FAQ
1. Local Device Storage: My photos aren’t mapped
2. Cloud: I don’t understand the Google Photos procedure
3. My purchase isn’t showing up on a different device
4. I bought the pro version and it worked, but the limit came back or I got a new device
5. Local Device Storage: Limit photos to scan only a certain folder
6. HTML Export?
7. Change multiple photos at the same time
8. My countries are all “Unknown”
9. I get a strange file access error when changing/deleting an item
10. Local Device Storage: How to restrict the folders that are scanned
1. Local device storage: My photos aren’t mapped. Why, and what can I do?
In that case your photos will be displayed in the lower left corner button, because they are not tagged with GPS information. Technically that means that the exif data in the jpeg files doesn’t contain the longitude and latitude tags. Please check the menu “Check location issues” to find out more and to get more details about the reason.
It might happen that your Google Photos App does show a location for them. In that case, Google “estimated” the location by using your Location History (they are logging your location every time). Unfortunately, Photo Map can’t use that information when connected to your Local device storage. You can follow these instructions to tag your local files, or switch the data provider to Google Photos (Not use your local device storage anymore). Read more here.
2. Cloud: I don’t understand the Google Photos procedure… Why is all that needed?
The Google Photos ™ API doesn’t provide the GPS information in their API, so we need to use another way to map them. Using the location history is one solution, because we know where your smartphone was located in the past. Attaching the file is only needed one times, because all new photos will be mapped automatically by reading your locally stored photos. Read more here.
3. My purchase isn’t showing up on a different device. How to fix that?
Firstly: Your in app purchases are linked to your account, so don’t worry, they are available for all your different devices where you are logged in.
After you ordered an in app purchase, it can take some time until they are available on other devices.
When switching to other/new devices, your purchases might not show up immediately. Please try to kill the app after a few minutes and start it again. The pro version should be active then. In that case you need to clear your app cache (Using Android or the in app menu) to reload all photos.
If your pro version is still not active, please follow these advances steps:
- Restart your device
- Clear the app data of the app “Google Play Services”
- Wait some minutes
- Start the app and check out if your purchases are showing up
- Repeat step 3 and 4 if needed
If that still doesn’t work, you can use the following adb command to clear the cache: “adb shell pm clear com.android.vending“. Please restart your App twice after executing that command.
4. I bought the pro version and it worked, but the limit of 500 photos came back after a restart or I’ve got a new device. What to do?
If you got a new device, the license should be detected automatically if the same Google Account has been used to set up the device, however, it can take some time. Please re-install the app a few times if the issue persists.
Else, please update the Google Play Services. You can search in the Google Play Store for Play-Services-Update-Apps, like this one as example.
5. Local Device Storage: How can I limit the photos to scan only a certain folder?
Please use the drawer menu on the left side to configure your “hidden folders”.
6. What about the HTML Export?
You can easily export your Map as a single HTML File, so it can be opened on any PC.
There are still some limitations:
– Due to a possible high amount of markers on the map, the file might be to big to be displayed on a mobile device. Please open it on a PC or Mac in that case
– For the cloud providers, only cached Photos will be rendered correctly
7. How can I change multiple photos at the same time?
Please do a long press on a photo in the grid view to start the multi selection mode, then selct your photos and use the menu to do the desired change.
8. My countries are all “Unknown”, how to fix that?
That might happen if you were offline while loading your items or if your Google Play Services are out of date. Please use the main menu, hit “Background procs and cache” and hit “Start” to reload the Geo information.
If that doesn’t help, please update the Google Play Services. You can search in the Google Play Store for Play-Services-Update-Apps, like this one as example.
9. I get a strange file access error when changing/deleting an item
That’s because of permission changes in Android 11. Read more here.
10. Local Device Storage: How to restrict the folders that are scanned
Please open the settings and find the “Folder name/path to scan” entry. There you can enter multiple folder names that will be used as a filter. Every line (use enter for multiple entries) will include more photos. Example: Please enter “Instagram” if you want to scan only photos that are stored within a folder named “Instagram” (can by any sub folder).