Everything the app does, answered plainly.
It is a reading plan drawn up by Robert Roberts around 1853. Every day gives you three portions: one from the Law and History, one from the Psalms and Prophecy, and one from the New Testament.
Follow it for a year and you read the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice. It takes about twenty minutes a day.
Tap one of the three coloured bars on the home screen. That opens the chapter, with a play button at the top if you would rather listen.
Swipe left and right inside a reading to move to the next or previous one of that day.
Scroll to the bottom of a reading and tap the Done button, or hold down the reading’s bar on the home screen to tick it off without opening it.
Holding it again unticks it. The ring on the home screen fills as you complete the three.
Swipe left or right on the home screen, or use the arrows either side of the date.
Tap the date itself to jump to any day of the year. The calendar under the people icon shows the whole year at once, with the days you have finished filled in.
Yes. Nothing is locked and nothing expires. If yesterday is unfinished a small Catch up on yesterday button appears under today’s date.
There is no streak to break and no score. The plan is the point, not the record.
Not for the reading itself. Signed out you still get the daily readings, the narration, offline downloads, the whole Bible with search and Strong's, highlights and notes, every setting and all the reminders.
Two things do need one: groups and friends, because they involve other people, and syncing your progress and settings to another device.
Sign in from the icon at the top left of the home screen whenever you feel like it. Nothing you have done so far is lost when you do.
Yes. Settings has a Show me round the app button at the very bottom. It runs the same guided tour you got on your first launch.
Settings, under Reading, has a Bible Version section. You can also change it without leaving a chapter: tap the settings icon at the top of a reading for the quick panel.
Your choice applies to the readings, the in-app Bible and the narration.
A few versions are only available for the Old or the New Testament. If you pick one of those, readings outside its range fall back to the King James so you are never left with a blank page.
The quick settings panel warns you when the chapter you are on is one of those.
Settings, under Reading, has Accessibility with text size and line spacing. Text size also sits in the quick settings panel inside a reading.
The largest size is a little over twice the default.
Yes. Settings, under Reading, has Reading Font: serif, sans serif, condensed, monospace, or whatever your phone uses by default. There is a live preview as you choose.
Text size, line spacing, bolder text, high contrast and reduce motion, all under Accessibility in settings.
Reduce motion also follows your phone’s own system setting, so if you have already turned it on there you do not need to do anything here.
Settings, under Appearance. Dark mode is a switch, and there are several colour themes below it.
A few themes unlock as you get further through the plan.
Yes. The double down arrows at the top of a reading start it creeping down the page, for when your hands are busy or you are reading aloud to someone.
Tap it again to stop, or simply touch the page: taking hold of the reading takes back control.
The speed lives in quick settings, under the same button, so you can change it without anything sitting on top of the words.
It keeps the screen awake while it runs and stops on its own at the end of the reading. Settings, Reading, Hands free changes the speed it starts at and turns either of those off.
Yes. Settings, Reading, Reading Font, then OpenDyslexic. Its letters are weighted at the bottom and each one is shaped distinctly, which makes them harder to rotate or mistake for one another.
It pairs well with larger text and wider line spacing, both in the same place. Everyone finds a different combination easiest, so it is worth trying a few.
Yes, and in their own colours. Hold a verse to open the word picker, then use the Highlight and Underline switch at the top. Switching leaves whatever you have already marked exactly as it is, so you can colour a phrase, switch, and underline three words of it without losing the colour.
An underline sits on top of a highlight rather than replacing it, so one word can carry both at once. That is what makes rules possible.
A rule is a highlight and an underline that together mean one thing. Say that green with a blue line under it means Jesus, and green with purple means God, and from then on marking a word both ways means that, without you having to say so again.
Make one under Settings, Marking and your legend, then Rules. Choose the two colours and write what the pair means.
Nothing is stamped onto the word when you use a rule. A word wearing green and blue simply is Jesus, because that is what the pair means, so renaming the rule renames every word it covers and deleting it leaves them plainly green and blue again.
In the word picker a rule shows as a circle split in two, the highlight above its underline. Choose it and drag, and both layers are set together.
Settings, then Marking and your legend. It opens on a grid: your highlights, your underlines, your rules, the colours you have kept without naming, and everything you have marked, each with a count so you can see at a glance how much of your code is written down.
You can also get there by tapping the meaning line in the word picker, which is usually the moment you notice a colour needs naming.
Removing a meaning there never touches your Bible. The colours stay exactly where you put them; only the note about what they mean goes.
A thin bar appears at the top of a reading once the title has scrolled away, with the chapter on the left and the book on the right. Readings often run across two or three chapters, and it follows you into each one.
Open a reading and press play at the top. It reads that chapter, then carries on into the next reading of the day on its own.
