Lisbon → Porto
May 4 – May 10
1267 days313 km
PrivateTrack
Yet another travel diary. But the good one.
Upload photos, import GPS tracks or record them on the go: Grus automatically assigns everything to the right trip, draws the route and plays it back as a slideshow. Free defaults come built in; your own accounts and storage are there if you want them.
01 · Diary
A diary that fills itself
Photos and videos fall into order by capture time and place, read from the Exif data. The Inbox suggests which trip they belong to.
02 · Map
Routes drawn for you
The locations of your shots (from the Exif data) join up into a route. Add via-points, ferry and flight legs or a GPS track.
03 · Stage
Play it back
Full-screen photos and videos, start and end cards, captions. Or as split screen: photo and map at the same time.
04 · Sharing
Private until you share
Keep it private, send a link or publish it. Invite friends as viewers or editors.
How it works
Photos in, diary out.
You add the photos and tracks. Grus lays the trip out for you, and you stay in charge of what is shared.
Add your photos and tracks
Drop in photos and videos, import GPS tracks or record one in the app. Time and place come from the files themselves.
The diary builds itself
A timeline by day, a map and a route appear on their own. You add the words and fix what needs fixing.
Play it back
Watch the trip as a full-screen slideshow, or in split screen with photo and map at the same time.
Share it, or don't
Every trip starts out private. Invite people, send a link or publish it when you are ready.
Your data, your control
Your trips, your rules.
Private by default
A new trip is visible to you alone until you decide to share it. Your files are stored encrypted.
Security & privacy detailsYour own accounts, or none
Use your own map, routing and weather accounts, or just the free defaults: nothing to set up. Your photos can even live in your own storage.
Accounts & storage detailsTake everything with you
Download every trip and original file as a ZIP, or run the whole thing on your own server: it is open source (AGPL-3.0).
Self-hosting details
Get started
Your photos become a travel diary.
Upload the photos from your last trip and Grus turns them into a diary with timeline, map and slideshow. With your own accounts and storage, if you like.
Free with 512 MB of storage. Your account stays active as long as you sign in at least once every 12 months.
Roadmap
What is coming next.
Planned, roughly in order. No dates.
Now
In progressA better full-screen viewer
Controls that fade out while you look, double-click and pinch zoom, the next photo preloaded and sharper images on 4K screens.
Smarter flights and ferries
Better recognition of flight and ferry legs from your photo times and places.
The Android app on more phones
Testing GPS recording and uploads in the background on real devices from different makers, so they survive battery savers.
Next
PlannedYour own stops on the map
Add free points with a title, date and note. They show up on the map and as cards in the slideshow.
Push notifications
Optional notifications in the installed app, for example for an invitation or a finished export. Generic text only, never photo titles.
An iOS app
The same app as a native app for iPhone and iPad.
App store releases
Install from Google Play and the App Store instead of a direct download.
Later
Under considerationHide single photos from public trips
Mark individual photos as not public in a trip you share by link or publish.
A desktop app
A native app for Windows and macOS. The approach, and whether it should work offline, is still open.
This roadmap can change at any time. Nothing here is a commitment.
Early beta
Still growing, and honest about it.
Grus is in an early public beta. It already does what this page promises, but it is not yet rock-solid.
Things will change
Features, screens and settings can still move, and something may break now and then. Expect rough edges.
Keep your originals
Keep your own backup of every original photo and track. The file storage relies on the durability of its provider and has no second copy yet.
Feedback welcome
Found a bug, or is something missing? Tell us. Every bit of feedback shapes what comes next.
More you can do
Go a little deeper.
Tap a card for the details and a look at how it works.
Just upload
Just upload. The rest comes pre-sorted.
Just drop photos and videos into the Inbox. Using capture time and place from the Exif data, it groups them into trips and suggests the matching one, or a new one. All that is left is to confirm.
- A pause of more than 36 hours or a jump of over 300 km starts a new trip
- If an existing trip covers those days it is preselected, otherwise a new one is suggested
- Nothing moves until you confirm
Travel diary
The timeline builds itself
Grus reads day, time and place mainly from the Exif data of your photos. The trip is laid out by day, place names and weather are added. You add the words.
- Dates and places come from the Exif metadata of your photos, nothing to type in
- Edit titles, captions, dates and covers right on the page
- Place names and weather come from your own accounts or from free defaults
Map & routes
From photo spots to a route
The locations of your shots, read from the Exif data, join up into a route. Correct it where the real trip went differently.
- Routed legs between your photo spots, plus ferry lines and flight arcs
- Drag via-points to bend a leg
- Free OpenFreeMap maps, or with your own key MapTiler styles and satellite imagery
Smart suggestions
Missing info? One suggestion is enough.
When a photo lacks its location or date, Grus offers matching suggestions. Pick one and it is filled in.
- Location suggestions from the photos before and after, the point in between and other photos of the trip
- Date suggestions from the file name, from photos nearby on the same day and from the file's modified date
- Or search a place (with your own account if you like), tap the map or type coordinates
Slideshow stage
Your trip, played back
A focused stage for the photos and videos of each day. Switch to split screen and you see the photo and the map at the same time.
- Photos and videos full-screen, with a thumbnail strip to jump around
- Start and end cards with your own words
- Split screen on phone and desktop: photo and map at once, with a draggable divider on the desktop
GPS tracks
GPS tracks next to your photos
Import the track of a hike, ride or drive. Distance, ascent and elevation profile sit next to the photos taken along it.
- Import GPX, KML and GeoJSON files
- Record a track in the app while you travel
- Tracks follow the trip's sharing: readers only see them if locations are shown
For the technically curious
The details, if you want them.
