Questions and answers

A flashcard app using the FSRS algorithm. It shows you each card exactly when you'd otherwise slowly forget it – not sooner, not later. So knowledge sticks without wasting time on what you've long known.

You see the front of a card, tap it to see the back, and then swipe: right if you knew it, left if you did not. The app schedules the next due date in the background.

That is everything you need to operate. With a keyboard on iPad the same works via the space bar and the arrow keys, and on Apple Watch via tap and swipe.

For anyone who wants to retain something for good: vocabulary, exam material, professional knowledge, facts. No prior knowledge needed – create cards or import them and get going.

No. Qardbox works fully offline and without signing in. iCloud sync is optional and can be turned off any time.

Your hit rate in the current session — nothing more.

Five stars mean at least 90% correct answers, four 75%, three 55%, two 35%, and one anything below. Only cards from this session count.

Don't overrate a high score early in the session: with few cards, a strong start can show four or five stars that settle quite differently over more cards. The value becomes more reliable the longer you learn.

A deliberate decision.

Multiple choice replaces active recall with recognition: you pick from given answers instead of retrieving the answer from memory yourself. It sounds similar but is fundamentally different — recognizing is much easier than recalling and leaves less behind. Anyone who practices with multiple-choice cards ends up underestimating how much they're actually missing.

Images tempt you into a form of procrastination all their own: whoever spends more time designing a card than learning has built themselves a way to put things off. What can't be captured in a clear sentence should usually become two cards — not one illustrated one.

Two levels, no more: swiping right means “known”, swiping left means “not known”. Tapping flips the card.

You can reach those same two levels in other ways: as named actions in VoiceOver, with a keyboard via the arrow keys, and on Apple Watch by swiping. What changes is the route, never the number of levels.

Because the most honest self-assessment is the simplest: did you know it or not? Fine grades like “hard” or “easy” sound more precise but are often guessed. FSRS handles the clear yes/no answer very well.

Never in the sense of “that's it for today” – you can keep learning any time. Qardbox doesn't tell you to stop. The daily goal is a motivation marker, not a cap.

Then you still won't run out of cards. Qardbox next shows the cards most nearly due again or the ones you haven't seen the longest. There's always something to practice.

A small finish line for the day — the number of cards you set out to do. By default Qardbox sets it automatically: derived from your recent active learning days (median, so it's robust against individual exceptional days). In Settings under "Learn" you can switch to a fixed value. Either way, the goal neither steers the FSRS algorithm nor limits you.

From your own learning history.

Qardbox takes the median of your daily card count over the last 30 active learning days, not the average, so one exceptional day doesn't permanently push the goal up. Regularity and retention rate also factor in: someone who learns very irregularly or has been forgetting a lot recently gets a lower goal, not a higher one.

Floor: 5 cards/day, so the goal doesn't become a burden. Ceiling: 120. Switch to a fixed value anytime in Settings under “Learning”.

Background: Research shows that around 85 % success rate is optimal for learning — just challenging enough, not frustrating. Qardbox would rather lower the goal than raise it to keep it achievable.

Because the two numbers come from different places and know nothing about each other.

“Due” is what FSRS has scheduled for today: cards whose review date has arrived. It follows from your learning history; you cannot set it.

The daily goal is your number: how many cards you intend to do. The algorithm does not know about it, and it feeds into no scheduling.

In a session the due cards come first. Qardbox then tops up with new ones, as many as “New cards per day” allows. That is how 20 due cards turn into the 40 of your goal on most days.

The other way round, the goal never slows you down: if 60 cards are due, you can learn all 60. It is a finish line, not a ceiling.

And if something is still left over at the end, then there simply are no more cards to do that day. That is not a fault but the whole point: Qardbox will not make you review what is already sticking. Extra practice is still open to you, but it deliberately counts towards neither the daily goal nor the ring, because it does not change your memory values.

Because you are finished, and that is the whole point.

Qardbox shows you a card when you would otherwise slowly forget it. Once you have done everything that was due today, there is nothing left to put in front of you. Showing you the same cards again would do nothing for your memory and would only eat the time you just saved.

