Complete Guide

My Safe Circle helps you stay connected with trusted people when it matters: you can quickly let them know you are safe, ask for help with an SOS, ask How are you? to the contacts you choose, and keep track of important events.

The app does not replace public emergency services. It helps coordinate your personal network: family, friends, colleagues, or other people you have chosen as trusted contacts.

Home is the app's operating center. At the top you find, on the left, the menu with Profile, Premium, Help & Feedback, Settings and Logout; in the middle, the connection status; on the right, the Notifications bell.

Below, a sentence sums up how your circle is doing: for example “Everyone is safe” when everyone has sent a signal in the last 24 hours, how many people are safe or, in red, how many need help. Your circle sits at the centre: each person glows in the theme’s positive colour (green across all four themes) after an OK and red after an SOS, more strongly when the signal is recent, and you can see how long ago it arrived. With the All, OK, SOS and Wait filters you choose which people to show.

When space is limited, people may appear in a compact grid or a horizontally scrolling list, keeping each contact easy to tap. Tap a person to open the same panel; with reduced motion, avatars stay still.

Tap a person to see their latest status (OK or SOS), how long ago it was sent and any message. From there you can open “View location” when the status includes a location, send them a How are you? with that person already selected, or tap “Open in My Circle”. For someone who has not accepted your invitation yet you only see “Waiting”. The panel updates while open: its red border follows the current SOS state. “Open in My Circle” takes you directly to the person and briefly highlights them; with reduced motion, scrolling is immediate and the highlight is static.

Further down you find:

• ALL OK, to let people know you are safe, with the number of recipients and whether location is included;
• EMERGENCY, to send an SOS;
• “Start live sharing”, to share your location live;
• the How are you?, Circle, Requests and History shortcuts.

History opens Event History, available with Premium. Reminders open from the How are you? page.

If you do not have approved contacts yet, an invitation to build your circle appears instead of the circle, and ALL OK and EMERGENCY stay locked with a message explaining why: they unlock when at least one person accepts your invitation.

On Home, ALL OK and EMERGENCY sit in compact tiles with the icon above a centered title and recipient line. In the Parallax theme, the action text is white; the live location button has a violet outline while idle and a soft violet tint during sharing. Other themes keep their own colours and contrast.

Yes. The tutorial starts by itself the first time you open Home. To see it again, open Help & Feedback from the menu and tap “Start Tutorial”.

The tutorial explains the main Home flow. This guide, instead, is meant to go deeper into the whole app.

At the top of Home you can see whether you are online or offline. SOS and All OK are not lost when there is no connection: the app saves them on your device and tries to send them as soon as the network is back. The details are in “What happens if there is no internet after confirmation?” and “What happens to an SOS if I have no connection?”.

Other actions that require sync (circle, invitations, settings) can instead stay pending until you are back online. Live location does not queue unsent points.

An action can be disabled for several reasons: no approved contacts, invitations still pending, missing permissions, no network, a Premium feature, or a temporary loading state.

When possible, the app shows the reason directly on Home or on the relevant page: for example, without approved contacts ALL OK and EMERGENCY show a lock and a message.

In general:

• the shared green positive colour used by all four themes: confirmation, All OK, positive response;
• red or critical: SOS, request for help, relevant error;
• orange: warnings to check, for example a permission to configure or a location that has not been updated for a few minutes;
• badges or highlights: items to read, Premium functionality, or special state.

Colors help you read the situation, but always also refer to the text shown in the app.

After signing up, the app guides you through a few steps: you create your account, verify your email, introduce yourself with name and nickname, and invite the first person you trust (you can also skip this and do it later).

When available, a popup over email verification or the first profile step asks whether you want to allow optional usage analysis. Either choice lets you continue and is saved on this device, so it is not requested again on the Home after the tutorial. You can change it in Settings → Consents and sharing. For users who have already completed onboarding, the question may appear on Home after any privacy and terms notices, only if no choice has been made and when it does not interrupt other dialogs or safety actions.

When available, Consents and sharing also includes “Aggregate statistics”: counts of feature usage without installation identifiers or personal histories, which you can turn off separately. In this case, the popup distinguishes these statistics from optional detailed analysis: continuing without detailed analysis does not turn off aggregate counts.

