Getting started
Resa Routes is a calm app for walking and cycling routes. It shows all your tours from Apple Health with a map, elevation profile and figures. You can record new tours, find waymarked routes nearby, plan your own routes and follow them.
At the bottom there are four tabs: Feed, Routes, Start and Profile. Under Profile you find your tours and the overview, with the gear at the top right for Settings.
You only need a profile to share and follow. Everything else works without an account.
The first time you open it, Resa Routes asks for everything at once: reading (tours, routes, heart rate, steps, energy) and writing (the tours you record). It works best with everything turned on.
The permission is not in the iOS Settings app but in the Health app:
- Open the Health app.
- Tap your profile picture at the top right.
- Tap “Apps”, then “Resa Routes”.
- Turn on the data you want to share.
Resa Routes reads walks, hikes, runs and rides from Apple Health, plus downhill and cross-country skiing – from any app that saves them there, such as the Workout app on your Apple Watch. Outdoor only; indoor workouts are not included.
Each time you open the app, it quietly fetches what is not there yet. Anything already there is skipped. To do it by hand: Profile → gear → Apple Health → “Import from Apple Health”.
Some apps write only distance and time to Apple Health. Those tours arrive without a route and show “No route”. You can add their route later with a GPX import.
Importing and exporting
You can choose single GPX files or a whole folder, including subfolders. Afterwards, “Import finished” tells you how many tours are new, how many got their route and what was already there.
- Tap “Profile” at the bottom.
- Tap the gear (Settings) at the top right.
- Under “Files”, tap “Import GPX files”.
- Choose files or a folder.
Yes. In Files, Mail or another app, tap the GPX file, open the share menu and choose “Resa Routes”. The app opens and imports the file just as it does from Settings.
When importing GPX: if the same tour is already there without a route (same kind of sport, nearly the same start time and distance), it gets the route from the file. If it already has a route, the file is skipped. A planned route without times is skipped too.
If you recorded the same tour with two apps, for example your Watch and another app, Resa Routes counts it once. The second one is not deleted; it just doesn’t count. At the bottom of the tour it says “Source: … · also in …” in small print.
The file contains the whole track with elevation and time for each point, including the part near your home: it is your own file, not a share.
- Open the tour.
- Tap “Edit tour” at the bottom.
- Tap “Export as GPX” and choose where the file goes (Files, Mail or another app).
Not yet. Resa Routes reads GPX files, but not yet a zip archive or other export formats.
If the export contains GPX files, unzip it in the Files app and choose the unzipped folder under “Import GPX files”.
Recording
You can record a walk, hike, run or ride. The map follows you, and at the bottom you see time, distance and elevation gain.
- Tap “Start” at the bottom.
- Choose the sport.
- If you like, set “Goal”, “Auto-pause” and “Screen”.
- Tap the start button, for example “Start walk”.
- To finish, tap “Stop” and confirm with “Stop”.
If you start on your iPhone, Resa Routes starts on your Watch too. You can also start straight on the Watch.
The Watch then measures heart rate and energy, and your iPhone shows them live. A watch icon at the top right of the recording screen shows whether the Watch is measuring; if it is crossed out, it isn’t.
Without a Watch, the tour is recorded without heart rate, and Resa Routes does not estimate energy: it only appears on the tour if the Watch measured it.
With “Auto-pause” (on by default), recording pauses by itself when you stand still and carries on as soon as you move again. The Watch pauses along.
To turn it off, tap the “Auto-pause” tile on Start before you begin. You can always pause by hand with “Pause” and “Resume”.
Yes. You can lock your iPhone and put it away; recording and spoken directions carry on. On the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island you see time, distance and elevation gain.
If you want to see the map all the time, set the “Screen” tile to “Stays on” before you start.
For location, “While Using the App” is enough, because recording starts in the app.
A tour only ends when you tap “Stop”, on your iPhone or on your Watch.
If the workout on your Watch ends without that tap, for example because of an error, your iPhone takes over and keeps recording. You then see “Your watch stopped. Your iPhone keeps recording.” Your iPhone saves the whole tour.
When you stop, the tour is saved to Apple Health as a workout with route and distance, and it appears in Resa Routes right away. With a Watch, the Watch saves it; otherwise your iPhone does.
