Support

Write to support@getphonepact.com and we’ll get back to you. There is no ticket system and no bot — PhonePact is small, and the person who replies is the person who built the thing you’re writing about.

Report something in a circle

If someone in your circle writes something abusive, or their name or photo is offensive, you can act on it inside the app without waiting for us:

• Report a note — press and hold it in the Room, then choose Report or block.
• Report a private message — open the private conversation, press the message, then choose Report message.
• Report a person — open the Circle tab, tap their name, then choose Report. Use this when someone’s name or photo is the problem.
• Block them — from those controls. Their notes, their name, their photo, private-conversation content, and any quotes of them disappear immediately, and neither of you can send new private messages.

We review every report and act on objectionable content, which can mean removing it or suspending an account. If something needs a faster answer than the app can give, email us directly and say urgent in the subject line.

Supporter insights

The core experience is currently available without a Supporter purchase. Monthly and one-time Supporter purchases unlock Deeper Insights in You → Insights where available. Feature availability can vary by installed version, platform, account, and staged store rollout. Deeper Insights includes daily/weekly/monthly and time-of-day views, private app details, trends and comparisons, research context, and a separate pact journal. Measurements differ on iPhone and Android, and missing history is never treated as zero. App details stay on the phone; Insights do not read messages or use AI. Limited deterministic safety rules separately inspect profile/circle/ phone-label text, messages, optional check-in notes, and pact/What Counts reasons for blocked terms or patterns; required text may be rejected or sanitized, while blocked optional text may be omitted. See Supporter Insights and privacy.

Private Insights controls

• iPhone: Apple renders detailed values inside its protected Screen Time report. PhonePact does not keep a separate detailed iPhone history file or list visited domain names. Turn off PhonePact under Settings → Screen Time → Apps with Screen Time Access to stop new report access; that does not erase Screen Time history held by iOS.
• Android: Save your history is a separate opt-in. It can keep up to 365 recorded days of private usage summaries in no-backup storage on that phone. Use You → Profile → Private Insights data to stop collection and delete the usage summaries and optional notification counts without deleting your pact journal.
• After Supporter access ends: paid reports close, but an Android history option that was already enabled can continue refreshing until it is turned off. The Profile control above remains available without paid access and does not unlock reports. You can also revoke Usage Access and Notification Access in Android Settings to stop new access, or sign out, clear PhonePact’s app data, uninstall, delete the account, or email us for help.
• Ordinary sign-out: pauses measurement and clears extended Android Insights summaries, notification counts, and the pact journal, but recent account-scoped aggregate/resume data can remain on that installation for restoration to the same account. Deleting the account or clearing app data removes that saved local resume data; the private-history control alone clears extended Insights, not the resume checkpoint.
• Pact journal: keeps up to 28 recent days and 300 phone-recorded pact/crossing entries. It clears at sign-out and is not a complete approval or delivery record.

Manage Supporter purchases

Supporter purchases are managed through the app store and RevenueCat. The localized amount displayed by the store is authoritative. A one-time purchase does not renew; monthly support renews until you cancel through the store.

• Cancel or change on iPhone: use PhonePact’s Manage subscription link, visit Apple Subscriptions, or open Settings → your name → Subscriptions → PhonePact.
• Cancel or change on Android: use PhonePact’s Manage subscription link, visit Google Play Subscriptions, or open Google Play → profile → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions.
• Restore a purchase: use the restore option in PhonePact while signed in to the PhonePact and store accounts associated with your purchase.
• Refunds are handled by the store that billed you. For Apple purchases, use reportaproblem.apple.com. For Google Play, use Google’s refund request flow.

Canceling a subscription normally preserves access until the paid period ends. Deleting your account or uninstalling PhonePact does not cancel a store subscription. Cancellation and data deletion are separate; contact us to access or delete saved history.

Delete your account or purchase-provider data

In the app: You → Profile → Delete account. On iPhone, an Apple-linked account first asks you to reauthenticate and attempts Apple token revocation; cancelling that sheet cancels deletion, while another revocation error does not trap you in an account you asked to remove. Other accounts are asked to reauthenticate when Firebase requires a recent sign-in. This starts PhonePact-hosted cleanup, which can take time. It covers account/profile data, your circle memberships and pacts, private aggregate usage history, private conversations, ordinary Room notes/check-in rows attributed to or about you, feedback, and reports you filed. It also clears a current shared-circle photo while that photo is still attributed to your account. A shared circle and content belonging to its remaining members continue; if nobody remains, its circle and invite-code mapping are queued for removal. Local Android Insights files and the pact journal clear during account teardown. Reply excerpts, reaction/Keep attributions, and block references are scrubbed. Reports made about you may remain as safety records under an opaque identifier, with copied name/text attributable to you removed. A content-free deletion guard remains for seven days so a delayed device cannot recreate the account. The deleted account is not recoverable.

After PhonePact account cleanup, our backend requests deletion of the matching RevenueCat customer and retries requests that fail. If you need confirmation or the automatic request cannot be matched, email us with Privacy request in the subject. If the account is already gone, include the exact production Google transaction ID or eligible Apple order ID from your store receipt; email alone may not locate the customer because PhonePact sends RevenueCat no email attribute.

RevenueCat processes deletion asynchronously. Its customer deletion does not erase an app store’s transaction record and does not cancel billing; the provider or store may retain records required for entitlement, refunds, fraud, accounting, tax, or law. Cancel any monthly subscription separately. If you request only RevenueCat deletion while keeping your PhonePact account, sign out and keep the App closed until we confirm completion: signing in again or restoring a purchase causes the SDK to use the same PhonePact account ID and can create a new RevenueCat customer. Future purchase use can likewise create a new provider record.

