Getting started
What happens on the first start
Keepilo greets you, asks who lives in your household, and then offers to download the content: the AI model that powers the assistant, and optionally a content package. You need Wi-Fi for this step and only for this step. Everything afterwards works offline.
Do I need an account?
No. There is no registration, no email address and no password. The app never asks who you are, because it has nowhere to send that information.
How long does the download take and how big is it?
The language model is the large part. Expect a few gigabytes over a normal connection. The download resumes if it is interrupted, and every file is checked against a checksum before it is used, so a half-broken model never gets loaded. You can close the app; the download picks up where it stopped.
Which device do I need?
For the standard model, 6 GB of RAM or more is comfortable. On smaller devices Keepilo offers a lighter model: shorter answers, less nuance, same offline behaviour. Everything outside the assistant (inventory, dashboard, map, tools, vault, emergency mode) runs on anything. Map regions need free storage, not memory.
Can I skip the download and start later?
Yes. The inventory, the dashboard and all tools work without the model. The assistant then shows a card offering to load it whenever you next have Wi-Fi.
How do I get new editions of the content?
Under Load content, a package shows New edition as soon as one exists, with an Update button. Updating replaces the old chapters and removes the old file. Your own imports are never touched. After restoring from a backup, the app also recognises installed packages again instead of offering them twice.
Which language does the app run in?
English or German. On first start Keepilo suggests your device language; you can change it any time in Settings under Language. Everything follows: the interface, the backpack template, the printed emergency cards, and the language the assistant answers in. This handbook inside the app is re-read in the new language on the next start.
The six areas
What lives where?
At the bottom on a phone, on the left on tablet and desktop, there are six areas:
- Home is the dashboard: readiness score, range in days, what expires next, how the medication stands.
- Assistant is the chat with your documents.
- Map shows downloaded maps with no network, with your own points and track recording.
- Inventory is the stock: articles, batches, dates, locations.
- Library holds the documents the assistant answers from.
- Tools are the small helpers plus the document vault.
Settings is not an area but the gear icon: top right on the home screen on a phone, at the bottom of the bar everywhere else.
Where did the planner and the emergency tab go?
To wherever the number sits that they calculate from. Rationing and Shopping list hang as buttons on the range card on the home screen. Emergency preparation (emergency plan, backpack checklist, emergency cards) has its own tile on the home screen and also sits behind the red SOS button. A tab of their own is gone: nobody finds three sub-pages behind a collective noun.
What is the red SOS button in the top right?
The way into emergency mode, and it sits in the same place on every screen. That is deliberate: when it counts, your hand should find it without looking.
Is there a search across everything?
Yes, with ⌘K on a Mac and Ctrl+K on Windows, and on desktop also as an entry in the sidebar. It finds articles, inventory numbers, people and documents at once.
Asking the assistant
How do I ask a question?
Open Assistant, type your question in normal language and send it. The answer streams in word by word. Ask like you would ask a person: "how do I make water drinkable", "what do I do with a heavy bleed", "how long does rice keep".
What are the chips under the answer?
Sources. Each chip shows a document and a page number. Tap it and the PDF opens at exactly that page, so you can read the original passage. If an answer has no chips, it did not come from your documents, so treat it accordingly.
Why does it sometimes say it does not know?
Because nothing in your library covers the question. That is the correct answer, and it is deliberately preferred over a plausible invention. Import a document that covers the topic and ask again.
Can I ask in one language about a book in another?
Yes. The answer comes back in the language the app runs in. Measurements in gallons, ounces, feet or Fahrenheit are converted to metric, with the original value in brackets.
What is the "household context" switch?
With it on, the assistant may use your medical cards (allergies, chronic conditions, medication) when the question touches them. Switch it off for a session if you would rather keep the answer general. Medical answers always carry the note that the app does not replace a doctor.
Does the conversation go anywhere?
No. The model runs on your device. There is no request to any server, in flight mode or out of it. The chat history is stored locally and you can delete it.
Can it answer questions about the app itself?
Yes. This handbook is indexed inside the app like any other document. Ask "where do I set the water requirement" and you get the relevant paragraph with a citation.
Library and documents
How do I import a document?
- Open Library and tap Import.
