I opened the app and the map is empty
That is right: the map shows your notes, and on the first day there are none. It does not arrive filled with other people’s places, because this app has no public layer.
The first note fixes it. Stand where you want to remember something, tap the +, and write. Two taps, no questions. From then on the map is your city, annotated.
You can also share an address or a map link from any other app into Asterisco, and it becomes a note in the right place.
Why it asks for my location
A note with no coordinate is not a note in this app: the place is what lets it find you again. The permission is asked once, when you open the map, and location is only read while the app is open in front of you.
Background location is a different thing, and it is not asked for. The one exception is reminders: if you turn a reminder on for a specific note, the system has to wake the app when you pass near it, and only then is the permission requested, with an explanation on screen. Somebody who never uses reminders is never asked.
You can refuse and keep using it: the note has no coordinate until you tap the map to say where it belongs.
The GPS put my note in the wrong place
On a street with tall buildings, 30 to 50 metres out is ordinary, and the app shows the accuracy of the fix precisely so it does not pretend to a certainty it does not have.
Drag the pin to where the note really is. You can also press and hold on the map before writing and drop the pin on the spot. On a street you can see, aiming beats any fix.
My photos are not on my other device
Photos and voice notes upload on Wi-Fi only by default, so the app does not spend your data without asking. Until they go, the file on your phone is the photo: it shows there as normal and travels later.
Settings shows how many files are queued, and lets you change how much space the app keeps on the device.
I searched for “cafe” and it missed “café”
It should find it. Search ignores accents in both directions, on the phone and on the server. If it missed, something else is going on: check that the folder is included in the search and that the note has not moved to a folder you switched off the map.
How do I get everything I wrote out
Settings, export. You get your notes as GeoJSON, a copy of each note in Markdown, your attachments and your history.
It has been there since the first version and needs nobody’s permission. Leaving with what you wrote is a feature, not a favour.
What happens if I delete my account
Your own notes, folders, attachments and view history are erased. Your user row becomes a record holding a display name, because notes you wrote in other people’s shared folders stay, because they belong to those folders, and removing them would destroy the records of the people still using them.
You can choose to have your name on those notes read as “former member” instead. It is offered at the moment you delete.
Export first. Afterwards there is no undoing it.
What is a Group
A group is a workspace with an administrator: one person invites, removes and holds the account, and the group’s folders belong to the group rather than to whoever wrote in them.
Whoever administers the group reads every note in it. The invite says so, and it is worth repeating here, because that is the difference between a group and a shared folder.
You join by @handle and you can leave whenever you like, and what you wrote stays, with your name on it. Sharing a folder with people is still free and needs no group at all.
Who else can see my notes
Only the people you choose. There are no public notes, no “people nearby”, and no coordinate is sent to a third party, not bucketed, not “anonymised”.
Moving a note into a shared folder or a group folder publishes it to those people in one gesture, so the app asks first and says to whom.
I still need to talk to somebody
Write to contato@asterisco.app. Say which device and what happened; it helps a great deal.