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 29 August 2026
Nearly everything. Your saved rides, trail notes, kit checklist, car park reports, works reports, lost property posts, the contact you set up for the contact drop, 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, the contact drop, crash detection. It is read at that moment, used on the phone, and not sent to us. The one exception is watch mode, 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.
Watch mode is the only part of the app that reads your location when you are not looking at the screen, and it only runs while you have switched it on. While it is on, your position is kept up to date so that a crash alert or a contact drop carries a grid reference that is seconds old rather than from whenever you last used your phone. The last two hours are held as a trail on the phone and then overwritten. None of it is uploaded, none of it reaches us, and iOS shows a blue indicator for the whole time it is running. Turning watch mode off stops it immediately and clears the trail; so does deleting the app. On iOS the app asks for Always location access, because a rider who has crashed cannot bring the app back to the foreground.
Reporting forestry works, lost property, trail conditions or feedback opens your own email app with the message already written. 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.
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. What leaves your phone is the name of the thing that happened 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.
With signal, the app fetches the weather forecast, the forestry works board and the lost property board. The two boards are ordinary files on our website today, and may in future come from a small server of ours instead; either way the request carries nothing about you beyond what any website sees, and if it cannot be reached the app simply shows the copy it already had. In the iPhone app, if you have asked to be told when a board changes, that same download also happens in the background — see The iOS app. 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.
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.
Pocket Trails is also released as an app for iPhone. It is the same app doing the same things, with two differences worth naming. Watch mode can keep running with the screen locked, which is the point of it, and is covered above. And you can ask to be told when the forestry works board or the lost property board changes. There is still no account, and we still hold nothing that identifies you.
Those notifications are off unless you switch them on, one switch per board, and they exist only in the iPhone app. When you switch one on your phone asks permission, and you can refuse. After that, iOS wakes the app from time to time — usually within a few hours, and longer if the phone has been left alone overnight — and it downloads the same board file it would download if you opened that screen yourself. If the file has changed since you last saw it, the app puts a notification on your phone. That notification is made on the phone, by the app. There is no push service and nothing is registered with anyone: we are not told that you switched it on, that a notification was shown, or that you tapped it. Switching it off stops the checking.
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, there is usually nothing for us to hand over or delete. 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.