- Pick a PDF, TXT or Markdown file from your device or cloud drive.
- Wait for the indexing bar. A 100-page PDF takes a few minutes, once.
You can also send a file to Keepilo from another app using "Open with" or the share sheet.
Where do I get good documents?
Anything you legally have: manuals, first-aid guides, the instructions for your water filter, your insurance documents, the house wiring plan. The app also points to freely downloadable survival handbooks; you download them in your browser and import them yourself. Keepilo ships no books of its own.
Why does it say a document has no text?
Because it is a scan, a stack of images with no text layer. Keepilo says so plainly instead of pretending, and offers Recognise text.
What does "Recognise text" do?
It reads the text out of the page images, on the device, and indexes the result. After that the assistant can quote the scan too. The row then carries a marker, because text recognition misreads: "rn" becomes "m", "l" becomes a one, and two columns happily run into each other. Anyone getting an answer out of such a document should know. Text recognition is not yet available on Windows; there, running the file through an OCR tool first still helps.
How do I remove a document?
Every row in the library carries a red bin button. Tap it, confirm, done. The index entries go with it and the assistant stops quoting it immediately.
What is the language badge?
Keepilo detects the language of each document and shows it. That matters because the search threshold is calibrated per language pair. It is why an English book still answers a German question properly.
Inventory
How do I add supplies?
- Open Inventory and tap Add.
- Scan the barcode or type the name.
- Enter quantity and unit: 6 cans, 5 kg, 24 tablets.
- Enter the best-before date.
- Enter the storage location: "cellar shelf 3", "kitchen", "garage".
- Finish. Keepilo assigns the inventory number and shows it large enough to write down.
What is an inventory number for?
It identifies a single article across the whole app: L- for food,
W- for water, M- for medication, S- for special items.
Write it on the crate with a marker. Later you can search for L-0042 instead of
remembering whether you called it "peaches" or "canned fruit", and the rationing plan names
the same number, so you know which box to open.
What is a batch?
The same article bought at different times has different best-before dates. Each purchase is a batch. The article shows the total; the detail panel lists the batches with their dates and locations. This is what lets the app tell you what expires first without lying about the total.
How do I book something out?
- Open the article and tap Book out.
- Choose whole packs, a partial quantity or the rest of a batch.
- Give a reason: used, expired, given away, lost.
- Confirm. Keepilo pre-selects the batch with the shortest best-before date.
Can I book out half a pack?
Yes. Enter the partial quantity: 400 g out of a 5 kg sack, 3 tablets out of a box of 20. Keepilo keeps everything in base units internally, so partial withdrawals do not drift over time.
Why does it always suggest a specific batch?
First expired, first out. Using the shortest-dated batch first is the only way a stock stays fresh without you thinking about it. You can override the suggestion.
What is the fill quantity, and why is it worth entering?
The weight or volume of one pack: 400 g per jar, 1 litre per bottle. The product data in the barcode package states nutrition per 100 g; only with the fill quantity can Keepilo turn that into the values of your actual can. The scan fills it in where the package knows it; otherwise you enter it in the unit step, and the nutrition values update immediately. In the name search, hits with a fill quantity come first, because they carry the more complete data.
Which nutrition values can I enter?
All six figures from the back of the pack: energy, fat, carbohydrates, fibre, protein and salt. The scan pre-fills what it knows; the rest you add in the add wizard or the editor. The article detail shows them as a table. Anything not recorded stays empty instead of zero: the pack may well state the value, the app just does not know it.
What is the nutrient balance above the list?
Actual versus target share for grain, vegetables and fruit, protein and fat. It catches the classic stockpile mistake: five months of pasta, eleven days of anything else. It also shows the share of calories coming from protein, with 10 to 15 percent as the reference range, computed only over articles that state protein. If vegetables and fruit are missing entirely, a clear vitamin C note appears, because the group distribution is the vitamin yardstick of a stockpile. The balance sits above the unfiltered stock; as soon as you search or filter it disappears, because the share of a selection would say nothing about the whole stock.
How do I find things?
Search by name, inventory number or barcode. Filter chips narrow the list to food, medicine, water or "expiring soon". The coloured dot in front of each row is the status: green fine, amber getting close, red act now.
