Support

• Restore Premium
• Cancel
• Free trials
• Refunds
• Reminders
• Listening
• New iPhone
• Mistakes

How do I restore Premium?

Go to Profile and tap Restore purchases. Your iPhone needs to be signed in to the Apple Account you used to buy Premium.

Restore purchases is also under the plans whenever Pastwise shows them, and the first screen after you install Pastwise has “I already have Premium”.

How do I cancel my subscription?

Open Settings on your iPhone, tap your name, then Subscriptions, then Pastwise, then Cancel Subscription (during a free trial, it says Cancel Free Trial). Or in Pastwise, go to Profile and tap Manage subscription.

Cancel at least 24 hours before your plan renews. Premium stays on until the end of the period you’ve paid for. Deleting the app doesn’t cancel your subscription.

If you bought Lifetime while you had a subscription, cancel the subscription so you aren’t charged again.

Will I be charged when my free trial ends?

Yes, unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends. The date is in Profile.

If notifications are on, Pastwise reminds you at 10 a.m. two days before the trial ends. If they’re off, the reminder shows in the app instead. If you cancel during the trial, Premium stays on until the trial ends.

How do I get a refund?

Apple handles all payments, so refunds come from Apple. After a paid purchase, Pastwise shows Request a refund in Profile, which opens Apple’s refund form. You can also ask at reportaproblem.apple.com.

We can’t see your payment details or issue refunds ourselves.

How do reminders work?

Choose your reminders in Profile, under Reminders.

• Daily reminder: at the time you pick. Each one names a story or a lesson, and none is sent on a day you’ve already learned.
• Streak reminder: at 8 p.m., when you have a streak of 3 days or more, haven’t learned yet that day and have no freezes left. A freeze covers a day you miss. You start with one. You get one for every 7 days in a row, and can hold two. The streak reminder needs the daily reminder on, set before 6 p.m.
• If you stop opening Pastwise, the daily reminders stop after a week. Then one reminder comes after 10 days and one after 20.
• Pastwise sends nothing between 9:30 p.m. and 8 a.m., unless you picked a reminder time in those hours.

If reminders don’t arrive, open Settings on your iPhone, then Notifications, then Pastwise, and turn on Allow Notifications.

How does listening work?

Tap the headphones in a lesson or story, and Pastwise reads it aloud. It keeps playing with your phone locked, and you can pause it from the Lock Screen. By default it reads each question, then the answer. You can change that in Profile, under Learning.

Today’s story is free to listen to. Listening to lessons is part of Premium.

Narration uses a voice built into your iPhone, and Pastwise picks the best English voice you have. For a more natural one, open Settings, then Accessibility, then Read & Speak (Spoken Content on iOS 18), then Voices, then English, and download an Enhanced or Premium voice.

I have a new iPhone. Where’s my progress?

Your progress is saved on your iPhone, not in an account. It moves to a new iPhone when you move your data with iCloud Backup, a backup on your computer, or by transferring it straight from your old iPhone.

To get Premium back on the new iPhone, go to Profile and tap Restore purchases.

I found a mistake in a lesson

In the lesson, tap the ••• button at the top, then Report a problem. It opens an email that names the lesson and card, or copies our address if Mail isn’t set up. For a daily story, email us with its date.

The same menu has Sources and image credits, which lists where the lesson’s facts and pictures come from.

Your data

Pastwise keeps your progress and settings on your iPhone. The privacy policy explains what that covers and how to clear it. The terms of use cover subscriptions in full.