Help & contact

Common questions

Do I need a subscription?

No. Writing new, personalised stories is free for everyone — a short ad plays while a story is written. Remove Ads is an optional yearly subscription that turns that ad off. Traditional Tales and the podcast list are free forever too.

What's the difference between Remove Ads and audio credits?

Remove Ads is a yearly subscription that skips the short ad while a story is written. Audio credits are a separate, one-off purchase that add a spoken narration to one of your own stories — one credit per story. Credits never expire, and once a story has been narrated you can replay it as often as you like at no extra cost.

I bought Remove Ads but the app still shows the ad.

Open Settings → Plan and tap Restore purchases. If it still doesn't unlock, check the Apple ID you bought it with is the one signed in on the device, then email us.

A story failed to write.

This is nearly always a connection problem — the app will tell you what went wrong. If the ad played but the story didn't arrive, the next try is ad-free. If it says that's all the new stories for today, you've reached the daily fair-use limit for stories written in the cloud; Traditional Tales are always available.

Can we use it without an internet connection?

Stories and narration already saved on your device work fully offline, and so do Traditional Tales. On iPhones that write stories on-device, writing a new story works offline too. Narrating a story for the first time needs a connection, as does writing a story on an iPhone that uses the cloud instead.

How do I stop sharing information with the AI services?

Settings → Privacy → Withdraw consent. Writing new stories and adding narration will stop working, but everything already saved keeps working, as do Traditional Tales.

How do I add another child?

Settings → Children → Add child. Switch between them using the name button on the home screen or the bookshelf.

How do I delete our data?

We hold nothing on our servers, so it's all on your device. Delete an individual story by pressing and holding it on the shelf. Delete a child and everything belonging to them in Settings → Children. Deleting the app removes everything.

How do I cancel a subscription?

On your device: Settings → tap your name → Subscriptions → OnceUponaBookshelf → Cancel. Deleting the app on its own does not cancel it.

Can I get a refund?

Purchases are handled by Apple, so refunds go through reportaproblem.apple.com. Do get in touch as well if something's gone wrong.

Reporting a problem with a story

Stories are written by AI. If one comes out unsuitable, upsetting or just strange, we'd genuinely like to know — email us the prompt you used and what happened, and it helps us improve the app for everyone.

Questions

Email hello@onceuponabookshelf.app.