What are special items?
Things that are not measured in calories: water filters, purification tablets, toilet bags, batteries, gas cartridges. Enter the model and Keepilo knows its capacity: litres for a filter, days for toilet bags. It measures your actual daily consumption from the withdrawal log and reports a range in days. Filter capacity and purification tablets count towards your potential drinking water.
How do I correct a mistake?
Open the article, tap Edit. Name, unit, category, nutrition values and the batches can all be corrected. Nothing is locked.
Barcode scanning
How does the scan work?
Tap Scan in the inventory, point the camera at the barcode, hold still for a moment. Keepilo fills in the name and, where it has the data, the nutrition values. You still confirm quantity, date and location.
Does the scan need internet?
No. Product data comes from an offline package based on Open Food Facts that you download once. If a product is not in it, you type the name, and the article is created either way.
Scanning does not work on my desktop
Barcode scanning is a phone and tablet function. On macOS and Windows you type the name or the number. If you have both, scanning on the phone and transferring is faster.
Maps without a network
How do I get a map onto my device?
- Open Map and tap Regions in the top right.
- Find your country in the list. The ones you already have sit at the top.
- Tap Download. The size is shown next to it, so you know what you are in for.
After that the map is drawn entirely from the file on your device: roads, places, water, contour lines, labels. No network, no map service, no background fetching.
Why whole countries and not a radius?
Because people plan in countries, not in radii. Anyone thinking about where they would go in an emergency thinks "as far as my sister's place", not "80 kilometres around me". A country is also a file that already exists, instead of a cut-out someone has to compute first.
How big is a region?
It varies a lot. Small countries are a few megabytes, Germany about 2.4 gigabytes, Canada considerably more. The figure is shown before the download. Get it over Wi-Fi, not over your mobile data.
Can I see several countries at once?
Yes. Downloaded regions sit on top of each other as one map, so Germany, Austria and Switzerland are one map and not three. The header says how many there are.
How do I remove a region?
In the region list, choose Remove on the downloaded entry. The space is free immediately, and you can download it again later.
How do I set my own point?
Long-press the spot, or right-click on a desktop. Then enter name, kind and a note. The kinds are meeting point, water, safe place, hazard, supplies and other, each with its own colour. Tapping an existing point opens it again.
What are the points good for?
For what no printed map carries: the meeting point you agreed on, the spring at the edge of the wood, the neighbour with the tractor, the underpass that floods. They travel to your family's devices through export and direct transfer.
How do I record a track?
Start Record track at the top left of the map. The line grows with you, and you find your way back even after dark. Recording only runs while the app is in front and the screen is on; nothing runs in the background. The screen stays awake for the duration.
Does the map show where I am?
If you tap Location and allow positioning. Your device computes the position itself, which needs no internet. It is displayed, not stored, and not sent anywhere. Without permission the map works exactly the same, just without the dot.
Does the map work on a desktop?
Yes, on macOS and Windows just like on phone and tablet. Same file, same region catalogue.
Where do the maps come from?
From OpenStreetMap. The credit in the bottom right of the map is part of the licence and stays there.
Tools
What is in the tools area?
Small helpers that calculate or use your device's sensors. Not a reference work: knowledge belongs in the library as a document, where the assistant can quote it.
- SOS light flashes the standard distress signal on a loop, with the torch or, if there is none, with the screen.
- Morse sender flashes text you type, at three speeds.
- Morse receiver translates back: tap short and long on the large area and the text appears with it.
- Signal tone gives a piercing whistle, continuous or in SOS rhythm. It carries further than a voice and costs no strength.
- Unit converter for length, volume, weight and temperature, with US and imperial gallons kept apart.
- Phrase help with vetted life-critical sentences and pronunciation.
- Spirit level with bubble and degrees, zeroable on a sloping surface.
- Ruler turns the edge of the screen into a scale, in centimetres and inches.
- Magnifier enlarges with the camera and turns on the light.
- Document vault, see the next chapter.
Spirit level and magnifier need a motion sensor and a camera; on a machine without them the tile is simply absent, rather than offering a button that does nothing.
How do I calibrate the ruler?
