Offline and sync

This page covers how the app keeps your work safe with no signal, what the sync states mean, and how to unstick a stuck upload.

The model, in one breath

Everything you capture saves to your phone the instant you take it. The app uploads in the background whenever it has a connection. No signal in a basement? Capture anyway. Nothing is lost; the upload just waits.

The golden rule, quoted from the app itself: "Nothing is deleted from this device until it is safely stored and verified by the server."

What works offline

Works with no connection	Needs a connection
Capturing photos, video, and audio	Submitting to your team
Adding and managing rooms	Claiming, releasing, or completing rooms
Tags, notes, and groups	Creating assignments
Reviewing everything on the phone	Managing access

Try an online-only action with no signal and the app tells you so. Nothing silently fails.

The sync states

Every piece of media carries a state. You see it on grid tiles, in the viewer footer, and on the Sync status screen.

State	Color	What it means
Saved on device	Gray	Captured and safe on your phone, not uploaded yet
Processing	Amber	The app is building previews and attaching evidence data
Waiting to upload	Amber	Ready and queued for the next connection
Uploading	Blue	Sending right now
Synced	Green	Stored and verified on the server
Upload failed	Red	Tried several times and gave up. Needs your Retry.

The indicators

• Offline pill (red, top of screen): no connection. Capture away.
• Syncing… pill: the app is moving data right now.
• Per-assignment badge: green Synced, amber N pending, red N failed. Tap pending or failed to jump to Sync status.
• Per-photo badge: the state of that one item.

The Sync status screen

Open it from Settings → Sync status, or by tapping a pending or failed badge. It has four parts:

1. Network card: shows Wi-Fi, Cellular, or Offline. If you turned on Wi-Fi-only uploads and you are on cellular, it says "Uploads paused. Waiting for Wi-Fi (your setting)." Tap Sync now to push everything it can right now.
2. Counters: metadata waiting to push, media uploads pending, and upload failures.
3. Media by state: a breakdown of every item by the states in the table above.
4. Upload queue: one row per capture, showing progress ("N of M uploaded") and three steps per item: Original, Preview, Thumbnail, each with its own state and attempt count.

Fixing items from the queue

• Per item: Retry (try again), Restart (start that item over), or Start now (jump the queue).
• In bulk: Retry all failed (N) and Restart stalled (N).

What the app does on its own

• Retries failed uploads automatically, with growing pauses between attempts.
• Keeps uploading while the app is in the background, and the phone wakes it periodically to keep the queue draining.
• After several failed attempts (about eight), an item gives up and shows Upload failed. That is your cue to open Sync status and tap Retry. It almost always goes through on a better connection.

Wi-Fi only

If your data plan is tight, turn on Upload on Wi-Fi only in Settings. Capture, rooms, tags, and notes all keep working normally; only the uploads wait for Wi-Fi.

A note on storage

To keep your phone from filling up, synced photo originals are later swapped for smaller copies. The untouched original stays safe on the server, and the Full res button in the viewer downloads it back whenever you need it. Videos and audio always stay in full on the phone. See Reviewing your media.