Help and support
Where to start if something is wrong, and how to reach us.
Start here if something is wrong, and write to us if this page does not answer it.
Common questions
The Qibla direction is not shown
OneQibla needs to know where you are before it can calculate a direction. Open Settings → Your location and either tap Use my location, or type a latitude and longitude yourself. Either works; the app does not require the location permission.
The needle points, but the app never says I am facing the Qibla
This is deliberate, and it is the honest answer rather than a fault.
On the Qibla screen the needle points to the Kaaba from your phone’s own true-north heading, and the sentence under it says how far to turn. What the app will not say is “You are facing the Qibla.” A phone’s compass can be several degrees out, and much more near metal or indoors, and nobody has yet measured how far real phones are out in practice. A confirmation resting on an unmeasured instrument could be a ten-degree falsehood in the largest type on the screen, so the app does not give one. That waits on measurement, not on our opinion.
How much should I trust my compass? Find out once, in daylight and outdoors: Settings → Diagnostics shows the compass error from the sun. Line the top edge of the phone up with its own shadow rather than looking at the sun, and the number is how far this phone’s compass is from true north, here and now.
At Fajr, indoors, with no sun? The needle still points and the bearing in degrees is still printed under it. If you already know your mihrab or a wall that faces the Qibla, that is the better reference, and we would rather say so.
Where do the prayer times come from?
From one of two sources, and the screen always says which. Under Settings → Prayer times you choose a published calculation method and an Asr rule — five methods are offered, the app starts at Not chosen, and it never chooses for you. Or, under Times from a timetable, you copy in the times your mosque publishes, day by day, and the app shows those, naming who published them. It does not check them, change them, or invent any it was not given.
The calculation runs on your device, from the location you saved and the phone’s time zone. The method’s published values were transcribed from PrayTimes.org and checked by the person who builds the app on 7 September 2026; a qualified reviewer has not yet read them, and the screen says so.
Reminders
Under Settings → Prayer reminders the app can remind you before each prayer, from the times it shows you. Reminders are off until you turn them on, need the device’s permission to show notifications, follow its silent switch and Focus settings like any other notification, and are scheduled on the phone only. Nothing about them is sent anywhere.
Does OneQibla work offline?
Yes, entirely. The Qibla direction is calculated on your device from the location you save, nothing is downloaded, and the app contains no code that could open a network connection. See the privacy policy for how that is enforced.
How do I delete what the app knows about me?
Settings → Your location → Forget this location removes the coordinate stored, with its name, accuracy and the time it was read. Under Settings → Prayer times, Not chosen removes your calculation method and your Asr rule, and Remove this timetable removes any times you copied in. Turning the prayer log off deletes every prayer you marked. Everything else is a display or notification preference — theme, language, text size, reminders. Deleting the app removes all of it. There is no account and no copy anywhere else, because nothing is ever sent anywhere.
Is there a paid version?
No. There is nothing to buy and no feature is behind a payment. Voluntary support is not open yet; when it is, it will be a page on this site and it will not unlock anything. The app never asks.
What the app does not do yet
So nobody installs it expecting something it lacks.
| Why | |
|---|---|
| “You are facing the Qibla” — not yet, by design | The needle points and the app says how far to turn. It will not confirm alignment until how far real phones’ compasses are out has been measured. |
| A qualified reviewer’s word on the calculation methods and the Kaaba coordinate — not yet | The published values were transcribed and checked by the person who builds the app; every screen that uses them says so. A scholar has not yet read them. |
| A city search for your location — not yet | It needs a place-name dataset with a licence we can publish, and none has been chosen. You can type a coordinate or use Use my location. |
| Any language other than English in the app — mostly not yet | The interface is laid out for Arabic and mirrors correctly, but most of the words are still English until a native reviewer has read the Arabic. |
| An App Store or Google Play listing — not yet | Close. The app builds and runs on both platforms today. |
| Photographs of the holy places — not yet | The three places in the app are digital reconstructions drawn from published measurements, and say so. No openly licensed 360° photograph of any of them has been found. |
| Accounts, sync, or backup of your settings — never, by design | There is no account, and OneQibla sends your settings nowhere. Whether your phone’s own backup includes them is the platform’s decision rather than ours, and the privacy policy says which platform does what. |
Reporting a problem
If you can, include:
- what you expected and what happened instead;
- your device and OS version;
- whether you typed a location or used Use my location.
Settings → Diagnostics has a Copy button that gathers the technical detail. It is worth knowing what that copy contains before you send it: by default it excludes your coordinates, and there is a switch to include them if a location problem is what you are reporting. Nothing is sent automatically — the button copies text to your clipboard and you decide where it goes.
Contact
taoling@hotmail.com — read by a person. This is the support address the App Store and Google Play listings give, and the one on the privacy policy.
Reporting a security or privacy issue
The same address, with “security” in the subject line so it is read first. If a separate channel is ever set up it will be named here; until then there is one, and it is that one.