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Help About Browsing Editing Upload

One good way to get involved in the OpenStreetMap project is to upload GPS track logs. They are then added to the background of the editing map as thin lines or little dots. These lines and dots are one basis for the manually drawn lines that make up the map, like using aerial imagery. If you're having trouble uploading a GPX file, this page and the FAQ might help you sort things out.

For more information on using GPS devices and creating GPX files see Recording GPS tracks and Making GPX Tracks. Note that uploading GPS traces is a different process than editing the map, and is also different from bulk imports.

Contents

How to upload a GPX file

The GPS traces tab
  1. Log in to the main OpenStreetMap site.
  2. Select the "GPS traces" tab.
  3. Select "See just your traces, or upload a trace"
  4. Use the "Browse" button to select the GPX file on your local computer.
  5. Enter a Description and Tags, if you like
  6. Select the Visibility of GPS traces.
    • If you do not want your GPX points to be seen by anybody else, stop here and do not upload. Instead, use an editor which can display GPX files from your local storage without uploading them, such as for example JOSM.
  7. Click Upload.

The file will be uploaded to the OSM server, where it will join the queue of files waiting to be inserted into the database.

Tagging

Tags provide a simple way to describe your GPS traces. They make your GPX file findable with a single word and allow you to group the trace alongside other similar traces. For example, all the traces tagged 'Melbourne' are listed at http://www.openstreetmap.org/traces/tag/Melbourne. You may have seen tags elsewhere on the web, attached to photos, bookmarks, blog entries, and so on, and these follow a similar principle.

Each file can have many tags, and you can enter as many as you like with commas (",") between them. Usually the tags are the names of countries, cities and other places your trace concerns.

Note
Tags are case-sensitive - so Melbourne and melbourne may supply different results.

Tagging traces is completely separate from tagging OSM data itself. Don't get the two confused!

What happens to my file after it has been uploaded?

You will not see any streets drawn in over your tracks, until you (or somebody else) uses an editor to draw the streets as nodes and ways with tags. (Q:Why aren't my GPS traces shown on the maps?)

Your GPX file is parsed by the OSM server and points are extracted and inserted into the database. These uploads go into a queue on the server, and occasionally there is a backlog. Once completed however, you will be able to...

Compressed files

A single file may also be uploaded after being compressed by gzip, having a .gpx.gz extension. If you have a big file or multiple files to upload, you may compress them into a zip archive and upload it. It will then be treated as one big gpx file (that is, only one entry in your trace list is created).

Upload Waypoints

GPS waypoints cannot be uploaded to the OSM database directly. However, they can be converted to tracks and then be uploaded temporarily, for example, so they can be displayed as background objects in Potlatch. See Upload Waypoints.

Applications supporting direct upload of GPS track logs

Software developers may be interested in the documentation for the GPX upload API.

The following applications support direct upload to OpenStreetMap:

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