Then:

1. Make sure at least one trusted person has accepted your invitation.
2. Grant useful permissions, especially notifications.
3. Learn the difference between All OK, SOS, and How are you?
4. Check Requests and Notifications when badges or alerts appear.

Before signing up you can also tap “Try the DEMO” on the sign-in screen: the demo reproduces the real Home and countdown with sample people, but sends nothing and does not use your real location. After signing in, you can also find “Try the DEMO” in Help & Feedback. The preview uses simulated data and choices separate from your account, which stays signed in. “Return to app” takes you back to where you started; real live shares continue during the preview.

The app coordinates information and notifications. The real safety network is the people you choose. My Safe Circle works best when your circle knows what to do when it receives an SOS, an All OK, or a How are you? request.

Talk with the people in your circle: agree on expectations, response times, and what to do in case of a request for help.

All OK lets your circle quickly know that you are safe. It is the right action when you want to reassure trusted people without asking them to respond.

Tapping ALL OK opens the countdown: there you can check and change recipients, message and location before sending, as explained in “Can I change recipients, message and location before sending?”. As recipients you can choose your whole circle, some people or, with Premium, a saved group. The button shows how many people it will go to and whether location is included.

A message is useful to add context, for example "I am heading home", "I arrived", or "I cannot reply right now". Avoid adding sensitive information that is not necessary. Location is attached only if location sharing is active and the permissions are granted; otherwise the update is still sent, without coordinates.

If you do not have approved contacts, there is nobody to send the update to and the main actions remain locked.

No. Both All OK and SOS first open a countdown: it reduces the risk of accidental sends and gives you time to cancel with “Cancel sending” for SOS or “Cancel” for All OK. To send right away, tap “Send now”. If you leave the app or lock the phone while the countdown is running, the send is cancelled.

Throughout the countdown, on devices that support vibration, SOS repeats a double heartbeat and All OK a single, more spaced-out pulse. The feedback stops when you pause, send, cancel or leave the screen.

Before sending you can also change recipients, message and location: this is explained in the next entry.

Yes. After you tap ALL OK or EMERGENCY, the countdown shows three rows: recipients, location and message. Tap one to pause the countdown: “Paused” appears and nothing is sent until you tap “Send now”, even if you leave the app in the meantime.

• Recipients: for All OK you can choose people or a saved group, and the choice becomes the default for your next All OK. For SOS the change applies only to that send: the list in Settings → SOS recipients does not change.
• Location: the switch decides whether to include it, and the choice becomes the default for your next sends, both All OK and SOS.
• Message: choose a quick message or write free text. It applies only to that send and is not remembered.

Choices are saved only if the send goes ahead: if you cancel, nothing changes. Widgets and Apple Watch do not allow these changes and use the choices already saved.

After the countdown, My Safe Circle saves your All OK or SOS on your device before sending it. If there is no connection at that moment, the app does not lose it: it stays ready to send as soon as possible.

Your device can try again in the background, even when My Safe Circle is not open on screen. This depends on iOS or Android: without network, or if the system blocks background work, sending can wait.

This is why it is important not to force-close My Safe Circle from the task manager after confirming SOS or All OK. You can switch to other apps or lock the screen, but avoid force-closing it.

When you reopen My Safe Circle, the app checks whether that command was sent. If it was not accepted yet, it retries without creating a duplicate SOS or duplicate All OK.

Until you see a receipt or final outcome, do not assume your contacts were reached. In a real emergency, call public emergency services too.

After you confirm, My Safe Circle shows a receipt that follows the send step by step: the request received by the server, preparing the contacts, sending the notifications and the final outcome. The current step is highlighted and pulses, so you always know how far along the send is. If you tap “Continue in background”, the send goes on even without the receipt open.

When the send is complete you see the outcome (sent, partially sent or not sent) and the outcome for each person: “Notification sent”, “Send unconfirmed” or “Notification not sent”. If a person has several devices, a successful send to one of them is enough. “Notification sent” means the notification service accepted the send, not that the message was received or read. Older sends without per-person detail show only the summary. Then you can close the receipt.

