Turtle Time support

Only if you set a home on the Pets tab. Your phone then notices when you leave home and when you get back, so it can tell you how long your pets waited. While you're out, the Pets tab also shows how far you are from home in a straight line, and how long each pet would take to reach you. If you never set a home, the app never asks.

To notice you leaving while Turtle Time is closed. iOS does the watching itself and only wakes the app briefly when you cross the edge of home (about 150 metres around it), so it uses very little battery. iOS first offers “While Using the App” and asks about “Always” later; both steps are needed for automatic tracking.

No. Your home location and your trips are stored only on your iPhone. Where you are now is used only to show the distance while the Pets tab is open, and is never saved. Turtle Time has no server and sends nothing over the internet.

Yes. Tap “I'm Heading Out” when you leave and “I'm Home” when you get back. Automatic tracking is optional.

Check that location access for Turtle Time is set to Always in Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services, and that a home is set on the Pets tab. If you've moved, use “Move Home to Where I Am Now”. Very short trips, under the 150-metre edge, don't count as going out.

On the Pets tab, tap “Turn Off Automatic Tracking”. You can also turn location off for Turtle Time in Settings.

For the Calendar tab, which counts your next 30 days of events down in animal time (“Under 100 cat hours until Dentist!”). It only reads events on the phone. It never changes your calendar and never sends your events anywhere. If you don't use the Calendar tab, you can say no.

Because iOS has no read-only calendar permission. An app can ask for only one of two levels: Full Access, which can see events and add or change them, or Add Events Only, which can add events but never see any. The Calendar tab has to see your events to count them down, so Full Access is the only level that works. Turtle Time still only reads: it never adds, changes or deletes anything in your calendar.

Turtle Time needs permission to read your calendar. Turn on Full Access in Settings › Privacy & Security › Calendars › Turtle Time. If permission is on, check that you have events in the next 30 days.

No. The days you add stay inside Turtle Time. If you want one in your calendar, tap “Add to Calendar”: Apple's own New Event screen opens, and nothing is saved until you tap Add. This doesn't need calendar permission.

Check that notifications are allowed for Turtle Time in Settings › Notifications. Then open the app once: it schedules a month of nudges ahead and tops them up each time it opens, so open it at least once a month.

Yes. In the app's nudge settings, choose how often they come: every day, a few times a week (the default) or once a week, and the time of day. Countdown days and your birthday always come through.

On purpose. A date plus “10,000 days since” can give away someone's birthday or another private day, and the people it's about may not want that. If you want the date in, add it to your own message.

Nothing. There's no account, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. Everything you enter stays on your iPhone. The privacy policy has the details.

Delete any moment or pet in the app, or delete the app to remove everything it stored. We hold no copy, so there's nothing for us to delete.

Yes, if you restore the new phone from an iCloud or computer backup of the old one. Turtle Time doesn't sync between devices on its own.

Your time × (80 years ÷ the animal's typical lifespan). A dog living 12 years ages 6.7 times faster than us, so a human year is 6.7 dog years. A Galápagos tortoise living 120 years ages more slowly, so a human year is 8 tortoise months. Lifespans are typical ones, not record or zoo ages.

Not in the app yet, but voting on the next animal is coming. Until then, email your idea to support@turtletime.app.

Turtle Time is free. If it gave you a lift, the Pay it forward page suggests a charity for animals, nature or mental health and links straight to the charity's own donate page. We take no cut and don't see who gives.

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