Frequently asked questions

Neat! is free. No subscription, no trial period, no adverts and no in-app purchases. The app makes no money from your data, because none is collected.

The app is finished and heading for the App Store. There's no exact date yet, partly because that depends on Apple's review. If you'd like a note at release, send an email via the contact page.

Neat! is built for iPhone running iOS 17 or later. There is currently no separate iPad version and no Android version, and no date on which there would be.

Yes. A small and a medium widget for your home screen, plus a rectangular one for the lock screen. They show how much is overdue, how long it all takes together and which chores are up next — and they refresh the moment you tick something off.

Yes. Neat! speaks English and Dutch. It follows your phone's language automatically, and you can switch by hand in the settings — including during first-run setup.

Two ways:

• By interval — daily, every 3 days, weekly, every 2 or 4 weeks, or a number of days or weeks you pick yourself.
• On fixed weekdays — for example every Monday and Thursday.

With an interval you also choose whether the next occurrence slides along with when you actually finish, or stays on the original schedule. A useful distinction: the dishes should slide, but putting the bins out belongs on the fixed collection day.

A bar starts green on the day a chore is due and runs through amber to red towards the end of the slack you gave it. If you still haven't done it, the bar keeps growing red up to today. So you can see what can wait and what genuinely needs attention without reading a single date.

The number of days a chore may run over before it counts as genuinely late. The dishes might wait a day, the windows quite happily a week. That slack decides how quickly the bar shifts from green to red, so not everything shouts for attention equally hard.

You say how many minutes you have and Neat! proposes a set of chores that genuinely fits. It starts with whatever has been waiting longest, then groups chores in the same room or using the same equipment, and counts the time it takes to switch between rooms or kit.

You can break a chore into separate steps. Such a chore only counts as done once every step is ticked, and the timeline shows the progress (for example 3/8). As soon as the chore comes round again, the ticks clear themselves for the new round.

Yes. A button to undo appears briefly right after you tick something off, and you can mark a chore as not done later too. The date from the time before is restored properly, so the chore doesn't suddenly look months overdue.

Yes. Swipe the chore left on the timeline and choose Not today. It disappears from today and is back tomorrow, without you having to change the schedule or tick it off as though you'd done it.

The number of consecutive days on which you ticked off at least one chore. A day where you haven't done anything yet doesn't break the run — otherwise the counter would read zero every morning. It only starts again once a full day passes with nothing ticked off.

No, and that's deliberate. You get at most one notification a day, at a time you choose, saying how many chores are outstanding and roughly how long they take. Ten separate buzzes a day mostly teaches people to mute an app.

No. They stay off until you switch them on in the settings. Only at that moment does the app ask iOS for permission.

No. There is no sign-up, no email address and no password. You open the app, pick your rooms and start. Your first name is only used to greet you on the home screen and stays on your phone.

Yes, completely. All rooms, chores and statistics live in your iPhone's storage, so it works just as well in aeroplane mode. A connection is never a requirement for using it.

Yes, through the private database of your own iCloud account. That's why your rooms, chores and history simply come back when you set up a new iPhone. We have no server and cannot reach that data — see the privacy policy.

If you're not signed in to iCloud, the app runs entirely locally. Syncing is a bonus, not a requirement.

Not yet. Neat! is a personal planner: your list is yours and is not shared with anyone else — it only syncs with your own iCloud. What you can do is share a card summarising your week as an image from the dashboard, for instance in a group chat.

There is no file export in the app. Restoring usually takes care of itself: if you're signed in to iCloud, your data comes back on a new iPhone as soon as you install the app. It's also included in a normal iPhone backup.

Settings contains Reset everything, which wipes all rooms, chores and statistics at once after a confirmation — on the device and in your iCloud private database. Deleting only the app leaves a copy there until you clear it under Settings → your name → iCloud. More on this in the privacy policy.