While it is playing a small pill sits at the bottom of the home screen so you can pause, skip or tap back through to whatever is playing.
Yes, in Settings under Listening, or in the quick settings panel inside a reading. Which narrators are available depends on the version you have chosen.
Yes. Play, pause and skip appear on your lock screen and in your notification shade, with artwork for whichever book you are in.
Closing the app fully stops playback and clears the notification, the way a music app behaves.
That is your choice. Settings, under Listening, has a Repeat the day switch. Turn it off and playback stops after the third reading instead of starting again.
Every book of the Bible has its own artwork, drawn from the text itself. It changes as the reading moves from one book to the next.
There is a bar along the bottom of the home screen and the reading screen. Tap it, or flick it upwards, and the whole Bible opens over whatever you were doing.
It keeps your place. Close it, wander round the app, open it again and you are back on the same verse.
It is behind the search button at the top left, next to the bookmark. Tap it and the box slides down; tap it again and it folds away.
It used to sit there on every screen, including the chapter you were reading, which is the one place nobody wants an invitation to go somewhere else.
Results always bring the box back with them, so you can change what you asked for without hunting for it.
Type the reference into the Bible’s search box. It understands shorthand, so "ez 23:45" goes to Ezekiel 23:45 rather than Ezra, because Ezra does not have 23 chapters.
"jn 3:16", "1jn2:5", "ps23" and "song 2" all work, and spaces are optional.
It keeps suggesting chapters while you are still typing, including after the colon, so "deu 7:" carries on offering Deuteronomy 7 rather than deciding you meant to search for those characters.
Yes. Use your keyboard’s microphone and say it however you would say it out loud: "Exodus two verse three" finds Exodus 2:3, and "John chapter three verse sixteen" finds John 3:16.
The word "verse" becomes the colon, and numbers spoken as words become numbers.
It only does this when what you said really is a reference. Search for the word "three", or for a threefold cord, and you get exactly what you asked for.
Pull the back and forward arrows upwards, or tap the small handle above them. Everywhere you have read opens just above, newest first, and tapping a line takes you there.
That is a different thing from the arrows themselves. The arrows retrace the path you walked and empty as you walk back down it; this is the record of everywhere you have been, and it survives closing the app.
The same list is on the Bible’s front screen under Recently read, where there is also a Clear button.
Yes. Type a word or phrase and press search, and it finds the verses containing it. Tap a result to open that chapter at that verse.
Reading a version that carries them, tap any word. A card shows the original word, how it is said, and what it means, from Strong’s.
Where a Strong’s number covers a whole phrase, the card says which phrase the word you tapped is part of.
Open a chapter in the Bible and tap the compare button at the top right, then pick a second version.
Two layouts are offered. Side by side gives each version its own column that you scroll separately. Verse by verse puts both under each verse number.
To go back to one version, open the same panel and either tap the version that is highlighted or use the button at the bottom.
Hold down any verse. You can colour it, save it, write a note on it, copy it or share it.
To colour only part of a verse, tap Choose words at the top of that sheet. The verse opens large. Tap a word, or drag across several to mark a whole phrase in one movement.
To take colour off again, start the drag on a word that already has it and sweep across. Whether a drag adds or removes is decided by the word you begin on.
Each word keeps its own colour, so you can mark one phrase yellow and another green in the same verse. Change colour and carry on.
The palette button next to the five colours opens a wheel if none of them suit.
Highlights and notes reappear whenever you come back to that chapter, and sync to your account if you have one.
Notes from the translators. The King James in particular marks where the Hebrew or Greek says something more literally than the English does, or where a phrase could fairly be read another way. Genesis 1:4 is one: "divided the light from the darkness" carries a note that the Hebrew reads "between the light and between the darkness".
Tap the dot to read the note. It tells you which words it is about.
Settings, Reading, Footnotes lets you have them printed under the verse instead, or turn them off. They show in the daily readings and in the Bible alike.
Settings, Marking up, Your legend. Give each colour a meaning: green for a promise, blue for something to do, whatever code you already use. There is a common set to start from.
Your colours are then offered first whenever you highlight, and the sheet reminds you what the one you are holding means.
Mixed a shade you like on the wheel? The plus button in its corner either keeps it for next time or lets you name it on the spot and add it to your legend.
The saved list can be filtered by any of them by name, so "show me every promise I have marked" is one tap.
Your legend follows your account, so a new phone keeps it.
Swipe left or right anywhere on the chapter to turn to the next or previous one. At the end of a book it carries on into the next.
The two arrows near the bottom step back and forward through the places you have been, keeping the verse as well as the chapter. Look something up in Isaiah while reading Genesis, then tap back and you are returned to the verse you left.
They tuck away when you reach the bottom of a chapter, where the Next and Previous buttons already are. The back arrow disappears once there is nowhere further back to go; the forward arrow stays, in case you went back further than you meant to.