Instead of an empty screen, Qardbox then offers extra practice. There you see cards whose date still lies ahead. They deliberately do NOT count as reviews: your rating changes neither the next date nor your memory values, and it counts towards neither the daily goal nor the ring. Otherwise the very calculation that saves you work would be distorted by the practicing itself.

A day on which nothing was due does not count as a study day either, because you did not study. But it does not stand in your way.

It shows three days at once: the day before yesterday, yesterday, and today, clockwise. The ring is open at the bottom, each day is a segment of its own, and how long a segment is depends on how many cards you learned that day.

The number in the middle is where you stand today. It is allowed to be 0 and glosses over nothing: even on a day when you have not done anything yet, the ring is not empty, because the two previous days stand beside it.

Today’s segment fills up while you learn. At its end sits a dot for the daily goal: dashed while the goal is still open, filled with a checkmark once you have reached it. Learn beyond that and a further, quietly pulsing arc joins it.

The colors are brightness steps of your accent color, stronger the closer to today. A previous day on which you studied but missed the goal has a dashed outline. A day on which you did not study at all is gray and torn open and carries no number.

You can reach every meaning without color: small knobs sit at the segment boundaries. Tap one and it says in words which day is meant and what happened on it. VoiceOver reads out the same.

Use it to mark cards you want to see more often. A bookmarked card is drawn slightly ahead when due dates are similar — so it comes up more often. Its FSRS values stay untouched; the science stays clean.

A number of ratings at which Qardbox fine-tunes your study plan. The first is 512, then 1024, 2048 and so on.

The gaps grow on purpose: the more data has already gone in, the less a single session changes it.

Ratings with a real gap of at least one day. If you draw the same card several times on one day, only one of them counts.

The reason is simple: what you still know ten minutes later says little about what sticks in two weeks. For planning, the gap across days is what counts.

The number of distinct cards the ratings come from. A thousand ratings across ten cards say less about your memory than a thousand across three hundred.

Once enough experience has accumulated. The first milestone is 512 ratings spaced at least a day apart, then 1024, 2048 and so on.

Qardbox then works out on your device whether your own learning values fit better than the tested defaults, and adopts them only if they prove better. Otherwise everything stays as it was. Every run appears in the history with its reason and time.

Settings, Learn, “Personalized study plan”, then “History”. Each entry says why a run happened or did not, and how many ratings, interday outcomes and unique cards were behind it.

Because your memory firms up most when you review just before forgetting. Cramming it all in one evening feels productive but is often gone the next day. Distributed learning lasts longer – that's the core of Qardbox.

A little every day beats a lot once a week. Ten to twenty minutes is enough for most. Regularity matters more than volume , which is why Qardbox counts your study days.

Whenever it reliably fits your day – morning coffee, a break, evening on the couch. A firm anchor in your routine beats any “ideal time”. The automatic reminders learn your rhythm too.

No, quite the opposite. Recalling before you're sure firms up knowledge more strongly – even when you slip up. A little effort in retrieval is intended, not a sign of failure.

One card, one idea. A short, clear question on the front, a concise answer on the back. Avoid “lists to recite” – break them into individual cards. Your own wording sticks better than copied sentences.

The break hint is not a push or a notification — it appears as a brief in-app hint right in the learning view. It shows up once you've actively rated cards for at least 25 minutes straight. A longer pause in your learning flow resets the timer.

The reason is the attention curve: concentration noticeably drops after about 25 minutes of continuous work — the Pomodoro method follows the same principle. It stays a suggestion: keep learning or take a break, exactly as you like. Turn it off in Settings under "Learn."

On well-established memory research: the spacing effect (distributed practice), the testing effect (retrieval instead of rereading) and "desirable difficulties." Scheduling is handled by FSRS, an open, data-driven spaced-repetition algorithm. More on this — with clickable sources — under "Learning with Qardbox."

The “Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler” – the algorithm behind Qardbox. It estimates for each card when you'll likely forget it and schedules the review just before. So you review exactly when it helps most.

The share of your answers that were correct (“known”), averaged over seven-day windows. Around 90 % is the algorithm's target: high enough that you retain almost everything, low enough that you don't review unnecessarily often.