Sometimes, especially if the app has been inactive for days or the connection is slow, the realtime update can be late. In those cases the app rechecks the outcome on its own for a while. If it cannot confirm it, the receipt shows “Delivery unconfirmed”. It means the request was sent but delivery is not confirmed yet. It does not mean it failed. You can tap “Refresh” to recheck, or close and let the app finish in the background.

After an SOS the receipt also shows “Call emergency services”, which calls the local emergency number (if there is more than one, it asks which service to call), and the offer to start live sharing. Use it if you need immediate help, without waiting for confirmation.

All OK reassures: it says that you are safe.

SOS mobilizes: it says that you need help.

Both use the confirmation countdown and can include a message and location, but their meaning and urgency are different.

SOS is for moments when you need help right away from your circle. It is the app's most critical action: it alerts trusted people and can include a message and location to help them understand what is happening. On Home it is the red EMERGENCY button.

Use it when you want to mobilize your personal network. For real emergencies, also contact the emergency services in your country.

By default, SOS alerts the whole available circle, because in an emergency it is often safer to reach more people. If you have a concrete reason to limit alerts, open Settings → SOS recipients, choose “Specific contacts” (you can also start from the contacts of a saved group) and confirm with “Save”. On the countdown you can change the recipients for that one SOS only: the saved list does not change.

If the saved SOS list no longer contains valid approved contacts, the app falls back to the safer behavior and uses the available circle. If you have no contacts, the app has no personal network to alert.

Yes, if you have an Apple Watch paired with your iPhone. Install My Safe Circle on the Watch too: once you are signed in on the iPhone, the Watch connects by itself, with no separate sign-in.

On the Watch you find two buttons, SOS and All OK, with the number of recipients. A single tap is enough: a countdown starts (5 seconds for SOS, 3 for All OK) with a ring that fills up. If you tapped by mistake, tap the screen to cancel. When the countdown ends, the update is sent and you see the result.

The Watch sends SOS and All OK without a message: it is a shortcut. SOS goes to your SOS recipients, All OK to the default recipients or group (your last All OK choice in the app). On the Watch you cannot change recipients or message during the countdown.

The Current Location switch below the buttons decides whether your location is included, for both SOS and All OK. It is a Watch-only setting: it starts from the app’s default location choice, then stays independent from the iPhone. The location is detected by the Watch; if it is not available, the update is sent anyway without it.

The Watch sends directly over Wi-Fi or cellular, even when the iPhone is not nearby. Without a connection nothing is sent: you can retry from the Watch or use the iPhone.

You can add the SOS and All OK complications to your watch face: tapping one starts that action's countdown right away, which you can still cancel.

If the Watch asks you to open the app on your iPhone, do it: that is all it takes to reconnect it. If you sign out on the iPhone, the Watch is disconnected too.

On iPhone, SOS and SOS responses to a check-in are critical alerts: they sound even with the iPhone silenced, in Do Not Disturb, or in any Focus mode (Sleep, Work, etc.), overriding those settings. For this to work, you must authorize both notifications and Critical Alerts when iOS asks. They are separate controls: you can keep regular notifications enabled while turning Critical Alerts off. In the app's Settings → Permissions you can see whether Critical alerts are on.

You can check or change them in system Settings:

1. Open Settings on iPhone.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Tap My Safe Circle.
4. Turn Critical Alerts on or off.

The app's other urgent notifications (for example "How are you?" requests that ask for help) remain standard urgent notifications, not critical alerts: to let them through during a Focus mode too, you need to turn on Time Sensitive Notifications for My Safe Circle in that specific mode. The same steps are in the “Focus guide” under Settings → Permissions:

1. Open Settings on iPhone.
2. Tap Focus.
3. Choose Sleep, Do Not Disturb, or the mode you use.
4. Tap Apps.
5. Turn on Time Sensitive Notifications.

Repeat these steps for every Focus mode where you want to receive these notifications.

You can tap EMERGENCY or ALL OK even without a network. The app saves the command on your device right away and tries to send it on its own as soon as the connection is back, even if you switch to other apps or lock the screen. You don't need to keep any screen open.

