Support

If you are writing about a bug, the two things that help most are which iPhone you are on and what you did just before it went wrong. A screenshot beats both.

Your notes and your recovery phrase

What exactly is encrypted?

The things you write. Not everything in the app — and the difference is what matters when you change phones.

I am getting a new phone. What do I do?

Turn on Backup & recovery in Settings before you hand the old phone over. You will be given a 12-word recovery phrase, once. Write it down somewhere that is not the phone you are about to replace. On the new device, sign in, open Backup & recovery and type the phrase in — your facts and memories come back readable.

Your people arrive on the new phone either way. It is the written notes that need the phrase.

I lost my recovery phrase.

Less bad than it sounds. Notes already on a phone stay readable on that phone. The key lives in that device's Keychain and losing the phrase does not touch it. What you have lost is the ability to restore that particular backup onto a different device.

Worth fixing now rather than later: open Backup & recovery, turn it off, then turn it back on. You get a fresh phrase. Save that one somewhere durable and the new-phone path works again.

Can you recover my notes for me?

No. Not "no, that is against policy" — no, as in the servers hold ciphertext and I do not have anything that opens it. That is the architecture rather than a promise about my intentions, and it is the entire reason the app is worth writing anything private into.

The trade is real and it cuts both ways. If the phone is gone, and there is no recovery phrase, and there is no iCloud or device backup, then those notes are gone for good. Nobody can undo that, me included.

The phrase I typed will not work.

Twelve words, in the order they were given, single spaces between them. Capitals and stray spaces are forgiven; a wrong or missing word is not. If it still will not take, check that you are signed in to the same account the backup was made on — a backup belongs to an account, not to an email address you also happen to own.

Nudges

I am not getting any nudges.

Almost always the iOS permission. Open Settings → Notifications → BetterFriend on your iPhone and check that Allow Notifications is on. BetterFriend also shows the current permission state on its own Settings screen, so you can see what iOS thinks without leaving the app.

Two more worth checking. A Focus mode will hold notifications back quietly. And a nudge only fires once somebody is actually overdue, so a person you added yesterday on a 30-day rhythm has 29 quiet days ahead of them.

Can I change how often I am nudged?

Per person. Open anyone and set their rhythm to anything between 7 and 365 days, or choose Surprise me and let the timing be irregular. You can also choose how insistently a nudge comes back when you do not act on it.

A nudge arrived for someone I had just spoken to.

The timer resets when you log the conversation, not when it happens. Tap We talked on the notification itself, or log it from their page, and the clock starts again from there.

Do my friends get notified about any of this?

No. Nobody but you sees your people, your notes or your nudges, and BetterFriend never contacts anyone on your behalf. Your friends do not know the app exists unless you tell them.

Your people

How do I add people without importing my whole address book?

Import brings up your Contacts and lets you tick the handful you actually want. Nothing crosses over until you choose it, so the four hundred people you never speak to stay where they are. You can also add someone by hand — a name is enough to start.

How many people can I track?

Five hundred, on every account, right now. There is a smaller free tier written into the app for later, but while BetterFriend is finding its first users nobody is on it.

I deleted someone by accident.

Deleting a person removes everything written about them and it cannot be undone. The confirmation screen says so before you commit, which is the only protection there is. If it has already happened, add them again and start the notes fresh. I am sorry — there is not a better answer.

Your account

How do I change my email or password?

Settings → Security. Changing your email sends a confirmation to the new address and the change lands once you have clicked it. If you signed up with Apple or Google there is no password here to change — those accounts are held by Apple and Google, not by me.

How do I delete my account?

Settings → Danger zone → Delete my account. You will be asked why you are leaving and to type your email address to confirm. Then all of it goes: every person, every note, every memory, and the account itself. There is no grace period and no way back.

If you only want to step away for a while, log out instead. Signing back in brings your people with you.

Can I get a copy of my data?

Yes. Mail privacy@betterfriend.site and ask. Worth knowing what arrives, though: I can export everything the servers hold, but your notes are stored encrypted, so what I can hand over for those is ciphertext rather than readable text. The readable copy only exists on your phone.

What it costs

Is it really free?

Yes, including the features that go paid later. There is nothing to buy in the app at the moment. No card, no trial counting down, no ads, and nothing about you sold to anyone.

So what happens later?

Some of what you are using now becomes a paid tier eventually, and I will say so clearly and in advance rather than switching it off one morning. Until then the honest version is that I have not built billing yet.

Something else

If your question is not here, that is a gap in this page as much as anything, and I would like to know about it. Mail support@betterfriend.site. I will answer you, and then fix the page.

Feature requests are welcome and genuinely read. BetterFriend is small enough that a good suggestion can be in the next release.