Getting started

The official airplanes.live app shows live air traffic from airplanes.live, a community of people who receive aircraft signals (ADS-B and MLAT) with their own antennas and share them. It runs on Android 8.0 and newer.

Install

Download the APK from GitHub releases or install it from IzzyOnDroid with an F-Droid client.

GitHub builds can check for new versions themselves. Turn on Update check during setup or later in Settings › General. It is off by default.

First launch

The app shows a short welcome and its privacy summary: once you accept, the app registers this installation with the developer’s server under a random ID and sends what you ask for, such as the map area you look at, your searches and watches, and your location when a feature needs it. It needs internet access. Tap Accept to continue. You can read the full privacy policy at any time from Settings › Privacy policy.

Find your way around

The bar at the bottom switches between:

Map: live aircraft around you or anywhere in the world. See Map.
Search: find aircraft by callsign, registration, hex code, type or squawk. See Search.
Watchlist: aircraft, flights, squawk codes and areas you watch, with optional alerts. See Watchlist & alerts.
Feeder: the receivers you feed airplanes.live with. See Feeders. If you don’t run one, you can hide this tab with Show Feeder tab in Settings › Feeder. Hiding it does not stop feeder monitoring.
Settings: theme, units, map style, sync and check intervals, backups and support.

A red bar saying “Internet is not available.” means the app can’t reach the network. Positions and search results then stay at their last state.

Free and Pro

The app is free. airplanes.live is community run: its coverage comes from people who put up an antenna and help pay for the servers, so full access is theirs. The chip next to the app name on the map shows FREE or PRO. Tap it to open Upgrade status.

On the free tier some limits apply, for example a daily allowance for searches and map data and a capped number of watches. The app tells you when you reach one.

Pro unlocks:

Search results that aren’t capped
Much higher daily allowances for searches and aircraft data
Faster refreshes and updates, on the map and for watches
Unlimited watches
Squawk and location watches
A larger radius for nearby and AR search
Aircraft history
Theme mode, style and colors, including your own

Link your feeder

If you feed airplanes.live, link your feeder and this installation goes Pro:

Connect your phone to the same network as your feeder, for example your home Wi-Fi.
Open Upgrade status and tap Detect to find the feeder on this network, or Enter ID to type its feeder ID.
Tap Link.

You only link once from your feeder’s network. After that, Pro works anywhere. Linking needs an IPv4 connection, because that is how your feeder is recognized. If linking fails with “That feeder is not on this network”, check that your phone isn’t on mobile data or a VPN.

Linking is per installation. After reinstalling the app or moving to a new phone, link again; a backup does not carry it over.

Don’t feed yet? How to feed on the upgrade screen leads to the airplanes.live setup guide.

Settings

General: theme mode, style and color (Pro), aircraft and distance units, and the update check on GitHub builds.
Map: Restore last view and the Map style.
Watchlist: how often the app syncs with the server’s watch list.
Feeder: how often the app checks your feeders in the background.
Backup & Restore: export and import your watches and feeders. See Backups.
Support: these guides, the issue tracker, Discord and the Debug log. See Reporting problems.