If the send completes while you are not using the app, you receive a confirmation notification with the names of the contacts alerted; if you are in the app you see it in the receipt. Until a confirmation arrives, sending is not yet guaranteed: in a real emergency always also contact local emergency services.

If an SOS cannot be sent at all, a message tells you when you reopen the app: “Resend” sends it right away, without a countdown, while “Ignore” discards it. An All OK that cannot be sent within about a day is discarded.

Use SOS to alert your circle, but do not rely only on the app if the situation requires immediate rescue. Also contact local emergency services and use My Safe Circle to quickly inform trusted people.

Quick widgets put SOS and All OK on your phone's Home Screen. When you add a widget, you can choose five variants:

• Combined wide: shows SOS and All OK together, without a message. All OK goes to your whole circle, SOS to your SOS recipients. The location toggle is linked to the app's default location choice.
• SOS square: shows only SOS in a compact format. It uses your SOS recipients and the message and location set for the SOS widget.
• SOS wide: like the square one, with a recipient summary and a location toggle in the widget.
• OK square: shows only All OK in a compact format. It uses the recipients or group, message, and location set for the All OK widget.
• OK wide: like the square one, with a recipient summary and a location toggle in the widget.

Tapping SOS or All OK on a widget opens My Safe Circle, prepares the message, and starts a 10-second countdown. You can send now or cancel; otherwise the message is sent automatically when time runs out. Leaving the app, locking the phone, or opening a notification during the countdown cancels the send. Further widget taps during preparation or sending are ignored. The displayed recipients stay fixed for that send; if your circle is not ready, you can retry, and nothing is sent without valid recipients. You cannot change recipients, message or location from this countdown.

In Settings → Quick widgets you configure the dedicated widgets and find how to add them to your Home Screen. For SOS, choose the widget message and location; recipients remain those in Settings → SOS recipients. For All OK, choose widget recipients or group, message, and location. The location set here applies to the square widgets; on wide widgets the visible toggle starts from this value and you can change it right from the widget. On the combined widget the toggle matches the app's default location choice: changing it in the widget or on the app's countdown updates both.

On SOS widgets location is on by default, on All OK widgets it is off. You can change it, and your choice is remembered.

How are you? asks the approved contacts you choose to confirm how they are. Unlike All OK, you are not saying "I am safe": you are asking the selected contacts to respond.

A How are you? request is useful when you want quick confirmations from several people, for example after travel, during an event, in an uncertain situation, or whenever you need clarity.

Sending a How are you? request requires Premium; replying is always free.

Tap How are you? among the Home shortcuts. The page has three tabs: Received, with requests from your circle; My requests, with the ones you sent and the status of replies; History, with the concluded ones. From here you can also send a new request. To ask a single person, you can also tap them in the Home circle and choose How are you?.

Responses can show that a person is safe or that they need help, depending on the action the responder chooses.

You receive a notification or see the request in the app. You can reply with I'm OK or Need Help, add a message, and decide whether to share your location.

Responding quickly helps the person who sent the request understand the situation.

On iPhone, yes. Touch and hold the request notification, or swipe it, to see the I'm OK and Need Help buttons. The same buttons appear on your Apple Watch when the notification reaches your wrist.

For safety the device must be unlocked; on the Watch it is enough that it is on your wrist and unlocked. This way someone holding your phone cannot answer on your behalf.

From the notification you only send the answer: to add a message or your location, open the app. If the request has expired or is already closed, or there is no connection, you receive a "Response not sent" notification and can answer from the app.

On Android these buttons are not available: tap the notification to answer from the app.

The request is still useful with partial responses: it shows who replied and who has not replied yet. If someone does not respond, you can decide whether to contact them directly or wait.

Request availability and duration depend on the app configuration.

Reminders are useful when you want to check on someone at recurring times, for example an older family member, a person who lives alone, or someone you want to check on at predictable moments. They are scheduled routines, not manual one-time requests.

Unlike a How are you? request, which you send by hand when you want a response right then, a Reminder is prepared in advance: it runs on the chosen days and times, sends the request automatically, and keeps the same alert rules until it is paused or disabled.

