Support

Email gpmediacontact@gmail.com. It helps to include your iPhone model, iOS version, the app version (shown in the app's About screen), and what you expected to happen. Do not include journal text unless it is needed to explain the problem.

Getting started

What does a day look like?

Each day has four steps on the Today screen: Learn (a short source excerpt and a plain-language explanation, about two minutes), Sit (a timer or a text-guided session for the length you choose), Live (one concrete thing to try during your day), and Reflect (one question, with optional private writing). You can do the steps in any order and at any time. Writing is never required to finish a day.

Do I need an account?

No. There is no sign-up, login, or email address. The app works fully offline after installation.

What happens if I miss a day?

Nothing is lost. Missing days never skips lessons or resets progress, and there is no streak to break. When you come back, you pick up where you left off.

What is the difference between Getting Started and Daily Practice?

Getting Started is a seven-day introduction. Daily Practice is a set of twenty-eight practices chosen by the calendar date; it repeats every 28 days and does not add new lessons over time. Both are free. When you finish a journey, you can start another, build a personal routine (Plus), or use Daily Practice.

What is in the Read tab?

The Read tab is the Library: all 120 texts the app draws on, read in full and free for everyone. It holds the complete Dhammapada (26 chapters, 423 verses) and 94 discourses grouped by topic, each with a short original introduction, plus a glossary of 73 terms as the translations use them. Reading is separate from the four daily steps and is not counted as practice. Nothing in the Library requires a subscription.

What is free and what Plus adds

Free, for as long as you use the app: Getting Started (7 days), the Daily Practice rotation (28 practices, repeating every 28 days), the whole Library in the Read tab (all 120 bundled texts in full, including the complete Dhammapada and 94 discourses, each with a short introduction, and a glossary of 73 terms), every bundled source excerpt, the silent timer (1–30 minutes, optional chime), two guided session templates, device read-aloud for any lesson or guided session you can open, the journal (read, edit, export, delete), the calendar, days practised and sitting minutes, and Day 1 of each of the eight Plus journeys as a complete preview.

Daily Dharma Plus adds: the eight complete journeys, 104 days in all (The Eightfold Path, 21 days; 14 Days of Metta, 14 days; Right Speech in Real Life, 14 days; The Four Noble Truths, 10 days; Working with Difficult Emotions, 14 days; The Body as Home, 14 days; Giving and Gratitude, 7 days; Change and Letting Go, 10 days), all twelve guided session templates, up to three saved personal routines, and weekly reviews. Plus does not include coaching, a community, new weekly content, or recordings by a person, and there is no free trial. Personal routines are assembled from the bundled practice library, so practices repeat over time.

Two of the journeys, Working with Difficult Emotions and Change and Letting Go, work with what the early texts say about pain, anger, worry, loss and change. They are practice, not treatment or grief support. If you are unwell, distressed, or in crisis, contact a healthcare professional or your local emergency services.

Subscriptions: buying, restoring, cancelling

How do I subscribe?

Open any of the eight Plus journeys beyond Day 1, choose a locked guided session template, try to save a personal routine, or go to the Daily Dharma Plus screen in the You tab. The app shows the monthly and annual options with the actual price for your country. Purchases are made through your Apple ID.

How much does it cost?

The price shown in the app is the one that applies. Proposed United States prices at launch are US $4.99 per month or US $29.99 per year; other countries are priced by Apple's price tiers. There is no free trial and no lifetime purchase.

How does renewal work?

The subscription renews automatically at the end of each month or year unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the period ends. Apple charges your Apple ID.

How do I cancel?

On your iPhone, open Settings → your name → Subscriptions → Daily Dharma Plus, then tap Cancel. Deleting the app does not cancel the subscription. You keep Plus access until the end of the period you already paid for.

Can I get a refund?

Refunds are handled by Apple, not by us, at reportaproblem.apple.com. We cannot issue refunds directly.

I subscribed but the app says I am not subscribed.

In the You tab, under Daily Dharma Plus, tap Restore Purchases (the button is also on the Plus screen itself). Make sure your iPhone is online and signed in to the Apple ID that made the purchase. If it still fails, email us with the approximate purchase date; do not send your Apple receipt email in full, just the order date and product name.

I got a new iPhone. Does my subscription carry over?

Yes, sign in with the same Apple ID and use Restore Purchases. Your journal and practice history do not carry over unless you restored the new iPhone from an iOS backup of the old one, because they live only on the device. Export your journal before switching if you want to keep it.

What happens when my subscription ends?

Your journey progress and saved routines are kept. New sessions use the free features. Every journal entry stays readable, editable, exportable, and deletable.

Does Plus work offline?

