Last Updated: August 6, 2025
Looking to track miles on your iPhone? Whether it’s for fitness, personal use, or business tax deductions, your iPhone offers several options. From built-in features to specialized apps, knowing the best method can save you time and money. Let’s dive in.
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Track Miles on iPhone for Fitness and Everyday Use
Your iPhone comes with some great basic tools to help you track your steps and activity. These are perfect for personal fitness goals or just seeing how much you move around.
Apple Health App
The Apple Health App is your go-to for tracking walking and running distances. It uses your iPhone’s built-in sensors to count your steps and estimate the distance you cover. This is ideal if you’re only interested in your personal activity levels.
- How to use it: Open the Health app, tap “Browse,” then “Activity,” and look for “Walking + Running Distance.” You can see your daily, weekly, or monthly distance. You can even switch between miles and kilometers.
- What it’s good for: Keeping tabs on your walks or runs for exercise.
- What it’s not good for: It won’t track driving miles, so it’s useless for recording your travels for business tax purposes.
Other Fitness Apps (e.g., Map My Walk) can be just as good as Apple’s default fitness app, depending on your specific needs and preferences.
Apple Maps and Google Maps
While not direct mileage trackers, Apple Maps and Google Maps can help you recall past trips. This might be useful if you need to remember a route you took.
- How to use them: Apple Maps uses “Significant Locations” (in Privacy settings) to show places you’ve been. Google Maps’ Timeline feature also logs your past movements.
- What they’re good for: Remembering where you’ve been. They list your trips and show the distances taken.
- What they’re not good for: They record every movement taken, so it’s not optimal for fitness or business driving. Plus, you would need to categorize each trip for business or tax purposes manually. This isn’t an automatic solution at all.
How to Track Miles on iPhone for Business and Taxes
This is where things get serious for many of you. Business mileage tracking isn’t just about knowing how far you drove; it’s about accurate, IRS-compliant logs that can save you significant money come tax time. For this, dedicated mileage tracker apps are the best.
Dedicated Mileage Tracking Apps
For anyone needing to track miles for tax deductions or reimbursements, specialized mileage tracking apps are a must. They automate the process and ensure your logs meet IRS standards.
- Automatic Trip Logging: No need to remember every drive or jot down miles manually.
- Accurate Records for Tax Deductions: Ensures you don’t miss out on eligible write-offs.
- Time-Saving Reports: Instantly generate mileage logs instead of spending hours in spreadsheets.
- Cloud Backup and Sync – Access your data from multiple devices securely.
- Easy Trip Classification – Quickly mark drives as business or personal with a tap.
This table gives you a quick look at the different ways you can track miles on iPhone and what each method is best for:
| Fitness & Walking | Business Driving | |
| Health and Fitness Apps | Yes | No |
| Apple Maps/Google Maps | Yes* | Yes* |
| Dedicated Mileage Trackers | No | Yes |
*These apps are optimized for navigation, so they don’t offer an overview of trips or mileage, nor other functionalities that are important for fitness or business (burned calories, business purpose, etc.).
Why Dedicated Mileage Trackers Are a Game-Changer
Using a dedicated mileage tracker app for taxes takes the guesswork out of logging your drives. Instead of juggling notes, spreadsheets, or half-working GPS apps, you get accurate, automated tracking tailored for tax deductions and reimbursements. It’s the easiest way to save time, avoid IRS issues, and make sure you’re not leaving money on the table.
For more details on IRS rules, you can check out IRS Publication 463 (Travel, Gift, and Car Expenses).
MileageWise: Your Ultimate Solution for Mileage Tracking
Now, let’s talk about how to track miles on iPhone effectively and hassle-free, especially for business. While many apps exist, MileageWise offers a unique approach that stands out, particularly for its automated features and long-term value.
MileageWise uses smart technology to make tracking simple. This means less work for you and more money in your pocket.
MileageWise’s Key Features for iPhone Users
- Automatic Mileage Tracking: Offers multiple tracking options. Choose the one that fits you the most!
- Quick Setup: Intuitive and quick onboarding. Get started in minutes!
- Ad-Free & Privacy-Focused: No annoying ads or worries about your data being sold.
- Backup Mileage Capture: We offer a backup mileage capture strategy, ensuring full route accountability.
- Flexible Routing/Distance Calculations: Configure the app to calculate either the optimal distance or follow the actual routes driven.
- Routing Integration with Waze: Waze navigates you, while your trip details are recorded.
- Expense Tracking Integration: MileageWise fully supports integrated expense tracking.
Try MileageWise for free for 14 days. No credit card required!
Automatic Mileage Tracker App
AI Logs & Google Timeline Import
Customer Story: A Daycare Provider’s Mileage Tracking Solution
As a home daycare provider, I am always on the move picking up supplies, dropping off kids, and attending training sessions. I used to rely on scribbled notes and memory to track my mileage for taxes. I finally searched how to track miles on iPhone, and that is how I found MileageWise.
It was a game-changer. I set it up once, and now it tracks my trips automatically in the background with no more missed miles or manual entries. What I love most is that it does not bombard me with ads, and I can sort personal and business drives with just a tap. By the end of the year, I had an IRS-proof mileage log ready without even trying. If you are wondering how to track miles on iPhone for business, this is the answer.
Conclusion: Take Control of Your Mileage
Tracking miles on your iPhone doesn’t have to be a chore. For casual fitness tracking, your built-in Health app works fine. But for anyone needing accurate, IRS-compliant logs for business or tax purposes, dedicated apps are the only way to go. MileageWise, with its focus on accuracy, efficiency, and audit-proof compliance, offers a comprehensive solution to streamline your mileage tracking and maximize your tax deductions.
Here’s how to get started:
- Assess Your Needs: Decide if you need basic fitness tracking or detailed, IRS-compliant business mileage.
- Choose Your Tool: For business, download a dedicated app like MileageWise.
- Setup and Automate: Follow the app’s setup guide and activate automatic tracking.
- Drive and Forget: Let the app do the work in the background.
- Generate Reports: Easily create and export IRS-ready reports for tax season.
- Save Money: Maximize your deductions and minimize your tax burden.
FAQ
Can my iPhone track miles automatically?
Yes. Your iPhone can automatically track your walking and running distances using the built-in Apple Health app (from iPhone 5s onwards, provided it’s been carried with you). For automatic tracking of driven miles, you’ll need a third-party app.
How do I enable or improve mile tracking on my iPhone?
Ensure “Fitness Tracking” is enabled in Settings → Privacy & Security → Motion & Fitness → Turn on “Fitness Tracking” and “Health.” Also, keep your iPhone with you during your activities.
How do I check how many miles I’ve walked or run with my iPhone?
Open the Apple Health app → Tap “Browse” → Choose “Activity” → Tap “Walking + Running Distance.” Here you can see your daily, weekly, and monthly miles data.
Does my iPhone record driving miles?
The iPhone’s built-in Health app does NOT track driving miles. To log business or personal driving mileage, use a third-party app like MileageWise.
Can Apple Maps or Google Maps track my total mileage for trips?
Apple Maps and Google Maps show the distance and mileage for a route before you start navigation. They can be viewed later in Google Timeline. However, use a dedicated mileage tracker app if you need a mileage log for taxes.