Creating or reactivating a Reminder requires Premium. Receiving a Reminder, replying to it, and receiving help or missed-response alerts remain available to the people involved. If the creator's Premium expires, their Reminders stop running during the grace period; if they do not renew within 3 days, those Reminders are deleted.

Open How are you? from Home and tap Reminders, then “New Reminder”. Choose a person from your circle, name the Reminder, set the days and up to four times a day, the response time, and decide who else to alert when they reply, ask for help, or do not answer. You are always alerted.

The final review shows days, times, and alerted people in separate rows. When you confirm, you send an approval request: the Reminder starts only after the other person accepts it. Before accepting, the invited person sees by name who will be alerted: the creator and the chosen alert contacts, even if some are not in their own circle.

The name must stay different from your other non-disabled Reminders: when needed, the app adds a number such as (2).

The Reminders page has three tabs: Created by me, For me, and Trusted. Created by me gathers the ones you scheduled; For me the ones others created for you and you accepted; Trusted the ones where someone listed you as a contact to alert, so you know in advance for which people you might be notified if they don't respond. In the Trusted tab you can view Reminders, but you cannot edit, pause, or disable them because you are neither the creator nor the recipient.

In the detail page, the creator and the person receiving the Reminder can remove any trusted contact; a trusted contact can remove only themselves. The creator always remains a required recipient and can never be removed. After approval, contacts cannot be added or replaced: they can only be removed. Removing a contact does not delete the Reminder, which stays active for the other people. A trusted contact can also quickly remove themselves with the trash icon on the card in the Trusted tab.

The creator can disable a Reminder directly from the Created by me list. From the detail page, the creator can edit title, times, response timeout, and alert contacts only while the Reminder is waiting for approval: after the person accepts it, the creator can only pause, resume, or disable it.

If you are the invited person, you can reject the Reminder before accepting it. If you already accepted it and no longer want to receive it, you can stop it from the detail page: the creator and the already-approved alert contacts will be notified.

A Reminder can ask someone to respond several times over time, so the other person must accept it before it becomes active. Until it is accepted, the schedule does not run.

The person receives a clear notification and can accept or reject the Reminder. This keeps recurring checks explicit and avoids starting an ongoing routine without consent.

When a Reminder runs, the person receives a simple screen with two actions: I'm OK or I need help. They can also postpone the Reminder by a few minutes (the button shows by how much) or add a message. The postpone option disappears when the deadline is near, so the reply never slips past the allotted time. Below these actions, they can expand the details to see who created the Reminder and who will receive updates; Manage opens the Reminder detail.

Location is not shared automatically: it can be included with either I'm OK or I need help, always only with explicit consent. If the person asks for help or does not answer, the alert contacts configured for that Reminder can be notified.

I'm OK and I need help replies can be opened from the Last 7 outcomes or their notifications. The detail shows who replied, when, any message, and a map only if location was shared. Results without a reply remain summaries.

The circle is the list of trusted people who can take part in your safety actions. These are the people who can receive alerts, answer How are you? requests, and become part of your support network.

Keep your circle up to date: add only people you really trust and remove anyone who should no longer be part of your safety network.

Requests are the invitations other people have sent you to join your circle. Open Requests from the Home shortcuts: the badge shows how many are waiting, and on the page you can accept or decline them.

Accept only people you know and trust: every accepted request changes your safety network.

Open Circle from Home and tap “Add”: search for the person and tap “Invite”. The other person must accept the request before becoming an active contact; until then you find them among the Pending ones.

If you search for someone who already sent you an invite, instead of “Invite” you will see “Accept invite”: tapping it connects you right away, without creating a duplicate. People already in your circle appear in search marked “In Circle”.

The number of contacts depends on your plan: next to the button you see how many you have and the maximum allowed; at the limit the button shows “Limit reached”.

Yes. In My Circle, tap the trash icon on the contact's card and confirm. Removing contacts helps you keep control over who can receive and take part in your safety actions.

Invite people who:

• really know you;
• can understand the context of your updates;
• are willing to respond;
• have a relationship of mutual trust with you.

Avoid casual contacts or people you do not want involved in personal situations.

Recipient groups let you send some actions to a subset of the circle, for example family, colleagues, or nearby people. They are useful when you do not want to involve everyone for every update.