You then see a summary with “Saved to Apple Health”. There you can share the tour with “Share”, keep it to yourself with “Just save”, or simply tap “Done”.
Finding and following routes
In the “Routes” tab the map fills the screen, with a list underneath that you can pull up. At the top you choose “Hiking”, “Cycling” or “MTB” and the distance (10, 30 or 50 km).
These are waymarked routes from OpenStreetMap, closest first, with length, estimated time and elevation gain. Tap a route in the list or its line on the map. Long-distance paths are listed separately below; tap one for the section near you.
“Nearby” shows waymarked routes around you.
“Mine” shows your own routes: under “Saved” the routes you saved with the heart, your planned routes, and under “Walked yourself” (for cycling “Ridden yourself”) the loops you did at least twice.
To save a route, tap the heart on its screen.
Tap “Follow this route” – on a route in the Routes tab or on one of your own tours with a route. The app jumps to “Start” and shows the route in orange on the map. Then start recording as usual.
You begin where the route is closest to you: on a loop at the nearest point, otherwise at the nearer end. On the way, a label shows how much is left.
If you are more than 40 m from the line, it turns red, the label says “Off the route” and your iPhone vibrates (only with the screen on). Tap the cross in the bar to stop following.
If you are not at the start, the app draws a walking route there as a blue dotted line and shows “… to the start”. Without internet it is a straight line. Once you are within 40 m of the route, the line disappears, your iPhone vibrates briefly and following begins.
If the start is more than 2 km away on foot, the app says “too far to walk” and shows three buttons: “By car”, “By public transport” and “By bike”. They open Apple Maps with directions to the start.
Spoken directions
While you follow a route, there is a speaker button next to the route label on the map. One tap turns the directions on or off; the app remembers your choice.
You can do the same under Profile → gear → “Spoken directions” with the switch “Speak directions while following a route”.
Tap a voice to hear it; the chosen one gets a tick. You see the voices installed on your iPhone in the language of the app.
Better voices (Premium, Enhanced) can be downloaded in the iOS Settings app under Accessibility → Read & Speak → Voices.
- Tap “Profile” at the bottom.
- Tap the gear at the top right.
- Tap “Spoken directions”.
- Under “Voice”, pick a voice or “Standard voice”.
At the start, how far there is to go (“Route started. 4.2 km to go.”). Before each turn “In 120 m, turn left” (on foot 120 m ahead, by bike 250 m), then “Turn left now”.
If you leave the route: “You have left the route.” If you are still off it after 15 seconds, the app looks for a way back to a point a little further along the route, draws it as a dotted line and says “New way found. … back to the route.” Back on track: “Back on the route.” At the end: “You have arrived.”
Directions also play with the screen off. Music is lowered briefly while they speak.
Maps
Tap the round layers button on the map in the Start tab or on the large map of a tour. Under “Map type”, choose “Standard”, “Satellite” or “Topo”. Your choice applies to every map in the app.
The map only shows places for the outdoors, such as parks, viewpoints, water, food, toilets and stops – no shops.
Topo is the official hiking map in Switzerland, Bavaria and the Netherlands. Elsewhere you see the standard map.
Topo appears on the map in the Start tab. On the other maps in the app you see the standard map in its place.
In the Start tab, open the layers button. Under “Routes on the map”, choose “Hiking”, “Cycling”, “MTB” or “None”. Zoom in to see the routes.
The routes come from OpenStreetMap and appear as a layer over the map in the Start tab.
Not yet. Maps are loaded over the internet.
Sharing and privacy
You only need a profile to share tours, follow others and see their tours. You sign in with Apple; Resa Routes does not ask for your name or email address.
- Tap “Profile” at the bottom.
- Tap the Sign in with Apple button.
- Choose a username: 3 to 20 characters, lowercase letters, numbers, dot and underscore.
- Read the house rules and tap “I agree”.
Open the tour, tap “Edit tour”, then “Visible to”. Choose “Only you”, “Followers” or “Everyone”. With “Only you”, nothing of the tour is on our server.
After recording, you can choose this straight away in the summary. What applies to new tours is set under Profile → gear → Profile → “New tours” (“Only you” by default).
