User Manual
Contents
1. Getting Started
On first launch, a short tutorial walks you through the most important features. You can replay it any time: Menu (☰) → Help → Show tutorial.
The app asks for the location permission at startup — it is only used when you actively save a parking spot or search for nearby parking. The camera permission is needed for photos and the notification permission for timer alerts.
Navigating the app: at the bottom you'll find the tabs Dashboard, History and Settings. The menu (☰) in the top left additionally gives you Trash, Archive, Nearby Parking, Help and About.
2. Saving a Parking Spot
Tap the big P button on the Dashboard when you leave your car. The app determines your GPS position, resolves the address, and creates the spot as your active parking spot.
While the position is being determined (up to 10 seconds), the button shows a loading spinner. Only one spot can be active at a time — saving a new one automatically moves the previous spot to your history.
3. Without GPS Signal (Parking Garage)
You can save your parking spot even without GPS reception — for example in a parking garage or underground car park. The app tries, in this order:
- Current position — if a GPS fix is possible.
- Last known position — usually the garage entrance. A toast informs you about it.
- Without a location — the spot is created anyway so you can use photos, notes and the parking meter timer.
For a spot without a location, the card shows "No location saved" together with an Add location button. As soon as you have GPS reception again (e.g. after leaving the garage), one tap fetches your current position — the map, address and navigation then appear automatically.
4. The Active Parking Spot
The active spot is shown as a card on the Dashboard with:
- Map preview — a small map shows the saved position.
- Address — resolved automatically; tap the speaker icon to have it read aloud.
- Parking time — date/time you parked plus a live counter showing to the second how long you've been parked.
- Star rating — give 0 to 5 stars. Tap the currently selected star to clear the rating.
Note
Note → enter text → Save. Ideal for the parking level, spot number or ticket details.
Parking fee
Tap the Add parking fee line on the card to record what you paid. It is shown in the currency of your device region, and you can type either a comma or a dot as the decimal separator. Clearing the field removes the fee again. Fees can also be added or changed later from History and Archive.
Photos & Videos
Photo or Video — choose between camera (capture new) and gallery (pick an existing file). You can attach multiple photos and videos per spot.
- Tapping a photo opens the zoomable fullscreen viewer.
- Videos are marked with a play icon and open in your default video player.
- Deleting: tap the small X on a thumbnail (with confirmation) — also possible from the fullscreen viewer.
Release
Release ends the active spot and moves it to your history. A running parking meter timer is cancelled automatically.
6. Parking Meter Timer
Parking meter → choose a duration — set how long your parking ticket or disc is valid. A countdown then runs on the active spot.
- Early warning: 5 minutes before expiry you get a notification — enough time to walk back or extend.
- Expiry alert: when time is up, the app notifies you again.
- Extending: use the +15 min quick action in the notification to extend the timer without opening the app.
7. Notification & Widget
Ongoing notification
While a spot is active, a notification with three quick actions stays in your notification shade:
- Navigate — starts walking navigation to your car. Omitted for a spot without a location.
- +15 min — extends the parking meter timer.
- Release — ends the spot and moves it to your history.
Home screen widget
Add the Parking widget to your home screen (long-press an empty area → Widgets → Parking Reminder). It shows the address of your active spot; one tap starts navigation directly. Without an active spot — or when that spot has no location saved — the widget opens the app instead.
8. History
The History tab lists all past parking spots with address, date, note, rating, photos and videos.
- Search: filter the list by address or note — matches are highlighted.
- Read aloud: tap the speaker icon to hear the address.
- Show on map — opens the previous spot in your maps app.
- Walk (pedestrian icon) and Drive (car icon): navigate back to a previous spot on foot or by car — handy when you want to find a good spot again.
- Edit note: tap an entry's note line (or "Add note" if there isn't one yet) to change it afterwards.
- Rating: stars can be changed later at any time.
Swipe gestures
- Swipe right → move the entry to the Archive.
- Swipe left → move the entry to the Trash.
Both actions ask for confirmation first. Via the menu (⋮) you can reach Archive and Trash and move the entire history to the trash.
9. Archive & Trash
Archive and Trash offer the same navigation icons as History — on foot and by car. Notes can additionally be edited in the Archive.
Archive
For spots you want to keep without cluttering your history — e.g. your regular spot.