Groups are available with Premium. You create, edit and delete them in My Circle → Recipient groups, with “Add group”; you can also get there from the screens where you choose a group. You can save up to 10 groups, each with a name and up to 20 approved contacts, but not a group that contains your whole circle.

The same group works for All OK (on the countdown, under “Saved groups”), for SOS recipients (in Settings → SOS recipients you apply the group's contacts and confirm with “Save”), for the All OK widget and for live location. The choices made in each feature stay independent. Editing a group does not change the recipients of a live session already running.

The live sharing and retention controls described here are available from version 2.2.0; earlier versions may not include them.

On Home, tap “Start live sharing”, right below ALL OK and EMERGENCY. On the “Share live location” page you find, from the top, a drawing that illustrates sharing, any orange permission warning, “Duration”, “Optional message” and the “Share with” card. There you choose your whole circle, some “Contacts” or, with Premium, one of your saved “Groups”; then tap “Start sharing”. Without selected recipients the button stays disabled.

With the Free plan you can start one live session of up to 15 minutes per hour: the next start is available 60 minutes after the previous one, even if you stop early. With Premium you can also choose 1, 2, 4 or 8 hours.

With “Add” or “Edit” you can write an optional message of up to 300 characters. The message stays the same for the whole session and appears in the summary and on authorized recipients’ map, including after the session under the retention rules. It is not included in push notifications.

Only for SOS, you can choose live sharing and its duration during the countdown. Touching this option pauses the timer; then choose “Send now” or cancel. Your choice carries over to the receipt, where you can still turn it on or off or change the duration. “Confirm live sharing” opens live setup: review recipients and permissions and confirm Start. Selecting the switch does not start GPS or live sharing automatically.

In the All OK and SOS countdowns, “Send current location” includes one location captured when sending; it does not provide ongoing updates. Only SOS also offers “Share live location” to choose updates during a time-limited session. The same label appears on the final receipt, where you can still change your choice before confirming setup and Start.

During the session, the Home button shows that sharing is active and with how many people. Tap it to open the session: one card groups the map preview (tap it to open the map full-screen), “Remaining duration”, “Last location captured”, the people you share with and any message. Both times use HH:MM:SS: the first counts down, the second measures time since the GPS capture, not since upload, and turns orange after five minutes. At the bottom of the same card is “Stop sharing”: after you confirm, it immediately stops GPS on the phone, even offline. Stopping for everyone stays unconfirmed until the server responds. Starting or recovery messages appear only if the state lasts beyond a short interval; network and permission problems appear immediately.

If someone shares their location with you, their name appears below the live button on Home: tap it to open the map. The map follows the latest location; if you move it you can explore freely while the new location stays visible. If it moves outside the visible area or you return to the app, the map recenters and resumes following without changing zoom. “Recenter” returns to the latest location and restores the initial view. Zoom, distance and location details are explained in “How do I read my distance on a map?”; following live sharing outside the app in the next entry.

In My Circle, on a contact’s card, “Last known update” opens their latest OK, SOS or live start. If that update also contains the last known location, one button appears; otherwise, when an earlier point exists, “Last known location” appears too. Date and source distinguish an old point from a current location. Details are checked online; active live sharing follows the shared location without copying every point into circles.

With account retention consent active, the latest update, message and location remain without automatic expiry until withdrawal, contact removal or account deletion. Without retention, a live session remains accessible for at most 7 days after it ends. An OK without location does not erase the previous point. Stopping live sharing ends updates without withdrawing consent. No continuous route history is created; individual events may be stored separately.

When there is updated privacy information, it appears after Home is ready, once per account and version. “Enable retention and continue” requests consent from the server; “Continue without activating” goes on without granting or withdrawing it, and consent that is already active stays valid. You can change your choice under Settings → Consents and sharing: it is optional and applies on all devices. Live sharing also works without retention, and there is no separate choice per session: the final location follows the account consent. Withdrawing stops live sharing on all devices and deletes retained latest updates, messages, locations and live sessions from the service; if data remains to be deleted, press “Retry” until the server confirms completion. Safety-event notifications, Reminder replies and local Event History are separate: you can request their erasure through the privacy contact. SOS always works. Removing a contact revokes their online access; screenshots and exports made by others cannot be erased remotely.

