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Glossary
Updated 2026-11-13
Look up a word you met in the app and jump to the answer that explains it.
A
- Activity
- What you do on a route, such as hiking or running; it sets the pace and the calories.
- AI assistant (MCP)
- On the Mac, an assistant such as Claude can plan, find and organize your routes; every change can be undone.
- Ascent and descent
- How many metres a route climbs and drops in total, shown in the elevation profile.
B
- Backup and iCloud sync
- Your routes, collections and landmarks are kept in iCloud and stay in sync on Mac, iPad and iPhone.
- Base map
- The map underneath everything, such as OpenStreetMap or a regional topographic map.
C
- Calories
- The estimated energy a route costs you, from its distance, ascent and your body profile.
- Collection
- A folder of your own that groups routes, like a playlist.
- Contact and support
- How to reach the developer, and what to include so a problem can be found quickly.
- Custom map source
- A base map or overlay of your own, added from a tile server address.
E
- E-bike assist
- None, Light or Strong motor support; it shortens the duration and lowers the calories of a ride.
- Edit in OpenStreetMap
- Opens the map editor where you are looking, to add a missing trail or fix one that is wrong.
- Elevation accuracy
- Why heights can differ from a GPS watch: they come from terrain data, smoothed against noise.
- Elevation profile
- The chart of height along the route, with its ascent and descent and the steepness of each stretch.
- Estimate
- The duration, arrival time and calories TrailRunner works out from your pace and the climb.
F
- Flagged routes
- Routes you flag stay drawn faintly on the map, in their route colour, while you browse others.
G
- GPX export
- Send a route to a watch or another app as a GPX file.
- GPX import
- Bring in GPX, KML or TCX/FIT files as a track you can edit into a route.
H
- Hillshade and contour lines
- Shading and height lines that show the shape of the terrain on a base map.
K
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Keys for planning and browsing quickly on the Mac.
L
- Landmark
- A saved place on the map, kept on its own, apart from any route.
M
- Map cache
- The map tiles kept on your device; Clear Map Cache empties it when the map looks wrong or out of date.
- Map labels
- The small tags along a route: distances, turns or waymarks.
- Moving time and pauses
- For a recorded track: the time you were moving, and each pause, apart from the total time.
N
- Network
- Which ways the planner may use, for example hiking trails or roads for cycling.
O
- Offline map data
- Map and trail data stored on your device, so planning and waymarks work without a connection.
- One Way, Round Trip, Out & Back
- How a route closes: it ends elsewhere, returns as a loop, or retraces its way back.
- OpenStreetMap
- The open world map, cared for by volunteers, that TrailRunner Mini plans on.
- Overlay
- A transparent layer on top of the base map, such as hiking trails.
P
- Pace
- Minutes per kilometre or mile; your flat pace sets every duration estimate.
- Preload Visible Region
- Downloads the map data of the area on screen, so routing and waymarks work there without a connection.
R
- Route colours
- The colour of a route line; with quality on the map it shows surface or steepness instead.
- Routing properties
- Rules the planner applies between waypoints, such as Prefer Trails, Avoid Unpaved or the Smart Planner.
S
- Segment
- The stretch between two neighbouring waypoints; it follows the network or runs as a straight line.
- Slow or blurred map
- Why the map can take a moment or look blurred, and how offline map data helps.
- Smart Planner
- The routing property that plans a route to a distance, time or calories budget.
- Speed or pace
- Choose per activity whether TrailRunner shows speed or pace.
- Statistics
- The inspector section of a recorded track: total time, moving time, pauses and average pace.
- Straight
- A segment drawn as a direct line between two waypoints, ignoring the trail network.
- Surface and steepness
- What the Quality section colours a route by: how rough the going is, or how steep each stretch climbs.
T
- Track
- Geometry that was recorded or imported, for example from a GPX import, rather than planned.
- Trail markings
- The symbols of a marked trail, drawn along your route by the Waymarks label, the same marks you see outside.
- Turns
- Map labels placed just past every turn, their arrow pointing the way to go.
W
- Waymarks
- The painted signs of an official trail, shown on the map the way you see them outside.
- Waypoint
- A pin you place in the route editor; the route is routed through every waypoint in order.