With a private profile, you approve each follower yourself.
Within the private zone, the line disappears from every tour you share, so nobody can see where you live. The app asks for it the first time you share. The centre is shifted a little at random, and the zone stays on your iPhone.
- Tap “Profile” at the bottom, then the gear at the top right.
- Under “Profile”, tap “Private zone”.
- Tap the map where you live, or tap “Use my current location”.
- Choose the size: 200 m, 500 m or 1 km.
- Tap “Hide this area”.
Yes. Under Profile → gear → Profile → “Hide start and end”, choose “Off”, 100 m, 300 m or 500 m (300 m by default). That much of the start and the end is not shown on every tour you share.
Distance, time and elevation gain then refer to the visible part. If you change the setting, tours you already shared are updated.
Only what you share yourself goes to our server. Heart rate, energy, steps and sleep from Apple Health never do.
Nor do tours set to “Only you”, your notes, the part inside your private zone or the hidden start and end. For shared photos, location and other details are removed from the file.
On a shared tour, a profile or a highlight, tap “…” at the top right. For a tour in the feed, a comment or a tip, touch and hold it. Then choose “Report” (with a reason, and optionally block straight away) or “Block”.
Blocking works both ways: you no longer see each other’s tours, comments and highlights, and neither of you follows the other any more. They are not told. Who reported something is never shown to the other person.
To undo it, go to Profile → gear → Profile → “Blocked”, or to the profile itself.
Your profile, photo and shared tours are removed from our server. Your tours on this iPhone and in Apple Health stay.
- Tap “Profile” at the bottom.
- Tap the gear (Settings) at the top right.
- Under “Profile”, tap “Delete account” at the very bottom.
- Confirm with “Delete account”.
Editing a tour
Open the tour and tap “Edit tour” at the bottom. At the very top, tap the name to change “Name and note”. The note is only for you; it is not shared.
Under “Sport”, choose a different sport. If the tour is shared, the name and sport are updated online too.
Under “Edit tour”, tap “Trim tour”. With two sliders (“From the start” and “From the end”) you cut off a piece in steps of 10 m; the map shows what remains. The figures are recalculated.
This applies only in Resa Routes; in Apple Health the tour stays as it is. To undo it, tap “Undo last merge or trim” under “Edit tour”.
If a shared tour has several photos, you see them under “Edit tour”. Tap the photo that should come first in the feed; it gets the “Cover photo” label.
If a tour was interrupted, you can merge it with a tour up to an hour before or after. Under “Edit tour”, tap “Merge” and choose the other tour. The earlier one stays and gets the whole line and the combined figures.
One tour in Routes – in Apple Health they stay two. To undo, tap “Undo last merge or trim”. If one of the tours is shared, the app tells you beforehand what that means online.
You can only delete tours you recorded with Resa Routes (iPhone or Watch). Under “Edit tour”, tap “Delete tour”. The tour is also removed from Apple Health, and a shared copy disappears from the server.
Tours from other apps have no delete button: they belong to the app that recorded them.
Troubleshooting
Usually access to Apple Health is missing. Open the Health app, tap your profile picture at the top right, then “Apps” → “Resa Routes”, and turn everything on. You can also get there via Profile → gear → Apple Health → “Permissions in the Health app”.
Then tap “Import from Apple Health” under Profile → gear → Apple Health. Keep in mind: indoor workouts are not included, and tours without a route show “No route”.
No. Your tour is saved in Resa Routes; only Apple Health doesn’t have it yet. Tap “Try again” in the summary.
Usually Resa Routes is not allowed to write; the Start tab then also says “Apple Health doesn’t let Resa Routes save workouts”. To fix it: Health app → profile → Apps → Resa Routes → turn on Workouts. A later attempt attaches the Health copy to the same tour.
A watch icon at the top right of the recording screen shows the status; if it is crossed out, the Watch isn’t measuring, and the screen also says “No Apple Watch connected — this walk is recorded without heart rate.” Without a Watch, your iPhone records on its own, without heart rate or energy; the tour still goes to Apple Health.
Check that Resa Routes is installed on your Watch, or start the tour straight on the Watch.
Resa Routes