Candela
Support
Write to us and a person reads it. Please say which phone and which version of iOS or Android you are on — it saves a round trip.
Candela works the same way on both, with one real difference: the Android app has no cloud copy. Where an answer below depends on that, it says which platform it is talking about.
congvt@mobiluck.vn
mobiluckvn@gmail.com
We answer within two working days. For privacy and data-rights requests, use the first address and see the privacy policy.
The free trial and the purchase
How long is the trial?
14 days from the first time you open the app, counted in whole days. You do not enter any payment details to start it, and nothing charges you when it ends.
What happens when the trial ends?
Writing new pages stops. Everything else keeps working: you can read every page you wrote, edit them, search them, export the whole journal and erase it. Those are your data rights and they are not for sale.
What does it cost?
One payment of US$3.99, or the equivalent your store shows in your country. It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription: there is nothing to cancel and nothing to renew.
The purchase belongs to the store account that made it, so buying on one platform does not unlock the other. Your journal moves between them; the licence does not.
I bought Candela and got a new phone
Sign in to the new phone with the same account that bought it — Apple Account on iOS, Google account on Android — then open Candela, go to the purchase screen and tap Restore. If it says there is nothing to restore, you are almost certainly signed in with a different account than the one that paid.
The purchase screen has no price and the button is greyed out
The store did not answer. Check your connection and try again in a moment. Your journal is untouched either way.
The purchase says it is waiting for approval
That is Ask to Buy: someone in your Family Sharing group has to approve it. Candela unlocks by itself once they do — you do not need to buy it again.
Your journal
Where is my journal stored?
On your phone. On iOS, also in your own iCloud if you switch that on in Settings → iCloud. Never on a server of ours — there isn't one. See the privacy policy for the detail.
Why is there no cloud sync on Android?
Because the honest version of it would cost you more than it gives. iCloud works on iPhone because it is storage you already have, under an account you are already signed in to. The nearest thing on Android means signing in to something new and handing an app access to your Drive — for a diary, that is a bigger ask than we are willing to make. So the Android app keeps your journal on the phone and gives you a file you control instead.
How do I get my journal onto a new phone?
Never an account, on either platform.
iOS, with iCloud switched on: install Candela on the new phone, sign in to iCloud as usual, open Settings → iCloud and switch it on. The app finds your pages by itself. There is no code to wait for.
Everything else — and always, on Android: make an encrypted backup on the old phone (Settings → Privacy & data → Encrypted backup), move the file across however you like, and open it on the new phone with the PIN you had when you made it. The file format is the same on both platforms, so this also carries a journal from an iPhone to an Android phone and back.
On Android, do this before you need it. There is no cloud copy, and Candela is deliberately excluded from Android's automatic backup and from the phone-to-phone transfer that runs when you set up a new device — so a journal with no exported file is gone when the phone is. That exclusion is on purpose: we would rather your diary not sit in a Google backup you forgot was switched on. The trade is that the file is yours to make.
One backup made with an iPhone will not open on Android: the ones locked with Face ID and no PIN use a key that never leaves the iPhone. Make that backup with a PIN and it opens anywhere. The Android app says so plainly rather than claiming you typed the wrong PIN.
Locking your journal
Do I have to use a PIN?
No. In Settings → PIN & lock you can either set a six-digit PIN, or switch on Open with Face ID or phone passcode and have no PIN at all — the lock is then the one your phone already has, and there is nothing extra to remember. Onboarding offers the same choice.
How do I turn my PIN off?
Settings → PIN & lock → Turn off the PIN. It asks for the current PIN one last time. Three things change, and the app says all three before you confirm:
- Your journal opens without asking — unless you also switch on Face ID, which the app offers you right there.
- A backup file you made while you had that PIN still needs that PIN. Turning it off here does not unlock the old file.
- There is no "forgot PIN" path any more, because there is no PIN.
My journal is not locked. Can someone delete it?
