Rebuild travel from photos

Borderly can propose trips from the dates and locations attached to photos in your iPhone library. It reads metadata rather than loading photo pixels. Review the proposals before adding them.

Choose what to scan

1. In Today or You, tap Rebuild travel from photos.
2. Set the From and To dates. The initial range covers the past twelve months through today.
3. Leave Only photos I took on to omit images the app identifies as saved or received. Turn it off only if you want to review those images as possible evidence too.
4. Tap Allow access and scan photos, or Scan photos if access was already granted.
5. In Apple's permission prompt, choose the photos to share or grant broader access. With selected-photo access, only the selected photos can contribute.

Hidden photos and videos are not scanned. Photos without usable location metadata cannot propose a country. The “Only photos I took” check uses file names, formats, and library attributes; it is a heuristic and cannot prove who took a photo.

Choose the date range before scanning. The screen's no-coordinate-upload statement is broader than the verified behavior: place lookup uses Apple's geocoder, which may use a network service. Real iPhone simulator capture · fictional sample data. Tap to enlarge.

Follow progress or stop

The screen first checks access, then reads dates and locations, then shows Resolving places … with progress. A large range with many distinct locations can take longer. The app may retry a failed place lookup and leave unresolved photos out of its proposals.

Tap Stop to cancel and close the scan. No proposals are added to your saved record until you use the final Add button. Keep Borderly open while scanning; completion while suspended in the background has not been verified.

Inspect and add proposals

1. Read the summary: proposed trips, countries, photo days, review days, and photos that could not be placed or were skipped.
2. Inspect each proposed trip. Switch off Include … trip for any trip you do not want to add.
3. Tap a day to see its evidence and confidence. A proposal that has not been saved is read-only here.
4. Tap Add … days to my record. If all trips are excluded, the button is disabled.
5. The sheet closes. Check Timeline → Days and Review for the added record and any uncertain items.

The button's number is the selected proposal-day count, not necessarily the number of new days. On an existing date, agreeing evidence is attached to the existing day; conflicting evidence creates a review item without replacing that day. Overlapping trips in the same country are not added again. Repeated conflicting scans can create repeated review items.

Photo days with apparently original captures and no cross-country conflict become Likely. Saved-only or conflicting photo days become Needs Review. Likely days also remain uncertain to the counter engine; confirm them in Timeline.

Gaps and empty results

Nearby photo days in the same country may be grouped into one trip even with up to three empty days between them. Those gaps are shown as unconfirmed and are not added as day records. A trip's date span can therefore exceed its evidenced-day count.

Result	What to try
No photos in this range	Choose Rescan and widen the dates.
No photos you took in this range	If you want to inspect saved images, rescan with Only photos I took off.
No located photos in this range	Use photos with location metadata, expand selected-photo access, or enter the trip manually.
Photos could not be placed	Retry with a connection and a smaller range. A failed location lookup may appear as omitted photos rather than a separate error.
Photo access is Off	Open You → Photos, go to iPhone Settings, and allow access. Return to Borderly and retry.

Rescan returns to setup. Close exits without adding proposals. The current implementation defines a “Scan could not finish” screen, but the scan does not route ordinary lookup failures to it; empty or partial results are the observable fallback in the code.

See data and privacy for storage and network behavior.