A newly created account is not immediately shown a privacy update for the policy available during signup or announcements about existing features. Existing accounts receive only notices not yet shown on this installation; the PostHog choice remains separate. Logging out and back in does not repeat notices already recorded locally.

Editing a group does not change the recipients of a live session already running. How groups work is explained in “What are recipient groups?”.

Without location permission you cannot start live sharing: the button is disabled and the orange “Attention” warning, below the drawing, explains what to do with “Configure access”. With while-in-use access you can start; always-allowed access is recommended to support continuity and recovery after an interruption, without guaranteeing a restart. Android 11 and later: App settings → Permissions → Location → Allow all the time (labels may vary). iPhone: My Safe Circle settings → Location → Always. When you return to the app, permissions are checked again, but sharing never starts by itself: tap “Start sharing”. During sharing, “Automatic recovery limited” with “Details” reminds you of this limit without blocking the map. Network, battery and the operating system can interrupt updates, and force quitting does not guarantee recovery. Unsent locations are not queued for later.

During live sharing you can follow it even with the app closed. On Android, a persistent notification shows a countdown of the time left and a “Stop sharing” button; tapping the notification opens the session in the app. On iPhone with iOS 17 or later, a Live Activity appears on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, with the time left, a progress bar and a “Stop sharing” button. Stopping from here ends sharing just as it does from the app. On earlier iOS versions the Live Activity is not available: follow and stop live sharing from the app.

Location maps (details of an OK or SOS, replies to How are you? and Reminders, live location) open with a zoom that suits the accuracy of the point: the coloured circle around the point shows the area where the location lies. At the top right, the recenter button brings you back to the point and the initial view, while the + and − buttons zoom in and out.

A line shows how far you are from the point, for example “1.8 km away”. It is a straight-line distance, calculated only on your device and never sent or saved. If the app already has location permission, the distance appears by itself; otherwise tap “Show distance”: permission is requested only at that moment and, if you do not grant it, no distance is shown. The distance does not appear on the map of your own live session.

The “i” button opens “Location details”: approximate accuracy, the time of the reading when available, and how the distance is calculated.

No. Location is used only when the feature supports it, permission is granted, and sharing is active. In All OK, SOS, and replies to How are you? and Reminders, location is optional and is included only if you decide to add it. Live location starts only when you start it and ends at expiry or with “Stop sharing”.

When you do not want to share your location, turn off the option before sending: the action is still sent, without coordinates.

Quick messages are ready-made texts to attach to an All OK or an SOS. On the countdown, tap the message row: you can choose “No message”, write “Free text”, use one of your “Saved” messages or one of the ready-made “Quick options”. “Manage” opens the saved messages page.

In Settings → Quick messages you manage separate lists for OK and SOS, up to 10 messages each. “Default templates” are suggestions: tap one to customize it and save it as your own message. Widgets instead use the message chosen in Settings → Quick widgets.

The countdown is still designed for fast action: choose a ready-made message and use free text only when you really have time to type.

Event History collects important safety events: SOS, All OK, How are you? responses, and relevant notifications. It helps you reconstruct what happened and follow up on any later actions.

Open it from the History shortcut on Home. It is available with Premium (on the free plan the button shows the Premium label) and is saved only on this device.

Notifications are the immediate operational flow: recent alerts, How are you? requests, and messages that need attention. You can filter them by All, Unread, Actions and SOS and mark them all as read.

Event History is the memory of safety events: it is designed for review, reconstruction, and follow-up.

In Notifications, messages show a two-line preview. For longer text, tap “Read more” to expand it within the card and “Show less” to collapse it. Opening the event or map remains a separate action.

The badge on the bell at the top right of Home marks unread notifications; above 9 it shows 9+. Tap the bell to open Notifications and manage alerts.

On Android, battery saving can delay or block notifications. If alerts arrive late or do not arrive, check the device settings for My Safe Circle.

In particular, check:

1. App notifications are enabled in the system settings.
2. Battery optimization is turned off or set to "unrestricted" for My Safe Circle.
3. Background activity is allowed, especially on devices with aggressive battery saving.