Hold a bank card against the scale and move the slider until the width matches. Every ID-1 card is exactly 85.6 millimetres wide. The setting stays on the device; you do this once.
What can the phrase help do, and what not?
It shows fixed, human-checked sentences for situations that count: "I need help", "this is an emergency", "I have an allergy". Each sentence carries its pronunciation so you can read it out. It is not a translator: you cannot type your own text. A wrong machine translation of "no peanuts" would be more dangerous than none at all.
Which languages are included?
Planned are German, English, French, Spanish, Polish, Turkish, Arabic, Russian and Ukrainian. A language only becomes visible once a human has read and approved the translation. What is not approved is not shown.
Do the tools drain the battery?
The flashing light and the signal tone do, that is their job. Everything else is frugal. With anything that shines or sounds, remember what it is for: being found. It has to run while someone is searching, not all night.
Document vault
What is the vault for?
For the papers you need in an emergency and that are nobody else's business: identity documents, insurance policies, contracts, powers of attorney, vaccination records. They sit encrypted on your device, in their own area next to the library.
How do I set up the vault?
Tools, Document vault, choose a password. At least eight characters, and pick one you do not use anywhere else. After that you can file documents from your file system, the camera or your library, each with a title, a category and a note.
What happens if I forget the vault password?
Then the documents are gone. There is no reset, deliberately: we store the password nowhere, not even encrypted. That is exactly why nobody else can reach the files either. The app says so at setup and makes you confirm it.
How is the vault different from the library?
The library is open and it is what the assistant feeds on: it reads it and quotes from it. The vault is encrypted and the assistant never sees it. It is neither indexed nor searched. A water filter manual belongs in the library, your birth certificate in the vault.
When does it lock?
After two minutes without a touch, and immediately when the app goes to the background. The list is then genuinely gone, not just hidden. Previews run in memory only; at no point is there a decrypted file lying around.
Can I use fingerprint or face?
Yes, as a convenience, if your device supports it. The password remains the main way in, and you can switch biometrics off again at any time.
Can I pass a vault document on?
Yes. In the vault choose Share, tick the documents, enter your password. Keepilo builds a package and gives you a twelve-character handover code. Send the file by AirDrop, Quick Share, cable or the direct transfer; read the code out over the phone or say it across the room. Without the code the file is worthless.
And on the other side?
There, choose Receive, open the file, type the code. The documents go straight into the other device's vault and are re-encrypted with its own password. If there is no vault yet, it is created in the same step. If the other side cancels, what was received is discarded. They never learn your password.
Household and requirements
Why does the app want to know who lives with me?
Because "23 days" only means something in relation to the people eating. A wizard asks for each person: name, year of birth, sex, and whether anything special applies. From that, Keepilo derives the daily calorie and water requirement.
Where do the requirement figures come from?
From requirement profiles per age group and sex that ship with the app. Every value shows its origin: your own entry beats the profile, the profile beats the general reference number. If your library contains a document with better figures, the app can suggest them with the quotation, and it checks them against plausibility limits before offering.
Can I change a person's requirement?
Yes. Open the person and set calories or water directly. That override then wins everywhere. Useful for heavy physical work, pregnancy, or an athlete in the household.
How do I add or remove a person?
Settings, then Household. Adding runs the same short wizard. Removing asks for confirmation, because a person also carries a medical card.
Dashboard and readiness score
What does "23 days" mean exactly?
Your current stock of food, divided by the daily requirement of everyone in your household, at normal rations. The same for water. The number changes as you book things in and out.
What is the target and how do I set it?
The number of days you want to be covered for. Ten days is the common official recommendation; many households aim at 14 or 30. Set it in Settings; the traffic lights and the progress ring refer to it.
What is the readiness score?
A single number from everything the app knows: stock range, expiring batches, whether the emergency plan is filled in, whether the medical cards are complete, whether the backpack checklist is ticked. Under it sits one suggestion: the next action with the biggest effect. Do that one thing and the number moves.
What does the preparation tile show?
The state of your emergency preparation, between the other numbers: "3 of 21 done" with a bar, counted across the emergency plan, the backpack checklist and the emergency cards. Tapping it opens the preparation directly, without the detour through the SOS button. Before the first visit it shows a sentence instead of a zero, because a checklist you have never seen is not a backlog.