A card is due when its scheduled review date is reached – the moment FSRS wants to show it to you again. Due cards come first.

When it is so stable that the next review date is far in the future (about a month or more) and you have answered it correctly multiple times. Mastered doesn’t mean “never again” – just “deeply ingrained”.

Every answered card counts as one review. The statistics show how many there were per day, which is the same as “learned cards”.

Cards you've never studied — they're waiting for their first review and don't have a scheduled date yet. As soon as you answer one for the first time, FSRS adds it to its schedule.

How fast something fades once you have learned it and then never looked at it again. Hermann Ebbinghaus measured this on himself in 1885: most of it is gone within the first hours, after that the loss slows down.

Two things follow for you. First, the earliest repetition is the one that pays. Second, the curve flattens with every successful repetition: what you have known three times lasts weeks instead of hours. That is exactly what FSRS calculates: it estimates where you currently stand on that curve for each card and shows it to you before you reach the bottom.

FSRS tracks two values per card that you never set directly:

Stability: the estimated time until you forget the card. A new card has a stability of a few days. The more often you answer it correctly, the longer it holds. If you forget it, it drops sharply.

Difficulty: how easy this card is for you personally. Someone who keeps getting a card wrong has it rated as difficult for them, regardless of the topic. Qardbox adjusts both values automatically after every answer.

A day on which you rated at least one card. Gaps in between don't matter: someone who studies in March and again in September has two study days.

The number sits on the home screen. Tap it and it switches to your study time; tap again to bring the study days back.

Only what is really studying counts: an open round in the foreground, with a swipe in the last minute. Put the device down and the clock stops; a break of more than five minutes doesn't count at all. Extra practice stays out, because it deliberately leaves your scheduling untouched.

What you see is the sum over all days, in one of three forms: under a minute in seconds (3s), up to an hour in minutes (2min), above that in hours and minutes (1h 25min). No days are made of it: 524h 6min stays 524h 6min.

Yes, in Settings under “Learn” → “Reset study time”. That only sets the display to zero. Your recorded study times stay completely intact and keep feeding statistics and insights.

There are four, and you pick exactly one in Settings under “Reminders”.

None: Qardbox never gets in touch.

Minimal: at most one message a day, and only when at least ten cards are ready, your last round was five hours ago and the time is between 6 am and 6 pm.

Smart: plus a second message around 6 pm and a third around 10:30 pm, if no round has begun by then.

Helpful (default): like Smart, but every message names a figure from your statistics and what it means. On a day with nothing due it invites you to practise freely.

You can switch at any time.

The number of messages is the same, the content is different. Smart nudges you and tells you how many cards are due. Helpful adds a real figure from your statistics, such as your accuracy or how long you remember the cards, and says what that means for you.

Such figures only appear once there is enough data. In the first weeks Helpful therefore behaves like Smart. That is deliberate: better no number than an invented one.

On top of that, on days with nothing due, comes an invitation to practise freely. That exists only in Helpful.

At most three, and only on days when something is actually pending. The first comes at the first moment when at least ten cards are ready, your last round was five hours ago and the time is between 6 am and 6 pm. The second and third only come if no round has begun by then.

As soon as you start studying, Qardbox withdraws the day's remaining messages.

Because Qardbox finds the right time itself. If the first reminder falls on a later day, it sits ten minutes before the time you usually study on that weekday. Without data for that it becomes ten o'clock, shifted by up to twenty minutes.

You still decide how much arrives, just via the level instead of the clock.

On a day with neither due nor new cards, the “Helpful” level still sends you a message: praise for the workload you finished and four ways to keep going. Practise freely, write your own cards, ask friends for a deck or browse the Deck Store.

It arrives roughly at the time you usually study on that weekday. Without data for that it sits somewhere around midday.

Not that quickly. A message you have seen does not return for ten days. Qardbox has thirty wordings per level and slot in the day, in “Helpful” even more, and picks the one that has not had its turn the longest.

On top of that the building blocks inside change: season, time of day, weekday, clock time and the number of your due cards.

Cards in that subject get a speaker button. It reads the ANSWER SIDE of the card in the language you chose for the subject.