The exact names of these options vary by manufacturer, but the goal is to let the app receive alerts even when it is not open.

The app does not track your location permanently. All OK, SOS, and replies to How are you? and Reminders can include a single location, only if you choose. You can also explicitly start a time-limited live location sharing session with approved contacts in your circle: during the session the app tries to keep updating your location in the background, and you can stop it whenever you want. The distance shown on maps is calculated only on your device. Without location permission, the other features remain available.

When available, detailed usage analysis is optional and separate from safety data retention. It uses a random identifier for this installation, without message text, contacts or locations. Change it in Consents and sharing: turning it off stops future collection, while deletion of data already sent must be requested from the privacy contact with the reference codes shown on that page.

The only people who see your actions are the contacts in your circle who have accepted the connection: you are not visible to strangers. When you send an All OK, an SOS, or respond to a request, recipients see that the update comes from you, along with the message and location only if you chose to include them. Whoever receives your latest OK or SOS also sees it in the circle on their own Home, with the time elapsed.

Before accepting a Reminder, you see its creator and the contacts to be notified. Live sharing ends with “Stop sharing” or at expiry. Without retention, online access lasts at most 7 days after the end; with consent, latest data remains until withdrawal, contact removal or account deletion. Stopping live sharing does not erase retained data. You can withdraw consent under Settings → Consents and sharing; to erase separate copies too, write to [email protected].

Links to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service are on the sign-in and sign-up screens. After signing in, find them under Help & Feedback → Legal Documents. Read them to understand what data is processed and why. Manage choices separately in Settings → Consents and sharing, under “Sharing with contacts” and “App analytics”. Retention for contacts is an account choice applying across its devices; analysis preferences are saved only for this installation and remain separate. Reading the documents activates neither.

Some features require device permissions:

• notifications, to receive alerts;
• location, to attach coordinates when you choose to;
• network, to sync actions and updates.

In Settings → Permissions you see which ones are all set and which need review; on iPhone you also find Urgent alerts and Critical alerts. You can change permissions from the device settings. If a permission is denied, the app tries to continue with reduced functionality when possible.

Open the menu at the top left of Home. In Profile you edit your first name, last name and nickname. In Settings you find Permissions and Preferences: language, app theme, Quick messages, SOS recipients and Quick widgets. Choose from Parallax (medium violet), Bubble (navy and teal), Calm Safety (medium petrol blue) and Nord (medium slate blue). If a removed theme was selected, the app switches to Parallax and keeps your other preferences. From Premium you manage your subscription; Help & Feedback gathers this guide, the tutorial, information about the app and the legal documents. Recipient groups are managed from My Circle.

To sign out, use Logout at the bottom of the menu: the app asks for confirmation before logging out.

For the password, in Profile → Account security tap “Reset password”: you receive an email with a link and set a new password outside the app. If you sign in with Google or Apple, the password is managed by that service.

Also from your Profile, you can permanently delete your account with “Delete Account”. For safety, the app asks you to confirm by re-entering your password, or by signing in again with Google or Apple: deletion removes your account and cannot be undone.

You can request deletion of your account and data without reinstalling the app through the account deletion page (https://mysafecircle.app/account-deletion.html). You can also request deletion of specific data while keeping your account.

Premium raises limits and unlocks advanced features:

• more people in your circle, up to 10 contacts;
• sending How are you? requests;
• creating and reactivating recurring Reminders;
• saving recipient groups;
• Event History;
• live location also for 1, 2, 4 or 8 hours.

With the free plan you can always send All OK and SOS, reply to How are you? and Reminders, and start a live session of up to 15 minutes per hour. The number of contacts on the free plan depends on the app configuration.

When a feature is Premium, the interface marks it with badges or dedicated messages.

Open Premium from the Home menu. From there you can see your current plan, upgrade to Premium, and use “Restore Purchases” if you bought in the past, for example after changing phones or reinstalling the app.

Cancellation does not happen inside the app: subscriptions are managed and cancelled through the store you purchased from, that is the App Store on iPhone or Google Play on Android. After cancelling, you keep the Premium features until the end of the period you already paid for.