What does the medication range tell me?
How many days the stock lasts for each person, from the dosage in their medical card. It is usually the shortest number on the dashboard, and it is the one worth acting on first, because you cannot improvise insulin.
Which notifications does the app send?
A weekly check-in and an alert when something drops below a threshold or is about to expire. Both are scheduled locally on the device: no background service, no push server, nothing that needs a connection.
Rationing
How do I stretch my supplies?
- On Home, tap Rationing on the range card.
- Set the number of days you want to cover.
- Tap Calculate rations.
You get the coverage as a percentage and a day-by-day plan. Coverage under 100 % is stated plainly rather than hidden. Knowing that you reach 82 % is more useful than a plan that pretends.
How does the daily plan choose items?
It empties the shortest-dated batches first and keeps each day within about ten percent of the same energy budget, so the diet does not swing between feast and famine.
Can I take the plan out of the app?
Yes, as text, to the clipboard or the share sheet. Printing it and sticking it on the cellar door is a legitimate use.
Shopping list
How does the list get filled?
From the gap. You reach it on Home through the Shopping list button on the range card. Choose a horizon, and Keepilo compares requirement against stock and lists what is missing in water, calories and long-term medication.
Where do the product suggestions come from?
The list names actual goods ("6 × UHT milk 1 L"), not calorie gaps. The templates behind it follow the stockpile table of the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (ernaehrungsvorsorge.de), converted to common pack sizes. For each food group Keepilo suggests two different articles, because otherwise thirty kilos of rice would end up on the list. The group a suggestion belongs to is shown as a note.
Can the app suggest items from my own books?
Yes. In the shopping list settings you can have stock templates generated from your library: the assistant reads, per food group, which goods your books recommend for a stockpile, and every suggestion carries book and page. Only once you accept a template does the list calculate with it, and it then calculates as transparently as before, because the list itself never comes from the AI. Accepted templates rank ahead of the built-in default. If the run finds nothing in your books, it says exactly that.
Can I tick items off?
Yes, and the ticks survive closing the app. Share the list as text with whoever is doing the shopping.
Why is medication on the shopping list?
Because it is the item with the shortest range and the longest lead time. The list shows how many days short you are, so you can raise it with your doctor before it matters.
Medical cards
What goes on a medical card?
Blood type, height and weight, allergies, chronic conditions, vaccinations, long-term medication with dosage, and an emergency contact. One card per person in the household.
How do I fill one in?
A wizard: one question per screen, every question skippable, progress saved. You can stop after two minutes and continue next week. The card shows what is still missing.
How does medication link to the inventory?
When you enter a medication, you can link it to the inventory article. Keepilo then knows dosage and stock and can compute the range in days, and it will warn you before it runs out.
Is that safe?
It is health data, and it is treated as such: stored locally only, never transmitted, and excluded from any export unless you explicitly choose a preset that includes it, which asks you first. Switch on the app lock and the operating system encryption protects it further.
Emergency, backpack and cards
What does the red SOS button do?
It opens emergency mode: full screen, large type, high contrast, and on it only what matters. Your emergency plan, the emergency contacts, the medical cards of everyone in the household, the emergency number, and a button that notifies your family by SMS. SMS, because it still gets through when mobile data does not. The button sits in the top right of every screen.
What does "notify family" send?
A prepared SMS with meeting point and time to the numbers from your emergency plan. You send it: the app opens the message, you tap. That is not convenience but a rule of the operating systems, and on reflection the right one.
Where do I enter plan, backpack and cards?
The shortest way is the preparation tile on the home screen. The same place opens in emergency mode under Emergency preparation: emergency mode displays, preparation edits. The fields of the emergency plan have a visible Edit button at the right edge.
Does emergency mode show the meeting point on the map?
Yes, if you have set a point of kind meeting point on the map and downloaded the matching region. Tapping it jumps into the map at exactly that spot.
What belongs in the emergency plan?
Meeting points if you cannot reach each other, who fetches the children, which neighbour has a key, the numbers you would otherwise look up on a phone that is dead. It is free text. Write it the way your family talks.