If you can’t reach the app, email us from the address on the account and we’ll do it for you.

Account security and sign-in methods

Open You, then tap the top-right account settings button to verify your email or link supported Google, Apple, and email/password sign-in methods to the same PhonePact account. Each link requires your action and proof that you control the provider account. Matching email addresses do not automatically merge two separate PhonePact accounts. If a verification email does not arrive, check spam, confirm the address shown, and use resend. For a wrong email, use the corrected-email verification flow in the app. Never send us a password or a sign-in code.

Protect or remove an invite link

An invite code can add someone to its circle, so treat it like a temporary access capability. New links keep the code after #, which browsers do not send in the initial request to GitHub Pages; the join page removes it from the visible address after reading it. Older ?c= links still work, but their full URL reaches GitHub Pages before the page can remove the query. Either kind can remain in messages, link previews, clipboards, screenshots, or browser history/sync.

For least exposure, share the six-character code without a link and enter it directly in PhonePact. Delete any message, clipboard, screenshot, and browser-history/sync copies you control. Those steps do not erase hosting logs or copies held by someone else, and they do not revoke the code. A code remains usable while its circle exists; the current App has no rotate/revoke control, and deleting one member’s account does not remove a circle that still has other members. If an invite may have reached the wrong person, do not rely on clearing your history; contact support@getphonepact.com for help.

Private conversations and kept messages

Tap a current member in the Circle tab and choose Message privately, or choose Talk first on a pact request. These chats are one-to-one and live in the Room tab. You must still share a circle, and blocking either account stops new messages.

Ordinary circle-room messages fade after 24 hours. Any current circle member can press a member-written message and choose Keep for everyone for 30 days; the message shows who is keeping it, and it still expires no later than 30 days after it was sent.

Ordinary private messages also fade after 24 hours. Press a message and choose Keep in chat for 30 days when both of you need more time. Keeping is visible in the conversation; it does not create a permanent archive. Private-message notifications name the sender but never include the message text.

Screen usage isn’t measuring

On iPhone, PhonePact uses Apple’s Screen Time system. If permission is off, grant it in Settings:

• Settings → Screen Time → Apps with Screen Time Access → turn on PhonePact.
• Then open PhonePact and tap Turn on Screen Time on the Home screen.

PhonePact needs iOS 17.4 or later. On earlier versions Apple counts usage from midnight regardless of when you set your pact, which would fire a day’s worth of check-ins at once.

On Android, open Settings → Apps → Special app access → Usage access and allow PhonePact. Menu names vary by phone maker. You can install the current Android release from Google Play.

Android private notices are not appearing on screen

Open PhonePact Home and follow the setup strip at the top. It can take you directly to the Android setting that is hiding awareness: notification permission, the Private notices channel’s banner setting, Bedtime or Do Not Disturb, Live Updates on supported Android 16+ phones, or Alarms & reminders access for a 10- or 15-minute rhythm. PhonePact’s private notices have no sound or vibration, but the banner should appear at the top when Android allows it.

You can also add PhonePact’s optional private screen-time widget from your launcher’s widget picker. It shows only your aggregate time and pact progress; it does not show app names.

What your circle can see

The crossed duration is the only usage information your circle receives — for example, “reached 3h today”. Never which apps, never your private per-app breakdown, never your browsing. Your own Home screen can show a private “Where it went” shortlist: up to ten selected apps used for at least one minute today. On iPhone, Apple computes that inside its Screen Time sandbox. On Android, PhonePact computes it locally from Usage Access. In both cases, app and package identities stay on the phone and are not sent to our servers or your circle.

Subject to synchronization and stale/replay suppression, the phone can share at its pact point and at each later 30-minute crossing through 23h 30m. A 30-minute pact can therefore produce as many as 47 potential shared check-ins in one day. The private Moment/Talk First prompt stops after the pact point and six later crossings; that prompt cap is not a cap on shared check-ins.

If the same account is signed into more than one phone, each phone keeps its own pact and recent history. Your circle sees a short random label such as “iPhone A1B2” beside that phone’s pact and check-ins so one phone’s Screen Time is never presented as another’s.

The full detail is in our Privacy Policy.

iPhone Live Activity is delayed or stale

Live Activity is optional. It shows confirmed aggregate usage for the same selected scope as Home, not a stopwatch. Home can receive fresher Screen Time information before the card updates. Treat an At least number as a confirmed minimum, and check the displayed update time where available; do not expect minute-by-minute background updates. Network loss, delayed iOS measurement or push delivery, and system power management can leave the card behind.

Confirm that Live Activities are allowed for PhonePact in iOS Settings, then reopen PhonePact. If the card has ended or been dismissed, use Show again where available. Apple limits an active Live Activity to eight hours; starting a fresh card does not reset the day’s measured usage. An iPhone 13 has no Dynamic Island: look on the Lock Screen. Dynamic Island presentation requires a model that has one.

The card never shares app names with a circle and is not the authority for shared check-ins. If the values still disagree, send Support screenshots taken close together, plus your iOS version, PhonePact build number, and whether the app had been open. Avoid including private messages or other people’s information.

Everything else

support@getphonepact.com. Bugs, ideas, complaints, or telling us the app made things worse — that last one is the most useful mail we get.