Yes. The app keeps the last verified subscription status, and all content is bundled with the app. A check that fails because you are offline is not treated as an expired subscription.

Reminders and notifications

How do reminders work?

Reminders are optional. You can set a morning reminder, an evening reminder, or both. They are scheduled on your device; the wording is generic ("A few minutes for today's practice." / "A moment to reflect on your day.") and never mentions your journal, your lesson, or your theme. The app does not ask about notifications until after your first practice.

How do I turn reminders off?

Switch them off in the app under You → Settings → Reminders, or in iOS Settings → Notifications → Daily Dharma. Turning them off has no effect on anything else.

Why did a reminder not arrive?

Delivery depends on iOS. Focus modes, Do Not Disturb, Scheduled Summary, Low Power Mode, or notification permission being off can delay or suppress it. If you change time zones, the app reschedules reminders for the new local time when it is next opened.

What is the sit-completion notification?

If you choose it, the timer posts one notification when your sit finishes, so you can lock the screen while sitting. It is the only notification besides the two daily reminders. The app never sends upgrade offers or marketing notifications.

Device narration

What is "Read aloud"?

Read aloud uses your iPhone's built-in speech synthesis to speak lesson text and guided-session cues. It is a synthetic device voice, not a recording and not a person. It is off by default and available for any content you can open, free or Plus.

Can I change the voice?

Yes. Under You → Settings → Read aloud, the app lists the English voices installed on your iPhone (or "System default"), lets you hear a sample, and has a Speed control. To download higher-quality voices, use iOS Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices.

I hear nothing.

Check the volume and the ring/silent switch, and make sure a voice is installed for your language. Narration works while the app is open on screen; we do not promise that it continues with the screen locked. The visual cues and the timer always work without narration.

I left the app during a guided session and cues were skipped.

That is expected. When you return, the app shows the current cue instead of replaying the ones you missed, so two voices never overlap. The timer itself keeps correct time while the app is in the background.

Timer and chimes

The silent timer runs from 1 to 30 minutes. Silence is the default; under You → Settings → Timer sound you can choose one of three gentle chimes instead. The timer measures the time you actually sat, including pauses, and records that rather than the length you set. Ending early records the minutes you completed. Every guided session template offers 3-, 5-, and 10-minute pacing.

Your journal and data: export, delete, backups

Where is my journal stored?

On your iPhone only, in the app's local database. It is never uploaded to us, and there is no cloud sync between devices. See the Privacy Policy for what Apple receives for purchases.

How do I export?

In the You tab, open Settings → Your data, then tap Export as text (readable anywhere) or Export as JSON (complete, machine-readable). The iOS share sheet lets you save to Files, send by email, or hand it to another app. Export works whether or not you subscribe.

How do I delete?

Any single entry can be edited or deleted from the journal. To remove more, open You → Settings → Your data, where there are two separate actions, each with a confirmation: Delete all journal entries (practice history is kept) and Delete practice history (days practised, sitting minutes, and path progress are removed; journal entries are kept). Deleting the app from your iPhone removes everything, including settings.

Will I lose my data if I reinstall or change phones?

Yes, unless an iOS backup (iCloud Backup or a computer backup) restores it. We cannot recover it for you. If your entries matter, export them regularly.

Is my journal used for anything?

Only to show it to you and to export it when you ask. The app does not analyse your writing, score it, or send it anywhere.

Reporting a content correction

Source excerpts and the full texts in the Library are Bhikkhu Sujato's public-domain translations from SuttaCentral, shown unchanged from the pinned source files. The explanations and Library introductions around them were developed with AI assistance and checked against the linked passages. That checking was done by a language model, not by a human reviewer, and they can still be wrong. If you find a mistake, a misleading generalisation, or an excerpt that does not match its source:

1. In the app, open You → About and tap Report a correction. It opens an email to gpmediacontact@gmail.com with the subject "Daily Dharma correction" and two prompts: "Lesson title" and "What seems wrong". You can also write to that address directly with the same subject.
2. Include the lesson or reading title (and the journey and day number, or the citation such as "Dhp 1–20", if you know them).
3. Say what is wrong and, if you can, what you think it should say and which text or translation you are comparing against.

We read every report. Corrections ship in app updates; they never change your journal entries. You can also check any excerpt yourself using the links on the Sources page.

Accessibility

The app follows your iOS text size (Dynamic Type), works with VoiceOver, and simplifies animation when Reduce Motion is on. If something is unreadable or unreachable with your settings, please tell us which screen and which setting; that is a bug we want to fix.

Contact

Gabriel Petersen · gpmediacontact@gmail.com. We aim to reply within a few days. This is a small independent app; there is no phone support.