Psalm — Support

How to get help

Write to support@norvela.app. It reaches a person, not a queue. Please say which device you are on (iPhone or iPad), which version of iOS, and what you expected to happen — that is usually the difference between one reply and four.

A screenshot helps more than a description of a screen. Nothing in Psalm is sent to us automatically, so anything we know about your copy of the app is something you told us.

Finding your way around

There are four places to be: along the bottom of the screen on an iPhone, and across the top on an iPad — where the button to their left swaps them for a sidebar down the edge, if you prefer that.

• Today — the date, the three readings for today, and your streak. A reading opens as the passage, a reflection, a prayer, an optional tap for how you are arriving, and a place to write. Log entry saves what you wrote to the Journal; Mark as read, at the bottom, is what counts the day.
• Bible — the whole Bible, to browse or search.
• Journal — everything you have written.
• Settings — reminders, reading preferences, and the Recently Deleted, Privacy and Support screens.

Tapping the tab you are already on takes you back to the top of it, from wherever you are.

Changing the translation

Settings → Reading → Translation. Four translations ship with the app, all of them public domain, and all of them already on your device:

• King James Version (KJV) — the one Psalm starts with
• World English Bible Updated (WEBU)
• American Standard Version (ASV)
• Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

Changing it changes the words your readings are shown in, and nothing else. Your streak, your notes and where you are in the cycle all stay as they are. Nothing is downloaded, so it works offline and takes a moment at most.

Turning reminders on

Settings → Reminders → Daily reminders. Switch it on and iOS will ask for permission to send notifications; say yes, or nothing can be delivered.

Three time rows appear underneath — Morning, Midday and Night — set to 7:00 AM, 12:00 PM and 9:00 PM until you change them. Tap a time to change it.

Psalm will not remind you about a reading you have already done today. The reminders are scheduled on your device; nothing about them is sent anywhere.

Reminders that arrive silently

If reminders are landing in Notification Center with no banner and no sound, Psalm has permission to deliver quietly but not to interrupt you — which happens when the first prompt was answered that way. The Reminders section says Reminders are arriving quietly, and tapping that row fixes it.

If notifications have been turned off for Psalm entirely, the same section says so and the row opens the app's page in iOS Settings.

Where deleted entries go

Settings → Recently Deleted. A journal entry you delete is kept there for 30 days and then removed for good.

• Swipe a row left to right to Restore it to the journal.
• Swipe a row right to left to Delete it permanently, now.
• Delete All, top right, empties the list. That one cannot be undone, and it asks first.

Straight after a delete in the Journal there is also a short window with an Undo button on it. If you catch it, the entry never leaves the journal at all.

Exporting or sharing what you wrote

Open the Journal tab and tap Select in the top right. Tap the entries you want — or Select All, top left — and three actions appear along the bottom:

• Share sends the chosen entries as text, to anywhere the iOS share sheet offers: Messages, Mail, Notes, a printer.
• Export saves them as a text file named Psalm Journal and the date, which you can put in Files, iCloud Drive, or anywhere else.
• Delete removes them together, with one Undo for the whole batch.

Because nothing you write is ever sent to us, an export is the only backup that exists. It is worth making one now and then.

The microphone is not there

Dictation is offered while you are writing — in a reading's note, and in a journal entry after you tap Edit. It is not shown while you are only reading one.

If it is not there at all, your language has no on-device speech model on that device. Psalm only ever transcribes on the device, so where that is not possible it hides the microphone rather than sending your voice away to a server. The model belongs to iOS rather than to Psalm — turning iOS dictation on for that language, in iOS Settings, is what puts one on the device.

Deleting everything

Settings → Privacy → Delete My Data. It removes every journal entry — including anything still in Recently Deleted — and every record of a reading you marked read. Your settings stay as they are, and the Bible stays, because it is part of the app.

There is no way to undo it, and no copy anywhere for us to restore from. Export anything you want to keep first.

The daily reading looks wrong

Four things account for nearly all of these, in the order they are worth checking.

The app was left open overnight

Psalm works out the day when it comes back to the front. An app left open on Today since yesterday can still be showing yesterday. Switch to another tab and back, or close the app and open it again.

It is a reading you have already done

If Revisit past readings is on in Settings → Reading, Psalm mixes readings you have already finished back into your day, chosen at random. That is working as intended, and it starts once you have finished at least two. Turn it off in the same place to go back to the cycle in order.

The words changed, not the reading

Switching translation shows the same passage in different words. Check Settings → Reading → Translation if a familiar verse suddenly reads strangely.

The device's date or time zone

The readings follow your device's own calendar, so a wrong date, or a time zone that has not caught up after a flight, moves the day with it. Settings → General → Date & Time in iOS.

One thing that is not a fault: Today opens on the moment that matches the hour — morning from 4 AM, midday from 11 AM, night from 5 PM through to 4 AM. All three readings are always there and always readable; the app just opens on the one you are most likely to want.

If none of that explains it, send us a screenshot of the Today screen and we will look.

Does it need a connection?

No. Psalm makes no network requests at all. The Bible text, the readings, the search, the reminders and the dictation are all on your device, and the app behaves the same in airplane mode as it does on Wi-Fi.

Privacy

Psalm has no account, no analytics and no tracking, and nothing you write leaves your device. The full policy is at norvela.app/psalm/privacy, and the terms are at norvela.app/psalm/terms.

Still stuck

Write to support@norvela.app and a person will answer. Please say which device and which iOS version you are on — it is usually the fastest way to an answer.