How to Switch Mileage Apps Without Losing Your IRS Log (2026)

The search is usually some version of: I am leaving MileIQ / Everlance / Stride / a spreadsheet / Google Timeline. I already have months of trips. I do not want to rebuild this in April from memory. That is a real problem, and it is a switch problem — not a reconstruction, not a CPA handoff, and not a feature comparison. Publication 463 still wants a contemporaneous record: date, destination or route, business purpose, miles, plus total miles on the car and the business / commuting / other split. You can keep that file through a move. You do not have to start the year over.

What people lose is not the new app. They lose January through yesterday because they canceled the old subscription, wiped the phone, or imported a dollar dashboard with no dates. The IRS does not care which icon sat on the Home Screen. It cares whether the five fields still exist, whether total vehicle miles still bound the claim, and whether 2026’s two rates sit on the date of the drive.

Evidence note (no Search Console). We do not have Google Search Console data for this topic and do not invent clicks, rankings, or traffic. The page exists because drivers already lose logs when they cancel a tracker mid-year — the live record-retention guide calls that out as a single point of failure — and because TaxMiles Pro unlocks history import from MileIQ, Everlance, Stride, and Google Timeline. The outcome is a dated log you can still use in March, not a scoreboard.

Step 1: Export CSV and PDF from the old app before you cancel

Do this first. Not after the trial ends. Not after you “just check” the new app for a week. A contemporaneous log that exists only inside one subscription is one tap from gone.

From MileIQ, Everlance, Stride, or whatever you use today:

1. Export the year-to-date trip list, not a screenshot of this month’s dollar total.
2. Save CSV (or a spreadsheet) for the rows a new app — or a CPA — can filter.
3. Save PDF for the packet you can still open if the CSV importer chokes.
4. If the old tool also exports a year summary, save that too. It is a checksum, not the log.
5. Copy the files to a folder you control (Files, iCloud Drive, a desktop). Do not leave the only copy in the old app’s cloud.

Spreadsheet or Google Timeline users: export the sheet or Timeline location history for the same dates. Timeline is a movement record, not a classified IRS log. Treat it as raw material you still have to label.

What this step is not: handing a CPA the January package. That checklist is how to export your mileage log for your CPA. Tonight you are only making sure the first half of 2026 still exists after the icon is gone. How long to keep the copy: IRS record retention for mileage logs.

Step 2: Snapshot today’s odometer and year-to-date mile totals

Schedule C Part IV (or Form 4562 Part V) asks for total miles on the vehicle and the three-way split: business, commuting, other. An import that only brings paid Uber / DoorDash hops will understate commuting and other, then overstate business-use percentage. Photograph the dash today. Write four numbers next to the photo:

• Odometer reading and the date (the switch-day bookend)
• Year-to-date business miles in the old app
• Year-to-date commuting miles
• Year-to-date other / personal miles, and the total the old app claims

If the old app never tracked commuting or personal, do not invent them. Use the odometer delta from January 1 (or the next best dated reading) as the ceiling, subtract the business miles you can support, and leave the rest in commuting / other. The photo method is how to keep an odometer photo log. After the import, those four numbers are how you know the new app did not drop a month or double-count a week.

Step 3: Map old columns to the IRS five fields

Open the CSV. Ignore the pretty dashboard. You are looking for columns you can rename so a stranger — a CPA, an examiner, next-year you — can still read a trip. Publication 463’s core list, plus the vehicle boxes Schedule C actually asks for:

What must survive	Typical old-app column	Not enough by itself
Date of the drive	Start time, trip date	A month bucket or “this year”
Destination or route	Start / end address, area name	A city with no trip
Business purpose	Category + note (“Uber rider, home to airport”)	A green swipe with no sentence
Miles for that trip	Distance	A running dollar total
Vehicle + total miles on the car	Car name, odometer bookends	Business miles with no ceiling
Business / commuting / other	Classification, commute flag	100% business on a family car

If purpose is only “Business,” add a short note while you still remember the route: “DoorDash, restaurant to customer” or “Home to regular LAX cell lot (commute).” Do not relabel commuting as business because you are switching tools. The sorting guide is what counts as a business mile. Field-by-field: IRS mileage log requirements. The weekly habit you are trying to keep intact is how to keep an IRS-ready mileage log.

Two apps showing the same physical mile: count it once. A switch is where Uber on-trip plus the old tracker’s auto-detect of the same road gets pasted in twice. One physical mile is one deduction.

Step 4: Import the history, or rebuild it in stages from the export

Now open the new tracker. The point of an import is to move rows you already classified, not to invent a summer. TaxMiles: Mileage Tracker (id 6758579463) unlocks history import on Pro — MileIQ, Everlance, Stride, and Google Timeline — along with CPA PDF/CSV exports and unlimited trips. Free still auto-detects and lets you swipe-classify 40 automatic trips a month, no credit card. A full-time multi-app week will blow past 40; that is a volume gate, not a reason to skip the export in Step 1.

Practical order:

1. Create the vehicle in the new app (year, make, model). Enter today’s odometer from Step 2.
2. Run the history import if the file is one of the formats the app accepts. Do not import the same CSV twice.
3. Spot-check: pick three dates you remember — a long Saturday, a day off, a day that straddles June 30. Confirm miles, purpose, and classification landed.
4. Compare year-to-date business / commuting / other / total against the snapshot. A 10% miss is a mapping problem, not “close enough.”
5. If a month is thin or the importer skips notes, rebuild that month from the CSV/PDF you already saved. That is still a transfer. It is not a year-end reconstruction from memory.