Own accounts and storage, self-hosting and license, security and privacy: everything the short version leaves out.
Own keys & own storage
Bring your own keys (BYOK) for maps, routes and weather, and keep your files in your own S3 bucket.
Own keys & own storage
Bring your own keys (BYOK) for maps, routes and weather, and keep your files in your own S3 bucket.
BYOK (bring your own keys) from end to end: address search, places, routes, weather and maps can run on your own accounts, and your files can live in your own S3 bucket.
Your own provider for every service
Add your own keys for place search, place names, routes, weather and map tiles. You decide whose quota is used, and no service is tied to one fixed provider.
- One ordered chain per service: if a key is rejected or used up, or the provider is unreachable, the next one takes over
- One key can serve several services. It is stored encrypted and never shown again
- Free defaults come last in the chain, and you can switch them off
- Optionally lend your keys to a trip so editors can use them too (off by default)
Your own S3 bucket
Keep your files in an S3-compatible bucket you control instead of the instance's storage. It is yours, and so is the responsibility: the instance keeps no copy.
- Any S3-compatible provider. The connection is tested before it is saved, the credentials are encrypted
- Only ciphertext lies in the bucket, every file encrypted with your own key
- No silent fallback storage: if the bucket is unreachable, uploads are refused instead of landing on the server in secret
- Your recovery key decrypts the bucket even without this instance
Who is on board
Everything marked as built in works without an account or key. If you add your own key, it is tried first.
Built in, no key neededBring your own key
- Routes
Built in, no key needed
- OSRM
Bring your own key
- OpenRouteService
- Geoapify
- Place search
Built in, no key needed
- Nominatim
Bring your own key
- Geoapify
- MapTiler
- Place names
Built in, no key needed
- Nominatim
Bring your own key
- Geoapify
- Weather
Built in, no key needed
- Open-Meteo
Bring your own key
- Open-Meteo
- Maps & satellite
Built in, no key needed
- OpenFreeMap
- Mapterhorn · terrain
Bring your own key
- MapTiler
- Google Maps · satellite
- File storage
Built in, no key needed
- Instance storage
Bring your own key
- Your own S3 bucket (any S3-compatible provider)
This is the current list. More providers may follow later, or on request.
No key or bucket at hand? Free defaults and the instance's storage keep everything running. BYOK is an offer, not a requirement.
Self-hosting & license
Run it on your own server, open source under the AGPL-3.0, where the public instance runs and how you leave with your data.
Self-hosting & license
Run it on your own server, open source under the AGPL-3.0, where the public instance runs and how you leave with your data.
Run it yourself, choose your services and your storage freely, and leave with your data whenever you like.
Self-hostable
Two Docker images (web and CMS), a PostgreSQL database and an S3 bucket are enough. A guide for Coolify is included, other hosts work too.
No fixed provider
Place search, routes, weather and maps are swappable: your own keys, fallback chains and free defaults as the last net. If one service fails, the next one takes over.
Free to leave
Download trips and every original file as a ZIP. With the recovery key and a small script in the repository you decrypt your own bucket even without this instance.
No tracking, no ads
No analytics, no ads, no tracking scripts. Map tiles come from the provider you choose.
Where the public instance runs
Both parts run in Germany, in data centres in Frankfurt.
App and server
Hostinger · Frankfurt, Germany
The website, the app and its server run on a Hostinger server in Frankfurt.
File storage
Intercolo · Frankfurt, Germany
Photos, videos and GPS tracks are stored in an S3 bucket at Intercolo in Frankfurt, encrypted at rest with your personal key.
That describes the public instance. If you host it yourself or connect your own S3 bucket, your data lives where you decide. Files are encrypted at rest. To show them to you, the server decrypts them, so whoever operates an instance could in principle open them.
Free software under the AGPL-3.0
The source code is licensed under the GNU AGPL-3.0: you can read it, audit it, run it yourself and adapt it. Anyone who offers it as a service must also publish their changes.
- AGPL-3.0
- Self-hosted
- Own keys & storage
- No tracking scripts
Security & privacy
How your files are encrypted, what stays private, and where the protection ends.
Security & privacy
How your files are encrypted, what stays private, and where the protection ends.
What “encrypted at rest” means
It protects against
- A leaked or misconfigured storage bucket
- A stolen copy of the stored files
- Anyone who gets only the files or only the database
What it is not
This is not end-to-end encryption. To show you your photos the server decrypts them, so whoever runs it and holds the instance key could in principle open them. Pick an operator you trust, or run it yourself.
Your key is itself locked with the instance key, which lives in the server's configuration, apart from files and database.
Encrypted at rest
Every original and every resized version is encrypted with AES-256-GCM before it is stored, so files sit in storage only as ciphertext. Each person has their own random key.
No public files
The storage bucket is never public. Photos are served through signed links that expire after one to two hours, handed out only to people allowed to see the trip.
Private by default
A new trip is visible to you alone. Invite people as viewer or editor, share a link or publish it. Only the owner can share, publish or delete.
Locations stay private
People you share a trip with only see where a photo was taken if you switch that on. Your saved home location is never part of a shared view.
Your keys, sealed
API keys for place search, routes and weather, and the credentials of your own bucket, are sealed with your personal key and never shown again. You lend keys to a trip only if you agree.
Two-factor authentication (2FA)
Protect your account with an authenticator app and recovery codes. Once 2FA is on, it is required on every way in, the admin area included.
Your data, your call
Download your trips and every original file as a ZIP whenever you like. Delete your account with a grace period (14 days by default) to change your mind.