- Swipe right → back to history.
- Swipe left → to the trash.
Trash
Deleted entries land here first and can be restored.
- Swipe right → restore.
- Swipe left → delete permanently (cannot be undone).
You can also empty the entire trash via the menu.
10. Nearby Parking
Menu (☰) → Nearby Parking — the app searches for public parking around your current location (data source: OpenStreetMap).
- A map with markers on top, and below it a list sorted by distance.
- Tapping a list entry moves the map to the matching marker — and vice versa.
- Use the navigation icon to start a route to the chosen parking spot.
11. Settings
- Language — English or German.
- Theme — light, dark, or follow the system setting.
- Color scheme — 8 color palettes or Android 12+ dynamic colors (adapt to your wallpaper).
- Navigation app — Google Maps directly, or decide each time via Android's app chooser.
- Save to gallery — additionally stores photos and videos taken with the camera in the gallery album "Parking Reminder". Off by default; available on Android 10 and newer.
- Data — backup, restore and CSV export. Appears with the Pro version.
The menu (⋮) in the top right also offers Export existing media, which copies every photo and video saved so far to your gallery in one go. Older entries do not record whether they came from the camera or were imported from the gallery, so a few may end up in the gallery twice.
12. Pro version
Everything you use today stays free — saving a spot, navigation, the parking meter, photos, videos, notes, ratings, parking fees, history, archive, trash, the widget and the notification. The Pro version adds three features on top. It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription.
Backup & restore
Settings → Data → Create backup writes your entire parking history including photos and videos into a single ZIP file. You decide where it goes — on the device, in a cloud of your choice or on attached storage. No account is required, and nothing is sent to us.
This is the only complete way to secure your data: Android's own backup service deliberately excludes photos and videos, because its quota of 25 MB per app would be blown by a single video, pushing the small but valuable database out of the backup.
Settings → Data → Restore backup reads such a file back in — on a new phone, for instance.
If the chosen file does not fit — because it is not a Parking Reminder backup, or was written by a newer version of the app — the app says so and leaves your data untouched.
CSV export
Settings → Data → CSV export produces a spreadsheet with date, address, parking duration, cost, note and rating. You choose the period: this month, last month, all entries, or a date range of your own.
The file is built for spreadsheet apps and opens correctly in Excel, LibreOffice or Google Sheets on the first try: the field and decimal separators follow your device's region, the duration is a plain number of minutes so you can sum it, and the currency sits in the header rather than in every cell — otherwise the cost column could not be added up.
Entries in the trash are left out; archived spots are included.
Statistics
Menu (☰) → Statistics shows an overview of your parking history: number of sessions, average duration, total cost, and bar charts for sessions and cost per month. Below that are the areas you park in most often.
Restoring your purchase
The purchase belongs to your Google account, not to the device. After a reinstall or on a new phone the app picks it up automatically on startup. If it does not: Settings → Parking Reminder Pro → Restore purchase. Without an internet connection Pro of course stays unlocked.
13. Frequently Asked Questions
Where is my data stored?
Exclusively locally on your device. There are no accounts, no ads and no tracking, and none of it reaches us — we run no server. Three features inherently need the internet and send only what they require for it: nearby parking passes your coordinates to the OpenStreetMap project's map service, while the map view and address lookup go through Google. If you use Android's backup service, however, the operating system backs up the database and settings to your Google account — photos and videos are excluded from it. Details in the privacy policy.
How do I back up my spots, photos and videos completely?
Through backup & restore in the Pro version. Android's own backup service covers the database and settings but not photos and videos — the backup file is the only way to secure everything together and read it back on a new device.
What happens when I uninstall the app?
All locally stored data (parking spots, photos, videos, settings) is removed. Photos and videos captured with the camera live only inside the app, not in your gallery, so they are gone afterwards — unless you enabled "Save to gallery". Media you picked from the gallery of course stays there.
Why is no address shown?
The address is resolved via the device's geocoding service and needs an internet connection. Without a connection, the spot is still saved with its coordinates; without a GPS fix, see section 3.
The parking meter alert didn't arrive — why?
Check that notifications are allowed for the app and that your device isn't restricting it in the background (battery optimization). On heavily customized Android versions it helps to exempt the app from battery optimization.