Support
How can we help?
Answers to common questions about setting up and using Bible to Unlock.
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Questions, bugs, or feedback: write to us and a real person will read it.
It helps to include your iPhone model, iOS version, and the app version (shown in the app's Settings).
Frequently asked questions
How do I set it up?
Bible to Unlock lives on each child's own iPhone. Install it there and sit down with your child for a few minutes. The app walks you through it:
- Set a parent PIN. Only you should know it. It opens parent settings and manual unlocks.
- Allow Screen Time access when iOS asks, so the app can lock and unlock apps.
- Choose the apps to lock until the day's reading is done, and how long they stay open afterwards.
- Train your child's voice by having them read aloud for about a minute. From then on, only their voice unlocks that phone.
If you have more than one child, set up the app on each child's phone.
How do I unlock the apps myself, as a parent?
On your child's phone, tap the shield icon on the reading screen and enter your parent PIN. In the parent area, tap Unlock today. The apps open just as if the reading had been done.
The voice check didn't recognize my child. What now?
A parent can listen to the recording in History and unlock the phone if it was a mistake. If it keeps happening (a cold, a voice that's changing, a noisy room), retrain the voice: tap the shield icon, enter your PIN, and go to Voices.
How do I erase my family's data?
- Everything on one phone: in the parent area, go to Settings → Erase everything on this phone. Deleting the app also removes its data from the phone.
- Recordings only: shorten “Keep recordings” in Settings, or delete individual readings in History.
- Family view: if you connected the phone to a parent's phone, tap Disconnect from the parent phone on the child's phone to take its encrypted status down from iCloud.
Read more in our Privacy Policy.
Which Bible translation does the app use?
Bible to Unlock uses the English Standard Version (ESV). The app only shows the passage reference, for example “John 3”. Your child reads the passage from their own printed Bible, so a printed ESV works best: the wording matches what the app listens for.
To check the reading, the app downloads that chapter's text from Crossway's ESV API and keeps no more than a few chapters on the phone at a time.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.
Does it cost anything?
No. Bible to Unlock is free, with no ads and no account to create.
What happens to my child's recordings and voice?
They stay on the phone. We don't run servers and never receive recordings, voice profiles, or location. Recordings are deleted automatically after 60 days by default. The details are in our Privacy Policy.