike ride can give away your home address if the route starts or ends nearby. Before you post it, hide the parts you want to keep private. You can also remove saved times and details about the device you used.
1. Get a copy of your route
Download the activity as a GPX file, a common format for GPS routes. Keep the original and open a copy in GPS route cleaner. It draws the route on your device without fetching a background map. It accepts GPX files up to 16 MiB and 100,000 route or track points. Other formats need a GPX export from the app that made them.
2. Hide the areas near the start and finish
Adjust Hide around the start and Hide around the end. Each setting hides a circle around that end of the route, rather than cutting a fixed distance off your run. Choose an area big enough to hide the nearby streets too. The starting setting may not be enough for your neighbourhood.
3. Check the middle of the route too
Did you pass home again or stop at work? Click the route to hide another area. You can also enter its position under Add a privacy zone by coordinates. Use Undo last area if you choose the wrong place. Check every approach to a private location, especially on a loop.
4. Remove details you don't want to share
Remove times, Remove names and device, Remove heart rate and sensor data, and Remove saved places start switched on. You can remove elevation too. Keep only what the reader needs. Rounding a position to about a metre still leaves it very precise, so use the hidden areas to protect a location.
5. Open the finished route before posting it
Choose Download private copy and look through the downloaded file in a viewer on your device. Check the ends of every remaining section. Could someone still work out where you live from the streets shown? Rename the file if it includes an address. Uploading it to an activity service shares another copy, so check it before that step.
Good to know
A shortened route can still reveal your habits or a familiar area, especially alongside other posts. Cleaning this file doesn't change an activity you've already posted or the privacy settings in your running or cycling app.