Automatic car trip recording on iPhone
Yesterdrive notices that you have driven off and records the trip without you opening the app. Here is how that works, and where its limits are.
How a drive is detected
A drive starts while the app is closed and the phone is in your pocket. iOS wakes Yesterdrive when the phone moves away from where the car was parked. The app then uses GPS and the iPhone's motion data to check that this is a drive and not a walk or a bike ride, and only then starts recording.
This takes two permissions: "Always" location and Motion & Fitness. Both are used on your iPhone only. There is no account and no server of ours for the data to go to.
How quickly recording starts
With the default "Balanced" sensitivity, setting off is noticed within seconds. "Battery Saver" lets the app sleep until iOS wakes it, which can take up to about a minute. You choose between them in the app's Settings, under Drive Detection.
For a start with no delay at all, add a Shortcuts automation that runs when your iPhone connects to CarPlay or the car's Bluetooth.
The start of the route is filled in
Because detection takes a moment, the first metres would be missing. Yesterdrive remembers where the car was parked and fills in the start of the route from there. That stretch is a straight line, so the very beginning can look simplified.
Live Activity, Dynamic Island and CarPlay
While the car moves, a Live Activity shows speed, distance and time on the Lock Screen, in the Dynamic Island and on CarPlay. You can turn it off in Settings.
One limit comes from iOS: when a drive is detected in the background, the system may not show the Live Activity. If that happens to you, start trips with a Shortcut instead.
When a trip ends
A stop of 3 minutes ends the trip and saves it. You can change that to 2, 5 or 10 minutes. If you get out and walk away, the trip ends sooner. Trips shorter than 300 m or one minute of driving are not saved, so moving the car around a parking lot stays out of your history.
If a trip was missed
The usual causes are swiping Yesterdrive away in the app switcher or Low Power Mode: iOS then wakes the app later. Open Yesterdrive once and leave it in the background. A missing trip can be added by hand, with a route estimated by Apple Maps.
Let the next drive record itself.
Free on the App Store, for iPhone with iOS 26 or later.
See what Yesterdrive does