Tap the reference at the top, where it says the book and chapter, to open the list of all the books. Recently read sits at the top of that list, holding the chapters you have been in lately with how long ago, so going back to one is a single tap even days later.
The arrow at the top left closes the Bible.
The bookmark icon at the top of the Bible. Tap it again, or use the back arrow, to return to exactly the chapter and verse you were reading.
The filter button at the top narrows the list: everything, just bookmarks, just the ones you wrote notes on, or by any colour you have named in your legend. Each choice shows how many verses it holds before you pick it.
Yes. Open a chapter in the Bible and press the translate button at the top. It opens a page showing every word with the original, what it means, and its Strong's number. Hebrew reads right to left, as it should.
Switch between Original order and English order at the top of that page. Tapping any word opens the same word study card the Bible gives you.
If you would rather it stayed in the chapter you are reading, Settings, Hebrew and Greek lets you choose Under each word instead. The same button then prints the original beneath the words of the chapter, so your place and your highlights are kept.
Because the translators used no English word of their own there. The Hebrew object marker is the commonest case: it does a job in Hebrew grammar that English simply does without.
Printed interlinears mark those the same way. It is not a word the app failed to find.
Where several English words render one original word, the original is printed once, under the first of them, rather than repeated under each.
Yes. Only a couple of versions have the word numbers written into them, but the Hebrew and Greek behind a verse do not change with the version you are reading, so on the others the numbers are borrowed from a version that has them and matched on the word inside the same verse.
Occasionally a version words a phrase so differently that nothing matches. When that happens you are shown the original words the verse is built from and can tap the one you meant.
The interlinear page works the same way, and says at the top which version it borrowed.
Type it into the Bible search: H430 or G26. You get every verse where that original word stands behind the English, whatever word the translators chose.
The letter matters. Hebrew and Greek numbering both start at one, so H2424 and G2424 are entirely different words. Leave the letter off and both are searched.
On the word study card, the search button finds where this version uses that English word; hold it instead and it finds every verse using the same original word.
The Bible search looks for meaning as well as words, which is excellent for finding verses about an idea and unhelpful when you want an exact phrase.
Once you have searched, Match capitals appears above the results. Turning it on switches the search to looking for exactly what you typed, capital letters and all, which is also how you tell LORD from Lord.
It should not any more. Tapping a field low down a page moves the page up just enough to clear the keyboard, and it moves in step with the keyboard rather than jumping afterwards.
That applies everywhere: notes on a verse, naming a highlight colour, writing in a group, signing in and sending feedback.
If you ever find somewhere it still happens, send it through the feedback page and say which screen.
Long-press the app icon on your home screen for three shortcuts: today's readings, the Bible, and your saved verses. Each opens straight onto that screen.
By voice, yes: say "Hey Google, open Daily Bible Readings" on Android, or "Hey Siri, open Daily Bible Readings" on iPhone. That works already and needs nothing setting up.
On Android you can also put the day's readings straight on your home screen: long-press an empty part of the screen, choose Widgets, and find Daily Bible Readings.
Asking an assistant to do more than open the app, such as reading today's chapters aloud on command, is not something the app can offer while it is downloaded from this website rather than from the Play Store. Google only lets assistants reach inside apps that it has reviewed and published.
Yes. Settings, under Reading, has Offline Downloads. Each Bible version has a download button that saves the whole thing to your phone.
Anything downloaded is used automatically, so those readings open instantly and cost no data.
Yes. In Offline Downloads, pick a start and end date and it saves only those days’ readings. Choose whether you want the text, the narration, or both.
Tap the button again while it is running to stop it. The bin icon removes something you have already downloaded.
Downloads carry on while the app is open and pick up where they left off if you close it partway through.
Yes. Settings, Offline Downloads has the Hebrew and Greek dictionary, about ten megabytes. Once it is saved, tapping a word answers instantly and works with no signal at all.
Without it, each word is looked up over the internet as you tap it, which is a short wait each time and nothing without a connection.
Settings, under Notifications, has Daily Reminders. Turn it on and pick a time.
There is also a gentle evening nudge if the day is unfinished. It only ever comes once, and only if there is something left to read.
A verse pinned to your notification shade each morning at a time you choose, from Settings under Notifications. Tapping it clears it and opens that chapter.
Yes. Every kind has its own switch under Notifications in settings: daily reminders, verse of the day, group replies, friend requests, app updates and the rest.
If you are signed in, those choices follow you to another device.
Discussing the readings. Make a group, invite people, and post thoughts or questions about a day’s chapters. Others can reply.
Groups need an account, since they involve other people. Everything else in the app works signed out.
Groups are conversations, not competitions. There is deliberately no leaderboard and no ranking of who has read the most.
