Frequently asked questions

A construction-site camera app that stamps every photo with location, date/time, compass heading, elevation, and the project/site/activity it belongs to — built for civil engineers, contractors and field teams documenting site work.

Civil engineers, site engineers, site supervisors, contractors, builders, architects, surveyors, project managers, and QC, safety and infrastructure teams working on construction sites.

Yes. Capture, GPS, compass, elevation, photo stamping, the gallery, marking up photos and PDF creation all work with no network connection. Only address lookup needs connectivity, and the address is simply left off when offline.

To stamp each photo with its coordinates and accuracy. Location is used only while the camera screen is open, so a fresh fix is ready when you press the shutter. It stops when you leave the camera, switch apps or lock the phone, and is never used in the background.

To open the device camera and capture the photo — this is the app's core function. The app takes still photos only; it does not use the microphone.

Inside the app's private storage on your phone: the unedited original and the GPS-stamped copy, plus any marked-up copy. By default a copy of each stamped photo is also saved to your phone Gallery, in the album "Makkaddam GPS Camera". Nothing is uploaded to Makkaddam.

Yes. New stamped photos are copied to the album "Makkaddam GPS Camera" automatically. You can turn this off under Account & Storage, or copy older photos with "Save to phone gallery". Photos in the phone Gallery can also be seen by other gallery apps and by Google Photos backup, if you use it.

Yes. The unedited original is saved first and is never overwritten — not by the stamp and not by any marks you draw. The stamped and marked-up versions are always separate files.

A copy of the original with a data card composited onto it — project, site, activity, date/time, GPS coordinates and accuracy, elevation with its source, compass heading, and captured-by details — plus a small app watermark.

It depends on your device and surroundings — typically a few metres in open ground, worse indoors or near tall buildings. The accuracy figure is always shown alongside the coordinate, and if the fix used is more than 15 seconds old the stamp says so. See How It Works for detail.

Phone GPS generally degrades or becomes unavailable indoors, since it relies on satellite visibility. If no usable fix is available, the photo is still captured and the stamp says "GPS unavailable" instead of guessing.

Phone GPS elevation is inherently less precise than horizontal position. The app always labels elevation with its source (GPS-estimated or a manually entered project Benchmark) so it's never mistaken for a surveyed figure.

The compass direction the camera was pointing at capture, shown as a degree value and a cardinal label (e.g. 134° SE).

The phone's compass sensor can be uncalibrated or affected by nearby metal/magnetic interference. When the reading looks unreliable, the app flags it rather than showing a false heading.

Yes, an unlimited number of Projects, each with their own Sites and photo galleries.

Yes — every photo is filed under the Project, Site and Activity selected at capture time, with optional Building and Floor notes. The gallery can show one Site at a time, and photos can later be moved to another project or site.

Yes. Long-press a photo, then tap others or use "Select all". You can then share them together, make one PDF, move, rename, save them to the phone Gallery or delete them.

You can combine any selected photos into one PDF — one photo per page, in gallery order, each with its Photo ID, date and time, project, site, activity and remark. The PDF is saved on the phone and can be shared straight away. There are no other report templates yet.

Yes. Add arrows, boxes, circles, lines, free drawing, highlights, text, numbered tags and a remark. The marked-up picture is saved separately, the original and stamped photos stay unchanged, and your marks remain editable.

Yes. New photos are named like PROJECT_SITE_YYMMDD_PHOTOID. When you rename, the Photo ID is always kept at the end of the file name, and one photo can never overwrite another.

Yes, using your phone's native share sheet — WhatsApp, email, Drive, or any other installed app — for one photo, several at once, or a combined PDF.

No. Photos and project data stay on your phone. The app has no Makkaddam server and does not upload your photos. A photo or PDF leaves the phone only when you share it yourself.

Under Account & Storage, tap "Back up all photos (ZIP)". It creates one ZIP with every photo and its details and opens the share sheet so you can save it to Files, Drive or a computer. Copies in the phone Gallery are another safeguard.

No. There are no advertising or analytics SDKs in the app, and the app does not transmit your photos or project data anywhere. See the Privacy Policy for full detail.

Delete photos inside the app (you'll confirm the exact number). Uninstalling the app or clearing its data removes the app's own copies of photos and project data. Copies saved to the phone Gallery are not removed by the app — delete those from your Gallery app if you want them gone.

No. The current version needs no account, sign-up or login.

Visit the Support page for troubleshooting, or use the contact details listed there.