How does the emergency backpack checklist work?
Keepilo comes with a template based on the recommendations of the German Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK). Tick per person what is packed; add your own entries, and remove any entry with the red bin button on its row, after a confirmation. The completion feeds the readiness score.
How do I print the emergency cards?
- SOS button, Emergency preparation, then Emergency cards.
- Choose the people.
- Generate the PDF and print it double-sided on A4.
- Cut along the marks. Four cards per sheet, A7 landscape, wallet size.
The backs are mirrored so that double-sided printing lines up on any printer. Each card carries the photo, blood type, allergies, chronic conditions, medication and emergency contact.
App lock
How do I switch it on?
Settings, App lock, set a PIN. Then enable fingerprint or face recognition if your device has it, and choose after how long the app locks itself.
What happens if I forget the PIN?
There is no reset from our side. We have no copy of it and no way to reach your device. Recovery means reinstalling and importing a backup. Which is a good reason to have one.
What is snapshot protection?
The preview of the app in the task switcher is blurred, so the medication list is not readable over your shoulder while you switch apps.
Shared supplies
What is it?
While there is internet, your devices and your family's hold the same stock level. One person books out the tin, the other sees it on their own phone in the shop. The feature is off until you start it.
Where do I find it?
At the top of the inventory, right below the heading: a button Shared supplies. If anything is waiting to go out, that shows on it too. On tablets and computers it sits in the top row next to ＋ Add stock, on a phone right below. The same page is in Settings under Data & security.
How do I set up the shared supply?
On that page tap Start shared supplies. You give this device a name – the others see it on every entry, “Anna's iPhone” is plenty. On the second device tap Join a shared supply and scan the QR code the first one shows under Invite a device. The code is valid for ten minutes and one pairing; after that even a photo of it is worthless.
Do I have to hand my supplies over somehow first?
No. When you start, your entire stock goes up once, not just the changes from then on. No export beforehand is needed.
And if the second device already has supplies on it?
Then Keepilo asks, before you scan, what should happen to them:
- They belong too. For separate stores. Identical items are combined – “peaches” appears once in the list afterwards, not twice – and the quantities add up.
- Same supplies. You both recorded the same shelf: the stock on this device is deleted, then the family's figures apply. Keepilo asks once more first. Documents, people and the vault stay untouched.
Why the question has to be there: whether twelve tins here are the same twelve as over there, or twelve more in the next cellar, is something no program can know. If the second device is empty, you are not asked.
How quickly does it update?
Immediately when you open the app and when you open the inventory. While the app is open, every five minutes on its own as well. Keepilo does not sync in the background – you only read your supplies with the app open anyway, and reliable background syncing would need push messages through Apple and Google, which we do not want.
And without internet?
Booking works as always; nothing waits for the network. Whatever has not gone out yet shows as “x changes not sent yet” on the page and goes out on its own next time – whether that is in ten minutes or three weeks. Because entries are changes in quantity, the total is right even when two people booked out at the same time: two tins and three tins make five in any order.
Is it secure?
Every change is encrypted on your device before it leaves. Our server carries sealed packages and cannot open them – the key lives in your devices' keychain and is never transmitted. There is no account. What the server does see (IP address, time, package size) is spelled out in the privacy policy.
What syncs – and what does not?
What syncs is the supply itself: items, batches and entries. Left out are documents, people, health data, emergency plan and vault. You pass those on as before, via Backup & sharing.
Why did a batch suddenly get a new inventory number?
Because two devices without a connection had handed out the same number. Whoever booked first keeps it; the other batch gets the next free one, and Keepilo shows you a list of what to relabel. That number is written on the tin in pen, after all.
How do I remove a device?
Via Change key and re-pair. A removed device still knows the old key, and there is no taking that back – so the supply gets a new one and the devices that stay pair once more. That takes a minute per device and is more honest than a removal that only looks like one.
And if I want to stop?
Leave shared supplies. Your supplies stay on the device, whatever sits on the server is deleted right away. It also happens by itself: if no device checks in for twelve months, the server deletes everything.
Backup, export and transfer to family devices
Does the app back itself up?
