Pocket Trails · Forest of Dean
Pocket Trails has no accounts, no sign-in and no adverts, and it does not sell anything about you to anybody. This page says plainly what the app does with information, because that is easier than making you guess.
Last updated 1 November 2026
Nearly everything. Your saved rides, trail notes, kit checklist, car park reports, works reports, lost property posts, the contact you saved in Send my location, and every setting you change are stored in the app's own storage on your device. They are not uploaded, they are not backed up by us, and we cannot read them. Delete the app, or clear its data in your browser, and they are gone for good.
Most of the time the app asks for your location only when you tap something that needs it — the map, a grid reference, Send my location, crash detection. It is read at that moment, used on the phone, and not sent to us. The one exception is Record ride (called watch mode on the website), which you have to switch on yourself, described below. Your phone will ask permission the first time and you can refuse or withdraw it at any time in your device settings; the rest of the app carries on working.
Record ride is the only part of the app that reads your location when you are not looking at the screen, and it only runs between you tapping Record ride and tapping End. While it runs, your position is kept up to date, so that after a crash the grid reference on the screen is seconds old rather than from whenever you last used your phone, and your track is kept on the phone so Retrace on the map can lead you back the way you came. The app does not send your position to anyone. Your route is cleared when you end the ride.
In the iPhone app, what is kept is a summary of the ride, on this phone only, for My Forest: the date and times, distance, climbing, time moving, which trails and how far on each, and that day's mud level. You can delete one ride, or clear My Forest, at any time; deleting the app deletes them too. None of it is uploaded and none of it reaches us. iOS shows a blue indicator for the whole time Record ride is running. On iPhone the app asks only for "While Using the App", never Always; Record ride keeps updating in the background while it is on.
Reporting forestry works, lost property, trail conditions or feedback opens your own email app with the message already written. It comes from your own email address and contains only what you can see in that message. Nothing is sent until you press send, and you can see and edit every word first. It goes to mail@fodmtb.com, where it is read by a person. If we publish it to the works or lost property board, we publish what you wrote and where — never your name, email address or phone number.
If you send a ride report by email from an older version of the app, it may include the last grid reference the app showed you. You can delete it before you press Send. A forestry works report includes your grid reference only if you tap 'Add my grid reference'.
A lost property post asks for your name and a phone number or email as well. That part is not published and is not put on the board. It is there so we can reach you if the other side of the item turns up, and for nothing else.
Every post on the board carries a link that writes us an email — Claim this if someone else found it, I have found this if someone else lost it. It asks where and when, something about the item that only its owner would know, and a name and number so we can get back to you. As with everything else, nothing is sent until you press send.
We then judge the claim and introduce the two people to each other, and we ask both of them first. We do not publish anyone's contact details, on either side, and we do not pass yours on without asking. If the item was handed in at a shop we just tell you which one. The board itself only ever shows the item, the place and the date.
The name and number you save are held on your phone alone. Tapping send opens your normal messaging app with the text prepared; the message goes from your phone to your contact through your mobile network. It does not pass through us and we never see it.
We count which screens get used, with GoatCounter, a privacy-first counter that sets no cookies and builds no profiles. We count anonymous taps on features — how often SOS or Record ride is opened, for instance — with nothing from your phone's location, no identity and no country attached. What leaves your phone is the name of the thing that happened, sometimes with the screen, trail or meeting place it refers to, or the rating you picked when you report how a trail was, and nothing else: no identifier, no location, no account, because there is no account. The app does keep a random install number in its own storage on your phone, used for its own counting; it is not sent anywhere. If you are offline the counts wait on the phone and go later. They exist so we know which parts of the app are worth the work, and so we can tell a partner how much the app is used. In My Forest we count only that it was used — a ride saved, a card shared — never distances, times or trails.
With signal, the app fetches the weather forecast, the forestry works board, the lost property board and the latest closure alert. The boards and the closure alert come from our website host, Netlify; the request carries nothing about you beyond what any website sees, and if it can't be reached the app shows the copy it already had. If you turn on the map backdrop it downloads map tiles from OpenStreetMap, whose servers will see your device's IP address in the ordinary way any website does. Everything else is stored on your phone at install so the app works without signal.
Pocket Trails is also released as an app for iPhone. It is the same app doing the same things, with three differences worth naming. Record ride can keep running with the screen locked, which is the point of it, and is covered above. My Forest keeps your ride summaries on the phone. And you can switch on alerts — see Alerts on your iPhone. There is still no account, and nothing we hold identifies you.
In the iPhone app you can switch on alerts: Closure & storm alerts, and one each for the Forestry works board and the lost property board. They are all off unless you switch them on, and your phone asks your permission first.
When you switch one on, the app sends one thing to our website host, Netlify: your phone's push token. That is a code from Apple that lets us send an alert to this phone. We keep it with the date you switched on and which alerts you chose. Nothing else: no name, no location, no account, nothing about how you use the app. We don't keep your IP address with it; like any website, Netlify sees it in the ordinary way when the app connects. It is kept in Netlify's European storage, in Frankfurt. Netlify is a US company that stores it for us and does nothing else with it.
Alerts reach your phone through Apple's push notification service, the same way every iPhone app's notifications do.
Switch all your alerts off and the code is deleted straight away. If you delete the app, it is deleted the next time we send an alert, when Apple tells us the code no longer works.
Alerts are written and sent by us, Pocket Trails, and nobody else: closures, storms and other safety news, and a note when one of the boards is updated. When we pass on a closure from Forestry England or the Dean Trail Volunteers, the alert says so. Never adverts or marketing.
If a board alert can't be set up — with no signal, say — that board's switch works the way it did before: iOS wakes the app from time to time, usually within a few hours, the app downloads the board, and if it has changed the app puts a notification on your phone by itself. Nothing is registered with anyone for that.
When we send a closure alert to everyone, its words — who it is from, the time, the title and the message — are also shown at the top of Today and Right Now, in the app and on the website, until midnight. That copy holds nothing about anyone.
Posts on the works board drop off after three weeks, and lost property posts after two months, whether or not anyone tidies them up. A claim that is settled is marked as claimed for a few days and then goes too. Emails you have sent us stay in our inbox until we clear them; ask and we will delete yours. Everything the app keeps on your phone stays there until you delete it or delete the app. If you have alerts on, your phone's push token is kept until you switch them all off, or until Apple tells us it no longer works; the closure alert banner goes at midnight.
The app is for general use and does not knowingly collect anything from children. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to publish that is not read by a person first.
Because we hold almost nothing about you — at most, if you switched alerts on, your phone's push token — there is usually nothing for us to hand over or delete; switching alerts off deletes the token. If you have emailed us a report and want it removed from the board or from our inbox, email mail@fodmtb.com and we will do it. Under UK GDPR you can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.
If what the app collects changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top changes too. Material changes will be listed in What's new inside the app.