How to use Street Mapper

Getting started

Open the app. You can use it straight away with no account at all — search an area, see the streets, and tick off what you have covered. That history is saved on the phone you used it on.

The app opens on 🏠 Home: one big button for each job — the map, your streets, the list, history, settings and this guide. Tap 🏠 Home in the tabs to get back to it. Everything to do with your account and your team is under ⚙️ Settings at the top of the screen.

You only need to sign in when you want your whole team to see the same progress. Then everyone's ticks land in one shared picture.

Finding your area

Type into the search box at the top. It understands four things:

When the same street name exists in several places

Add the area after a comma: Baring Road, Lewisham. This matters more than it looks — searching a street name on its own often finds nothing at all, while the comma version finds it reliably.

Streets already loaded on your map are suggested first, instantly, without going to the internet.

Reading the map

Streets load by themselves as you move around, so long as you are zoomed in enough. You do not need to press anything — but there is a 🔍 Scan this area button if you want to force it.

The first time you open an area it can take up to a minute. The street information comes from a free public service that is often busy. A card in the middle of the map counts the seconds. Until the streets turn blue there is nothing to tap — the grey roads underneath are just the background picture. If it fails, the card offers 🔄 Try again.

After that, the area is saved on your phone and opens instantly next time. Your phone keeps the last six areas you've loaded, for a month. 🔍 Scan always fetches a fresh copy.

The street list

Tap 📋 List of Streets to see every street in view, with its door count and its postcodes. The number on the button tells you how many streets are loaded.

• Postcode chips — every postcode found on that street's doors. A long road can carry a dozen; the list shows four and a +n for the rest.
• Filter box — matches street names and postcodes, so typing BR1 narrows the list to that district.
• Door count — how many front doors are recorded on that street.
• Tap a street name to jump to it on the map.

Marking a street covered

Straight from the map — the quick way

1. Tap the street's line on the map. A box opens with its name and when it was last done, and by whom.
2. Tap ✅ Done for the whole street, or 🟡 Part done.

That's it. A bar at the bottom confirms it, with an Undo button for a few seconds in case you tapped the wrong street. Until you've done this a few times, a reminder at the top of the map says "Tap any street to mark it done".

With a note or a material

Tap 📝 Note, material or history in the map box, or the badge on the right of a street in 📋 List of Streets.

1. Choose ✅ Whole street or 🟡 Part of it.
2. If your team has materials set up, pick what you handed out.
3. Add a note if it helps — "left side only", "no answer at 12".
4. Tap Mark covered now.

Every entry is kept with its date, so a street covered three times shows all three. You can delete your own entries; a supervisor can delete anyone's.

History — who did what

Tap 🕘 History under the tabs. It lists every visit, newest first and grouped by day: the street, whole or part, who did it, what they delivered, the time and any note.

• When — today, the last 7 or 30 days, or all time.
• Who — one person's visits.
• What — one material, when your team uses them.
• Tap any visit to see that street on the map.

In a team, everyone sees the whole team's history. Signed out, it shows what was logged on that phone. The map itself is the quickest view of what is not done: blue lines. Supervisors also get a list of the streets nobody has done yet in the progress report.

Rounds — handing work out

A round is a named set of streets you give to people. This is the part that turns the map into an actual job you can hand over.

Every street in a round carries its postcode, because a street name on its own does not identify anywhere. There are Galahad Roads all over the country — Galahad Road, BR1 is the one you meant.

Building one by picking streets

1. Find your area and let the streets load.
2. Open 📋 List of Streets and tap 🎯 Build a round from these streets.
3. Tick the streets you are handing out. A bar at the bottom counts them.
4. Tap Next, name the round, and check the postcodes.
5. Tick which groups get it, then Create round.

About the postcodes

Each street arrives pre-filled with the postcode found on its own doors — usually the outward code, like BR1. You can sharpen it to a sector like BR1 5 when the whole round really is in one sector, or type anything you want. If a street spans two districts you will see both.

You can also drop a street from the round with the ✕ beside it before saving.

Drawing a round on the map

If you already know the area, it is faster to draw round it than to pick streets from a list.

1. Go to 🎯 My Streets and tap ✏️ Or draw one on the map. (The same button sits in the list view.)
2. Move the map so the patch you want is on screen and the streets have loaded.
3. Press and drag a loop right around the streets you want. The map will not pan while you are drawing.
4. Let go. Everything mostly inside your loop is gathered up, and the round form opens with those streets and their postcodes.

If your loop catches nothing, it was probably drawn over an area whose streets have not loaded — zoom in a little and try again.

Getting your team in

There are two ways in, and they are for different people.