Yes, locally: daily, keeping the last three states, without the PDFs so it stays small. The backups sit in the app folder and are deleted with the app, so keep a real export somewhere else too.
How do I make an export?
Settings, Export, choose a preset: full backup, inventory only, or a sharing
package. The presets differ in whether health data is included; the one that includes it asks
for confirmation. You get a .keepilo file and the system share sheet.
How do I get my data onto my partner's phone?
Three ways, all without internet:
- File. Export, then AirDrop, Quick Share, USB stick or cable. On the other device, open the file with Keepilo.
- Direct transfer. Both devices on the same Wi-Fi or hotspot, with no internet needed behind it. The sending device shows a QR code, the receiving device scans it, and the transfer starts. The code is valid for exactly one transfer.
- QR code sequence. With no radio at all: one device shows a sequence of QR codes, the other films them with its camera. Slower and without documents and profile pictures, but it works with both devices in flight mode. A household is roughly seventeen codes.
Do map points and the vault travel with it?
Map points and recorded tracks are small records and go along on all three ways. The vault is a special case: the full backup takes it along encrypted, the sharing package leaves it out. Handing your stock data to the family does not automatically hand over your ID documents. Single vault documents you pass on deliberately, with the handover code from the vault chapter. On import, an existing vault is never overwritten.
Are my map regions in the backup?
No, and that is intentional: a single region would be larger than the whole rest of the backup. On the new device you download it again in two taps, and the points on it come from the backup.
Does importing overwrite everything?
Normally no: Keepilo merges and tells you what it changed. A package that contains purchased content is the exception. That one replaces the library as a whole, and says so before it does.
How do I move to a new phone?
Full export on the old device, install Keepilo on the new one, import. Buy the app again if you are switching ecosystem. A purchase is tied to the store account, so an Apple purchase does not carry over to Google or Microsoft.
Where your data lives
What is stored where?
Everything (inventory, household, medical cards, emergency plan, map points, chat history, documents and the index) sits in a database inside the app's own folder on your device. The vault sits next to it, encrypted, in a folder of its own. There is no cloud copy, because there is no cloud.
When does the app use the internet?
Only when you start a download: the AI model, a content package, a map region, or the list of available content. Models and packages are hosted on GitHub and Hugging Face, the map data on storage in Helsinki. Nothing is uploaded, ever.
What about my location?
It is only computed when you switch it on in the map, and your device computes it itself. Displayed, not stored, not transmitted. There is no background recording: the track recorder only runs while the app is in front.
What happens when I delete the app?
Everything goes, including the automatic backups in the app folder. Export first if you want to keep it.
When something goes wrong
The assistant answers slowly
The model is doing real work on your processor. Close other apps, plug in the charger, because many devices throttle on battery, and consider the lighter model if your device has less memory.
The assistant answers "there is nothing about this in your documents"
Either the library genuinely lacks the topic, or the document is a scan without a text layer. Check the document in the library: if it has no page count, it was not indexed. For a scan, Recognise text helps.
The map stays empty or shows only colour
Then the view is outside the downloaded region. Outside it there simply is no data, and Keepilo would rather paint an empty area than invent something. Pull back into your country or add the neighbouring region. If a note appears instead of the labels, the map's font package is missing: it comes with the first region and can be fetched again under Load content.
The download stopped
Start it again. It resumes where it left off, and every file is verified before use. A cancelled download costs no progress.
The range on the dashboard looks wrong
Check three things: is the household complete, do the articles have realistic energy values, and is anything sitting in the inventory with a quantity of zero. The requirement column on the household page shows where each figure comes from.
The flashing light stays dark
Then your device has no torch, or another app is holding the camera. Keepilo switches to the screen by itself in that case: white on black, the same signal. Turn the brightness up and it carries far enough.
The vault does not accept my password
A wrong password looks exactly like an empty vault, because what is checked is whether the list decrypts. Watch your keyboard language and whether autocorrect typed along. There is no reset, and that is the price of nobody else getting in either.
The direct transfer does not connect
Both devices need to be on the same network: the same Wi-Fi or the same hotspot. Guest networks and "client isolation" in the router block devices from seeing each other. If in doubt, open a hotspot on one phone and join it with the other; no internet connection is required for the transfer.