The people icon on the home screen opens groups, with friends one tap further in. Send a request and they get a notification.
Friends need an account on both sides.
Swipe it to the right. What you are answering appears above the box you are typing in, and above your reply once it is sent, so a long thread stays followable.
The X on that little banner cancels it, and your reply goes to the discussion as a whole instead.
Type @ and their name. The list narrows as you type, so "@d" shows the people whose names begin with a D, and tapping one fills it in.
Being named reaches them even if they have group replies switched off, because being spoken to and being replied to are not the same thing. It has its own switch in Settings, under Notifications, if they would rather not.
Because a reference is the most useful thing in a message and copying it out by hand is a waste of your time. Write one and it becomes a pill you can tap, which opens the Bible there.
A Strong\u2019s number does the same and opens the word study.
They are the same pill that sits at the top of a discussion about a passage, so a reference means the same thing wherever you see it.
A verse opens in the version the sentence was about. Write "in the KJV Exodus 5:23 says … but in the YLT it says …" and the reference opens in the King James, while the YLT further along becomes a link of its own that opens the same verse in Young\u2019s Literal. It shows you that version without changing the one you normally read.
Editing one works exactly as you would expect: backspace takes one character, not the whole reference.
Write the reference, then an opening quotation mark. Exodus 23:2 -" works, and so does Exodus 23:2: " or Exodus 23:2 says, " or just Exodus 23:2 " — anything short between the reference and the quote is fine.
Every word starts chosen. Tap the ones to leave out, or drag across several at once. A gap in the middle becomes an ellipsis, because a quotation that silently closed the gap would be a misquotation.
Clear empties the choice so you can pick only the words you want; once it is empty the same button offers the whole verse back. Add drops the quotation into your message and closes the quote.
It also reads which version you meant. "Oh but in the YLT..." opens in Young\u2019s Literal, and so does naming the version before the reference rather than after it. The code at the top left says which one you are looking at, and the cog beside it changes it.
You only have to write the reference once. "In the KJV Exodus 5:23 says ... but also in the YLT it says:" fetches the same verse again in the other version, because the sentence is plainly still about it. "And v.24 reads:" works the same way, one verse on in the same chapter. Compare as many versions as you like in one message; each quotation takes the version named just before it.
It asks only when the sentence genuinely has not said which version, and a quotation with no version and no verse named is left alone \u2014 ordinary quotation marks stay ordinary quotation marks.
Yes. Hold the verse and choose Discuss, then pick the group. It opens the same new-discussion screen you get from a reading, with the verse already attached.
Your progress, your settings, your chosen version and narrator, your notification choices, and any verses you have highlighted, bookmarked or written notes on.
Sign in on a new phone and it all arrives. Signed out, all of that still works, it just stays on the one device.
Settings, under Account, well below Sign out so the two cannot be confused in a hurry.
There are two ways to do it, because people mean two different things by it. "Delete everything" removes the account and everything attached to it, including the questions and replies you have written in groups. Nothing is kept.
The other deletes your account, name, email address and picture but keeps your reading record — your streaks, highlights, notes and settings — with nothing attached that says whose it is. Sign up again with the same email address within two years and it comes back to you. After that it is deleted too.
Either way, anything you posted in a group may be kept so the conversation other people took part in still makes sense; ask and that will be removed too.
Signed out, none at all. Signed in, only what is needed to sync: your email, display name and picture, your progress, settings and verse marks.
There is no advertising and no analytics or tracking of any kind. The full privacy policy is on the website.
There is one for both Wear OS and Apple Watch, but it is still in development and not released yet.
The plan is to see the day’s readings, tick them off, and read or listen on the watch itself, with your version, narrator and theme carried over from the phone. It will turn up in the What’s New page when it is ready.
Check you are online, since narration streams rather than being stored, unless you have downloaded it.
If it spins and never starts, close the app fully and reopen it. If a chapter fails, the player says so and you can tap the message to try again.
If it still will not play, make sure you are on the latest version from the website, then send feedback from settings.
Bible text is fetched as you need it, so it needs a connection unless you have downloaded that version.
If one version fails, try another; occasionally the text service is briefly down. Downloading a version in settings avoids the problem entirely.
Check the switch is on in Settings under Notifications, and that your phone has not blocked notifications for the app in its own system settings.
Some Android phones aggressively put apps to sleep to save battery. If yours does, excluding this app from battery optimisation usually fixes it.
Most updates arrive on their own: the app fetches them in the background and asks whether you would like to restart to apply it.
Bigger changes need a new file from the website. Settings, under App Updates, tells you which version you are on and checks for a new one.
Settings has Feedback near the bottom. It sends what you write straight to us along with your app version, which usually makes the problem much easier to find.
Suggestions are genuinely welcome. A fair amount of what is in the app arrived that way.