Track Yourself Privately

Discover Dawarich, the Self-Hosted Google Timeline Alternative

Every map in your digital life, check-ins, journeys, and daily routes, tells a story. But when most of that data lives locked in private servers, controlled by big tech, where’s the trust in that story? That’s where Dawarich comes in: your own self-hosted location history platform. It offers the freedom to track, reflect, and analyze your geolocation footprint, all on servers you control. Whether you’re a privacy-conscious traveler, an outdoor enthusiast, or spooked by data collection, Dawarich puts you back in the driver’s seat, both figuratively and literally.

What Is Dawarich?

Dawarich is an open-source alternative to the much-loved, and often criticized, Google Timeline. Designed for private hosting, it allows users to collect, visualize, and manage their personal location history. It supports GPS tracking from your mobile or wearable devices, presents it on sleek, interactive maps, and preserves your privacy by keeping all data on your own hardware or cloud instance.

Key Features & Why They Matter

1. End-to-End Privacy with Self-Hosting
   You decide where the data resides, be it your Raspberry Pi, a private server, or a trusted VPS. No third-party tracking, no external analytics, no leaking of whereabouts.
2. Necessity: In an era of surveillance and location-based data misuse, owning your data is no longer a luxury, it’s a shield.
3. Clean, Interactive Journey Maps
   Automatically visualize where you’ve been, with time-stamped routes, detailed markers, and session playback. It’s a digital journal with location context.
4. Necessity: Understanding your patterns, like daily commute routes or exploration paths, serves both personal interest and planning needs without compromising your privacy.
5. Automatic or Manual Data Import
   Dawarich works with GPX files, KML exports, and even direct mobile integration through GPS trackers or custom apps. You can let it pull in location data continually, or upload it yourselves whenever.
6. Necessity: Flexibility helps you tailor tracking to your comfort level hand-entered data works just as well as continuous streams.
7. Lightweight Tech Backbone
   Built with Python and Flask, Dawarich is lean and efficient, ideal for low-powered devices. It doesn’t demand a beefy server or hungry cloud drives.
8. Necessity: Want to track all your journeys without expensive infrastructure or wasted energy? Dawarich makes it feasible.
9. User-Centric Controls & Privacy Settings
   Choose retention periods, filter out sensitive locations (like home), or anonymize your maps. It’s your data, and you decide how it’s handled.
10. Necessity: Location data is sensitive. Giving users control over how much history they keep, and how granular it is, empowers safer, smarter personal tracking.
11. Open Source, Extensible, and Community-Driven
    You can fork the core, add GPS integrations, expand mapping layers, or integrate with calendar apps.
12. Necessity: Closed systems evolve toward extraction. Open systems evolve toward service, all while fostering trust and innovation.

How to Run & Deploy Dawarich

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9+
• A device or service that records GPX/KML, or custom GPS data
• Basic familiarity with terminal and environments

Local Setup (The Easy Way)

# Clone the repo
git clone [REPO_URL]
cd dawarich
# Set up virtual environment
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt
# Copy template config and edit if desired
cp config.example.yml config.yml
# Launch the app
python app.py

Pop open your browser at http://localhost:5000 to start uploading tracks or viewing your map.

Deploy via Docker

# Build the image
docker build -t dawarich .
# Run it with volumes for persistence
docker run -d -p 8000:5000 \
  -v "$(pwd)/tracks:/app/tracks" \
  -v "$(pwd)/config.yml:/app/config.yml" \
  dawarich

Access from http://localhost:8000, and your location data stays persistent across restarts.

How to Integrate Location Data

• Export GPX from apps like OsmAnd, Strava, or Garmin Connect and drop it into Dawarich.
• Use auto-sync functionality or upload via API if you’ve created custom mobile logging tools.
• Set autopurge policies in config, like “delete data older than 3 months” for tidy storage.

Use Cases That Matter

• Daily Retrospectives: Track your run or commute on a personal timeline.
• Adventure Logging: Visualize hikes in the mountains or road trips in vivid map paths.
• Privacy-First Habit Tracking: Log where you’ve been, without tracking what you’ve bought.
• Self-Hosting Learning Project: Hobbyist dev? Dawarich is an open-source project you’ll be proud to self-host and extend.

Conclusion

What sets Dawarich apart isn’t just what it records, it’s what it doesn’t: your data being held by faceless corporations. By making privacy effortless, stylish, and accessible, the project reclaims the digital landscape for users first. So go ahead — virtualize your journeys, own your path, and store it with confidence. Your map awaits, in a cloud you control.