The answer field is always what gets spoken, even when you are learning in the reverse direction and the answer is on the front. That is deliberate: you decide once which field holds the foreign language, and then you no longer have to think about it.

Reading aloud also stays on your device: iOS generates the speech itself, and the card text is not sent anywhere for it.

Cards tab, tap the subject, then edit. Right below the name is the “Foreign language” switch. Turn it on and the row “The answer is in” appears underneath, with a list of the languages your device can speak.

When you create a new subject, the switch sits in the same place.

That is the “Read foreign languages aloud” setting. You will find it in two places: in the Learn tab behind the filter symbol, and under Settings, Learning. Both change the same value.

“Never”: no speaker buttons appear. “On request”: the buttons are there, but nothing is spoken until you tap. This is the default. “When flipping”: the answer is spoken as soon as you turn the card to the answer side. Turning back to the question stays silent. No buttons appear here; you do not need them.

Only with “On request”: After the first playback a second button with a tortoise appears next to the speaker. It says the same thing again, only slower.

Because no voice for it is installed on your device. Qardbox only lists languages that can actually speak.

You load voices in iOS Settings: Accessibility, Spoken Content, Voices. That is also where you find better versions of the languages you already have. The preinstalled ones are small compact voices and sound a little tinny; the larger downloads sound noticeably more natural. As soon as a voice is loaded, the language appears in Qardbox by itself.

Control Center is the set of switches you see when you swipe down from the top right corner of the screen. That is where the torch, aeroplane mode, music and anything else you add live.

Here is how to add Qardbox: open Control Center, tap the plus at the top left, then tap “Add a Control”. A long list appears. Scroll to Qardbox or type the name into the search field at the very top. Tap the entry you want, then tap anywhere on the background to finish. To move the switches around, press and hold one and drag it.

Three of them.

“Start session” begins a study round straight away, in the study direction you set in the app. It is the shortest way from a locked screen to your first card.

“New card” opens Qardbox and brings up the sheet for a new card right away.

“Qardbox” simply opens the app in the study area.

A widget is the small tile that shows you something without you opening the app.

Press and hold an empty spot on the Home Screen until the icons wobble. Tap the plus at the top left. Find Qardbox in the list or through the search field. Swipe sideways to look through the sizes and variants, then tap “Add Widget”.

Qardbox offers one large widget with study time, focus card and weekly goal, plus two small ones: “Cards studied” shows the last seven days, “Success ring” shows your daily goal as a ring. The same values are available in small form for the Lock Screen.

Yes, for the large one. Press and hold it and choose “Edit Widget”. You can pick between two color variants there.

The two small widgets have nothing to set. If you would rather have a different size, remove the widget and add the one you want.

Shortcuts are small jobs your iPhone carries out for you. Qardbox registers several of them with the system, so there is nothing for you to set up.

Try saying: “Start a Qardbox session”, “How many cards are due in Qardbox”, “My Qardbox streak”, “New card in Qardbox” or “Install a deck in Qardbox”.

If you would rather tap than talk: the Shortcuts app comes with every iPhone. Under “App Shortcuts” you will find every Qardbox job, and you can combine them into your own routines.

Yes, through the Shortcuts app. Open it, tap the plus, search for Qardbox and choose “Start session”. The shortcut then shows a “Subject” field. Tap it and you get a list of your subjects with their symbol and the number of cards due. Pick one and give the shortcut a name at the top, for example “Study biology”. You can then say that name to Siri.

The same works with “Check due cards”: with a subject chosen, Qardbox tells you the number for that subject alone.

If you later delete a subject a shortcut points to, Qardbox tells you so when it runs. The shortcut stays, you simply pick another subject.

The Action Button is the extra button on the left edge above the volume buttons. It exists from the iPhone 15 Pro onwards; older devices and the non-Pro models do not have it.

Two steps are needed, and the first one happens outside Qardbox.

First: open iOS Settings, tap “Action Button”, swipe to “Shortcut” and tap the field below it. Several Qardbox entries are listed there. Pick the one called “Action Button”. If you pick a different one by mistake, the button does that job instead of the one you set here.

