FillUp - Gas Mileage Log

Review by eFreeware

FillUp is a fuel and mileage log for Android, built by William D. Kraemer and published under the wdkapps name. It has been on the Play Store since early 2013 and sits in the Auto & Vehicles category, where it has passed half a million installs and holds a 4.4 average from more than 3,200 ratings. The pitch is deliberately narrow: record what you put in the tank and what the odometer read, and let the app work out the rest.

That narrowness is the main reason to consider it. The app is free, carries no ads and offers no in-app purchases. What you get instead is a record of your own fuel data, kept on the device, plus the calculations and charts that make that record useful over time.

The routine at the pump

The core loop is short. At each fill-up, you log how much gas went in and the odometer reading, and the app works out your mileage from the distance covered since the last entry. Each purchase joins a running log, so the history builds itself as long as you keep entering figures. It is the sort of routine that takes less time than filling the tank itself.

Entry is flexible about which numbers you have to hand. You can enter total cost and fuel amount and let the app derive the fuel price, or enter fuel price and total cost to get the amount, or enter fuel price and fuel amount to get the cost. That covers the common ways a receipt or pump display presents the same transaction, so you are not forced to convert anything in your head before typing it in.

The app handles data for one or more vehicles, which matters if there is more than one car in the household or if you want to keep a work vehicle separate from a personal one. Each vehicle keeps its own log, so the mileage figures do not get mixed together.

Charts, totals and statistics

Beyond the raw log, FillUp calculates and plots average gas mileage, and it also plots monthly totals for fuel purchased and distance driven. Those two views answer different questions: the average tells you how the car is doing overall, while the monthly totals show how much you spent and how far you went in a given month. For anyone trying to understand a change in fuel costs, the monthly picture is often the more revealing of the two.

Statistics can be shared as an HTML report file, which is a neat way to keep a readable snapshot outside the app. Because everything is calculated from entries you made yourself, the quality of the output depends entirely on how consistently you log fill-ups; a skipped entry leaves a gap that the next calculation has to span.

Units, storage and getting data out

Units are selectable, and the list is broader than the usual miles-per-gallon toggle. You can work in miles per gallon, kilometers per liter, liters per 100 kilometers, or kilometers per gallon. There are also two imperial-gallon options, one derived from miles and liters and one from kilometers and liters, which should cover drivers in the UK and elsewhere who think in imperial gallons but buy fuel in liters.

Nothing leaves your phone, so no data connection is needed. Your records can be moved in and out as CSV files on your sdcard, and those files can go to other apps for cloud backup through services such as Dropbox or email. That gives you a manual route to a backup copy.

The app is open source, with the source code published on GitHub, and the developer invites problems, suggestions and comments by email. The most recent update, in July 2024, was a refresh for Android 14, which suggests the project is being kept current with platform changes rather than left to drift.

What it asks of you

The trade-offs here are mostly about discipline rather than cost. FillUp is a log, so its value comes from regular entries; if you only record the occasional fill-up, the mileage figures and monthly totals will be patchy. That is inherent to how a fuel log works, and the app does not pretend otherwise.

Backups are a manual affair. Because data lives on the device and moves in and out through CSV files, keeping a safe copy means exporting and sharing those files yourself, whether to cloud storage or by email.

The rest is straightforward: it is free, there are no ads and nothing to purchase. It does one job and does not try to be a hub for everything else about your car.

Drivers who will get the most from it

This suits drivers who want a plain, private record of fuel economy and are willing to log each fill-up. It is a good fit for someone watching whether a change in driving habits, tires or routes is affecting mileage, and for households running more than one vehicle where a shared picture of fuel use is useful.

It also suits anyone who prefers to keep their data on their own device and move it around as files rather than through an online account. The CSV export and HTML report cover that preference well. The multi-unit support makes it usable outside the US without converting figures by hand.

It is less suited to someone who would rather not enter odometer readings at all. FillUp is a manual log by design, and its accuracy is a direct reflection of the entries you make.

A dependable log for drivers who like to keep their own records

The absence of ads and purchases keeps the experience clean, and the CSV and HTML export options give you a way to keep your data portable.

The main thing to accept is that it is a manual log. If you are happy to make that a habit at the pump, FillUp is a sensible, low-friction way to keep a long-term record of what your vehicles actually cost to run.

What's new

V2.1.7 (7/27/2024) • Refresh for Android 14 (API 34)