They would have to get past your phone first: with no lock set, deleting a page or erasing everything asks for Face ID or the phone's passcode. It is a last fence rather than a lock, and the app describes it in exactly those words. If the phone has no passcode either, there is nothing left to check against — the app says so and lets the deletion through, because refusing would only lock you out of your own journal without protecting it from anyone.
Why can't Candela just ask me to sign in to iCloud again?
Because iOS does not let an app do that, and it is right not to: any app could then put up a box that looks like Apple's. What an app can ask for is the lock your phone already trusts — Face ID, Touch ID or the passcode — and on your phone that is what guards your iCloud account too.
I forgot my PIN
On iOS with iCloud switched on, the app can let you set a new one: it asks you to unlock with the phone's own Face ID or passcode first. Being signed in to the iCloud account that holds the journal, and being able to unlock the phone, is what stands in for proof that it is yours.
On iOS with iCloud off, and on Android always, there is no way in — not for you and not for us. The PIN is not stored anywhere anyone can read, which is the whole point of it. The only option is to erase and start again. An encrypted backup you made earlier can still be restored afterwards, using the PIN you had back then. The Android app offers exactly one path on that screen, erase everything, because there is no second one to offer.
On iPhone, if iCloud is still off, this is a good moment: Settings → iCloud.
How do I get my journal out?
Settings → Privacy & data → Export entire journal. You get one readable file containing every entry, its date, its mood, its plans, and a reference for every attachment. Voice notes appear as their transcript — see below.
Why is there no audio in my export?
Because the export is meant to be readable — it is the portability file, one plain document you can open anywhere. Sound is not readable, so a recording appears as its transcript. To carry the audio itself to another phone, use Encrypted backup on the same screen: that file contains every byte, including the recordings. Switching on iCloud does the same thing continuously.
How do I delete everything?
See Delete everything.
Photos, recording and dictation
How do I put a photo in a page?
Two buttons in the writing bar. Camera takes one right now; Photo picks from your library. Either way the picture is shrunk and stored with the page on your phone. On iOS it also goes to your own iCloud, if you switched that on; on Android it stays on the phone.
On Android neither button needs a permission from you. Taking a photo hands the job to your camera app, and picking one goes through the system picker — so Candela receives only the picture you chose and never gets to see the rest of your gallery.
The Camera button is not there
Then the device has no camera Candela can use — that happens on a simulator and on some iPads. The Photo button still works.
The app says iOS is holding the camera back
The camera permission was declined at some point, and iOS only asks once. Open Settings → Candela → Camera and switch it on; the card in the app has a button that takes you straight there. Nothing else on the page changes in the meantime, and you can still add a photo from your library.
Recording and dictation
The app says the microphone is being held back
Microphone access is switched off for Candela. On iPhone, open Settings › Candela › Microphone; on Android, Settings › Apps › Candela › Permissions › Microphone. The app has a button that takes you straight there on both.
My voice note has no text with it
Speech recognition is switched off for Candela, so nothing gets written down alongside the sound. Turn it on in Settings › Candela › Speech Recognition. The recording itself still works — but without a transcript it will not appear in search, and other devices will see a silent block.
Dictation says my language is not downloaded
Candela only transcribes on your phone, never on a server, so it needs the offline model for that language. On iPhone, download it in Settings › General › Keyboard › Dictation Languages. On Android the app asks the system to fetch it and tells you if the phone cannot do that language offline at all — in which case dictation is genuinely unavailable there, and we would rather say so than quietly send your voice to a server. Typing works just as well in the meantime.
Will my writing reminder show what I wrote?
No — and it cannot. The reminder text is fixed, generic, and comes from a table built into the app; it never contains a word from your journal or anything about how you have been feeling. A notification can appear on a lock screen in a room full of people, so this one is written for that room. If you would rather it not say "Candela" either, switch on discreet mode in Settings and it shows a plain name instead.
Is there an AI in Candela?
No. Nothing you write is sent anywhere to be analysed, and there is no chatbot. An AI companion would need your words to leave the phone, and this app does not send them anywhere — so it is not a feature that is switched off, it is one the app does not have.