Walkers — a passphrase and your name

The people out knocking on doors do not need an email or an account. The supervisor sets a team passphrase, and anyone with it can get in:

1. Tap ⚙️ Settings at the top. 🎯 Walking with a team? Enter your passphrase is at the top.
2. Type the passphrase and tap Find my team.
3. Pick your name from the list, or type it if you are new.

You land straight on your rounds. Everything you tick from then on is recorded against that name, so the team can see who did what.

Supervisors — an email

Whoever creates rounds signs in with an email and a name. No password. Use the same email on any phone and you get the same account.

Groups and combining crews

A team is your whole operation — it has the join code and holds all the history. Inside it you make groups: the small crews who actually go out. "Team A", "Tuesday crew", whatever you call them.

A round is given to one or more groups. That last part is the useful bit: when people are on breaks or at work and you are short-handed, tick two groups on the same round and you have combined them for the day. Nothing needs rearranging.

Set groups up in ⚙️ Settings → Supervisor → Groups. Add a group, then pick people into it from the dropdown. Anyone who has joined the team appears there, including walkers who came in with the passphrase.

Walking a round

Tap 🎯 My Streets. Rounds given to your group are listed first and marked YOURS, and the button itself shows how many are waiting for you.

Each street shows as Galahad Road, BR1 with buttons beside it:

• 🧭 Maps opens Google Maps with walking directions to that street. On a phone with the Google Maps app it opens in the app.
• One tap on ◻ tick marks the whole street done. That is the whole thing — no form. Tapping ✅ done again opens the street instead of logging it twice.
• 📝 Part / note is for everything else: part of the street, a note, or the full history.
• Tap the street's name to see it on Street Mapper's own map.

Under each finished street you will see who did it and when. A round shows its own progress — "4 of 6 done" — with a bar, so anyone can see at a glance what is left.

Not everyone has to walk the whole round. Split it however you like between you; each person ticks what they did and the round fills up between you.

Supervisor tools

All of these live in ⚙️ Settings once you are the supervisor of a team.

• Join code — a 6-character code for people joining with their own email.
• Team passphrase — the no-email door for walkers. There is a 🎲 button to generate one.
• Groups — create crews and put people in them.
• Materials — whatever your team hands out. These become the options people pick when marking a street covered.
• 📊 Progress report — a summary, a table of every street with times covered, who did it last and status, a breakdown per material, and the streets on your map that nobody has done yet. It prints, and it downloads as a spreadsheet.
• 📦 Put away on a finished round hides it without destroying the record of what was handed to whom.
• Deleting a team — at the very bottom of Settings, under ⚠️ Danger zone. Only the person who created the team sees it, and you type the team's name to confirm. It removes the team's whole history for everyone.

Put it on your phone

Street Mapper is a website, but you can give it an icon on your home screen so it opens like a normal app — full screen, with no browser bar in the way. That is a bit more map on a small phone, every time.

iPhone

1. Open the app in Safari.
2. Tap the Share button — the square with an arrow coming out of it.
3. Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen.

Android

1. Open the app in Chrome.
2. Tap the ⋮ menu, top right.
3. Tap Install app or Add to Home screen.

Nothing is downloaded and it still needs a connection to work — this only changes how you open it.

Text size

Tap Aa at the top of the screen. Slide to make the writing and buttons bigger or smaller, from 90% up to 150%, or tap A− and A+ at either end. Tap Done when it looks right. Your phone remembers the choice.

GPS, outlines and sharing

Finding yourself

The 📍 button (bottom right of the map, above the + and −) shows you as a blue dot and follows you as you walk. Drag the map to stop it following; tap 📍 again to re-follow, and once more to switch it off.

Outlining a street

Outlining marks a street in violet to say "this is the one I mean". It is nothing to do with coverage — it is for pointing. If you are in a team, everyone sees it live on their own phone, along with who marked it.

Sharing a street with someone who has no account

The outline panel gives you a link. Whoever opens it lands on that exact street, outlined, with no sign-in needed.

Things worth knowing

Door counts are a good estimate, not a guarantee

Street and door data comes from OpenStreetMap, which volunteers maintain. Coverage is very good in some areas and patchy in others. Blocks of flats often count as a single door. Treat the numbers as a solid guide rather than a survey.

Postcodes come from the doors

A street's postcodes are collected from the doors on it. Most have one recorded; some do not. If a street shows no postcode, you can type it in yourself when building a round.

Signed out, history is per phone

Coverage you record without signing in is stored in that browser on that device. It is not synced, and joining a team later does not bring it with you.

It needs a connection

Streets, doors and searches are all looked up live, and team progress is shared through the internet. There is no offline mode.

Postcode search is UK only

The map and street scanning work anywhere OpenStreetMap has data. Postcode lookup uses the official UK postcode database, so postcodes themselves are UK-only. Area and street name search work worldwide.