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An iPhone with iOS 17 or later, and Apple Health. Elsewhere reads the walking your iPhone already records, and your Apple Watch’s too if you wear one.

No. Choose a journey, connect Apple Health and start walking; everything works on your iPhone alone. Sign in with Apple is optional. It adds backup and restore, a private place for postcards you choose to keep, and walking with friends.

Your first journey counts from the start of the day you connect Apple Health, so that morning’s walk is included. Walking from earlier days isn’t added.

From Apple Health. Elsewhere reads your steps, your walking + running distance and your walking workouts, and nothing else. Health combines what your iPhone and Apple Watch record, so the same walk isn’t counted twice.

Your progress uses the distance Health measured, never a guess from your step count. Health may include running in that distance. Workouts help Elsewhere find your walks and how long each took.

Apple doesn’t tell apps when Health access is switched off, so Elsewhere can’t warn you itself. To check:

1. Open the Health app and tap your profile picture.
2. Go to Apps and Services, then Elsewhere.
3. Allow Steps and Walking + Running Distance.

If you wear an Apple Watch, give it a moment to sync with your iPhone, then open Elsewhere again.

While Elsewhere is open, new walking arrives as Apple Health records it. When you come back to the app it catches up on everything since you last looked, and your walker covers the new distance on screen.

If you walk with friends or have notifications on, Apple Health also wakes Elsewhere in the background, at most about once an hour, when new steps or distance arrive. Widgets show your progress as of the last time Elsewhere updated it.

No. Elsewhere never asks for your location. Your distance comes from Apple Health, and journeys are virtual: a walk around your neighbourhood counts toward a route somewhere else.

Yes, through Apple Health. There’s no separate Watch app; the walking your Watch records reaches Elsewhere once it syncs to Health on your iPhone. Walks and hikes you record as workouts on your Watch show in Activity as walks, with their own time.

It’s designed not to be. The world slows down when you leave it alone and, after a minute or so, rests on a still frame until you touch it or something changes. It draws less in Low Power Mode and when your iPhone is warm, and Reduce Motion stills the weather and the walking.

Your walking goes to one journey at a time: the one you’re on. Each kilometre you walk is a kilometre along its route. Walk goals, the walking club and your medals count the same walking alongside it, without taking any away.

The finish lights up with fireworks, and anything you walked past the finish is saved. It carries into your next journey the moment you start one. Walking you do between journeys is saved the same way.

By walking. Kepler-22b opens once you’ve walked 25 km in all, Emberfall at 50 km and Noctiluca at 100 km. Opening a world never spends your distance, and you can look around every world in Explore before then.

Yes, from Explore. Elsewhere settles the walking Health has recorded so far before it switches, and each journey keeps the progress you made on it.

Earth’s five journeys follow real places: the Tour du Mont Blanc, the Nakasendō from Magome to Tsumago, the Brooklyn Bridge, the West Highland Way, and a straight-line expedition from Lima to Santa Fe. Their stops and route lines are illustrative, not walking directions.

Kepler-22b is a real exoplanet, but its shore is imagined. Emberfall and Noctiluca are original worlds, and every landscape is an original painting.

Your journeys and the stops you’ve reached, your notebook entries and drafts, your walk goal, keepsakes and walking club pursuits. Raw Health records, daily activity, the walks Elsewhere finds in Health and recorded walks never leave your iPhone. Backup is off until you turn it on in Settings → Your account.

Elsewhere keeps its journal out of iPhone backups, so use Elsewhere’s own backup:

1. On your old iPhone, sign in with Apple and turn on backup in Settings → Your account.
2. On your new iPhone, sign in with the same Apple Account and restore your journal.

The new iPhone becomes your walking phone. New distance counts from the moment you restore, so nothing is counted twice.

Backup stops and your journal stays on this iPhone, exactly as it was. Sign in again whenever you like.

In Settings → Your account, tap Delete cloud account. You’re signed out on every device straight away, and your backup, the nightly copies kept for recovery, your saved postcards and their links, and your place in any expeditions are deleted.

Your journal on this iPhone stays. To remove that too, delete the app.

Sign in with Apple, open the walking club from the Journey sheet and tap Walk together. Choose one of Elsewhere’s journeys and 7, 14 or 28 days, then share the invitation link. A shared journey starts straight away and friends can join until it ends; everyone’s walking counts from the start. You can set a distance goal instead, which starts when you start it. Up to eight people can walk together.

Friends who don’t have Elsewhere yet can copy the link from its page, install the app and tap Paste on the welcome screen.

By itself, from your walking phone: whenever Elsewhere sees new distance in Apple Health and it has grown by 20 m or half an hour has passed. If nothing has been shared for an hour, the walk offers Update now. Results settle 48 hours after a walk ends, so a late Apple Watch sync still counts.

Yes. When you’re in a shared journey, Journey can show the shared route: each friend walks it as a figure at their own distance, labelled with how far ahead or behind they are, and the sheet says who’s leading.

Your name, how far you’ve walked since the walk began and when that was last updated, your place on the route of a shared journey, and your result. Nothing else from your journal or from Apple Health: never your Health records, daily totals, walk times or notes.

Before joining, anyone with the invitation link sees the host’s name, the journey, its length, when it ends and how many are walking.

Open the walking club, tap Walk together, then Leave walk on the walk you want to leave. Your name and distance leave its standings, and a shared journey carries on for everyone else.

Fictional walking companions. Pick one for a seven-day pursuit: Rowan walks 1 km a day, Wren 2 km and Sol 4 km. You’ll see how far ahead or behind you are, and you can finish early.

Only if you allow them. Elsewhere asks after you reach your first stop or when you join friends, not when you first open it. About your own walking it sends at most one a day: a finished walk, a stop that’s a short walk away, or a journey to try after a few quiet days, with no reminders once you’ve walked your usual distance for the day.

Choose the kinds you want, and your quiet hours (9 pm to 8 am unless you change them), in Settings → Notifications.

If you’re signed in, Elsewhere lets you know when a friend joins your walk, passes you, reaches a stop or finishes, when a friend invites you, and when results are in. News that arrives together comes as one notification. You’ll get at most three a day, not counting results and invitations, and none in your quiet hours. Turn off Friends in Settings → Notifications to stop them.

Each stop you reach unlocks its postcard. Add a photo from your library, your name and a note, then share it as a 1200 × 1600 image or save it to Photos. Only the photo you choose is used, at a smaller size, and its location and other details aren’t copied.

If you’re signed in, you can also keep a private copy in your account and make a link that anyone can open for 30 days. You can revoke the link at any time.

Open a medal from the Journal. Drag it to turn it, flick it to swing, or tilt your iPhone and let gravity take it. Double tap to turn it over and read the back; with VoiceOver, use the Turn over action. Reduce Motion and Low Power Mode hang medals still.

Touch and hold an empty part of your Home Screen, tap Edit, then Add Widget, and choose Elsewhere. There are small and medium sizes. For the Lock Screen, touch and hold it, tap Customize, and add the round or wide Elsewhere widget.

Without an account, nothing about you. Elsewhere downloads journey paintings from its artwork server, and map backgrounds come from Apple Maps; neither request carries your Health data or anything from your journal.

With an account, only what you choose: your backup, postcards you save, your distance in walks with friends, and, if you allow notifications, what our server needs to send you friends’ news. The privacy policy has the details.