If tracking already stopped — you canceled months ago, or you only have Timeline crumbs — stop treating this as a switch. That weaker path is how to reconstruct a mileage log after the fact. Label reconstructed months on a cover sheet. Do not dress them up as live rows from the old app.

Shopping, not switching: MileIQ vs a free iPhone tracker and Everlance vs TaxMiles are the comparison pages. Come back here once you have picked a destination and still have the old export.

Step 5: Verify the June 30 rate split on the imported trips

2026 has two business standard mileage rates (Notice 2026-10 / Announcement 2026-11):

• 72.5¢ per business mile driven January 1 through June 30
• 76¢ per business mile driven July 1 through December 31

The rate follows the road date, not the import date. A June 18 trip you move on September 11 is still 72.5¢. Applying 76¢ to the whole year because “that is the rate now” is the wrong deduction. One annual total × one rate is also wrong.

After import, filter or sort by date and confirm:

• Every trip on or before June 30 uses 72.5¢ (or shows no dollar, so you will apply 72.5¢ yourself)
• Every trip on or after July 1 uses 76¢
• First-half and second-half business miles subtotal separately

Illustration only, not a promise: 4,000 classified business miles through June 30 and 3,200 from July 1 is $2,900 + $2,432 = $5,332 of standard mileage. If the importer silently stamped 76¢ on the first 4,000, the file looks $140 too high before anyone reads purpose. How to split a log by hand: apply the 2026 IRS mileage rate change. Why the year has two halves: the July 1 increase.

TaxMiles applies the rate in effect on the day of the trip after a successful import. Still open a June row and a July row once. Do not trust a year-total dollar until those two rows look right.

Step 6: Keep auto-detect and same-day classification going

The switch is not finished when the old CSV lands. It is finished when tonight’s drives exist in the new app with a purpose an examiner can read. Otherwise you have a beautiful January–August file and a reconstructed fall.

Same day, in order:

1. Leave location / motion permission on so auto-detect actually runs.
2. After the last drop, swipe business / commuting / personal. Write the purpose, not just the category.
3. If you are unsure whether both apps recorded today, keep the old tracker on for a few overlapping days and compare. Then cancel.
4. Do not delete the Step 1 export. You will want it if the import needs a second pass, and you will want it in 2029.

Home to a regular hotspot is usually commuting. Paid trips and empty hops while you stay available are usually business. Groceries with the app open stay personal. Unpaid middle-of-shift miles: deadhead miles.

Pro on TaxMiles is $5.99/month, $39.99/year, or $79.99 lifetime, with a 7-day trial on the subscriptions. Buy it for history import, unlimited trips, and the CPA export — not because a blog post told you to. If you are under 40 automatic trips a month and your old log is already a CSV you can keep, Free may be enough going forward.

Who this switch is not for

• You are a W-2-only employee hunting a federal unreimbursed mileage deduction. That federal path is often blocked; check the current Form 2106 and what is left by state before you move any log.
• You will not classify trips the same day (or at least the same week). No importer fixes a swipe you refuse to do. The new app will be another unclassified dashboard.
• You already stopped tracking months ago and the old app is empty. That is reconstruction, not a switch.
• You want the mileage app to file the return. TaxMiles exports a log. It does not file.
• You are on Android. TaxMiles is iPhone / iPad, iOS 17+.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I lose my IRS mileage log if I cancel MileIQ, Everlance, or Stride?

You can, if that subscription is the only copy. Export CSV and PDF first. A canceled app is not a retention plan. See how long to keep the file.

Is switching mileage apps the same as reconstructing a log after I stopped tracking?

No. A switch moves a log you already kept. Reconstruction is the fallback when tracking already stopped. If you are in that second pile, use the reconstruction guide and label those months honestly.

What IRS fields must survive the move?

Date, destination or route, business purpose, miles, plus total miles on the car and the business / commuting / other split. Details: IRS mileage log requirements.

Does TaxMiles import history from other mileage apps?

Pro unlocks history import from MileIQ, Everlance, Stride, and Google Timeline, plus CPA PDF/CSV exports and unlimited trips. Free is auto-detect and swipe classification for 40 automatic trips a month. After import, classify new drives the same day.

Which 2026 mileage rate do imported trips use?

The rate on the date of the drive: 72.5¢ through June 30, 76¢ from July 1. Importing later does not change a June trip. Walkthrough: apply the 2026 rate change.

Related reading: export a mileage log for your CPA, reconstruct after the fact, MileIQ vs a free iPhone tracker, Everlance vs TaxMiles, IRS-ready mileage log, the July 1 rate increase, mileage log requirements, and how to track mileage for taxes.

This article is general tax education for U.S. federal Schedule C filers, not legal, tax, or accounting advice and not a guarantee of any deduction. Publication 463, contemporaneous-record rules, and IRS mileage rates can change; confirm Notice 2026-10, Announcement 2026-11, and the current forms, or work with a licensed professional. We do not have Google Search Console data for this topic and do not report traffic figures. TaxMiles: Mileage Tracker (App Store id 6758579463) is not affiliated with the IRS, Apple, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, MileIQ, Everlance, or Stride, and is not Mileage Tracker for Taxes (id 6758426140). Feature gates and prices are the current Free / Pro / Lifetime plans on taxmilesapp.com as of September 11, 2026, and can change.