Second: open Qardbox, go to Settings, Study, and switch on “Use the Action Button”. Below that you choose what a press should do during a study round: flip the card, mark it as saved, rate it as known or rate it as not known.

If you press the button while no round is running, Qardbox starts one.

In the Cards area, pull the list down a little and the search field appears. What you type searches questions, answers, notes and subject names all at once.

As you type, Qardbox suggests matching subjects and categories. Tap a suggestion and it becomes a filter that stays in the search field as a small chip, so you can always see what is being filtered. To lift it, tap the chip and delete it.

For the fuller picture, use the filter symbol in the toolbar. It lists every subject, every category and your saved cards to tick.

This is built in, but honestly still untested: we had no second device to try it on. What is built: if a round is running on your iPhone, a nearby iPad offers to take it over, with the same subject, the same card and the same progress. The same goes for a card you are editing.

One thing matters here: it only works if you have iCloud sync switched on. Qardbox passes on identifiers only, never card content. Without sync the other device does not know your cards, and then simply nothing happens.

You only see the question. A tap reveals the answer. Swiping right means “known”, swiping left “not known” — the same two levels as everywhere else.

A checkmark or a cross appears briefly. You do not have to wait for it: the next card is there straight away and can be swiped straight away.

Swiping down leaves the round.

With VoiceOver the sideways swipes do not work, because a horizontal swipe belongs to VoiceOver itself there. Instead the card carries three named actions: “Flip”, “Known” and “Not known”.

Three ways: with the Digital Crown, by swiping up with your finger, or with the double tap of thumb and index finger.

Swiping sideways stays the rating. watchOS decides which direction you meant — you do not have to watch out for whether you are in the middle of the text.

Yes, the last one. There is an arrow for it at the top right; it only becomes active once there is something to take back. It goes one step, no further, and only while the round is open.

The undo counts everywhere: streak, daily goal and statistics are back to where they were, on iPhone too.

⌘N adds a card, ⇧⌘N a subject. ⌘L starts a round, ⌘O opens the import, ⌘E the export, ⌘F the search field. ⌘1 through ⌘4 jump between Study, Cards, Statistics and Settings.

You do not have to memorise any of it: hold the Command key for a moment and iPadOS shows the full list.

iPhone has no menu bar. The shortcuts still work there as soon as a keyboard is connected.

Yes. The space bar and the up arrow flip the card — pressing again shows the question, exactly like a second tap. Right arrow rates as “known”, left arrow as “not known”. Escape ends the round.

The keyboard has no extra levels either. Qardbox rates with the same two everywhere, whether you swipe, tap or press a key.

Yes, that is what it is built for. In the “New card” sheet, Tab moves from the question to the answer, on to the categories, the notes, the field for a new subject and finally to the two save buttons. Shift-Tab walks the same path backwards.

⌘Return saves and immediately starts the next card. Subject and categories stay filled in, everything else is cleared, and the cursor is back in the question. ⇧⌘Return saves and closes the sheet.

A whole series can be entered this way without touching the screen or the trackpad.

Through your private iCloud (CloudKit). Subjects, cards, and study progress sync automatically between your Apple devices signed in to the same iCloud account.

Sync is off by default. You enable it once under Settings → Study → iCloud Sync. After that Qardbox transfers changes in the background; changes made offline are caught up as soon as there is a connection.

Important: Qardbox never deletes anything via sync. What was removed on one device stays on the other until you delete it there too.

On the data: your data sits exclusively in a private iCloud database bound to your Apple ID. The developer has no access. The contents of your cards — question, solution, categories, note, and the subject name — are set up as encrypted fields. If you switch on Advanced Data Protection under Apple Account → iCloud, Apple cannot read them either. Ratings and study timestamps stay unencrypted; from those you can tell that you studied, not what.

Yes, in Settings under “Study” → “iCloud sync” with a switch. After that everything stays on this device and never leaves it. The change takes effect immediately.

Yes. Two columns are enough: question and answer. Category, note and subject may come along.

As separators Qardbox recognises semicolon, tab, comma and vertical bar, and it finds the column names by itself -- in German as in English. Files with no header line work too; then the first column counts as the question and the second as the answer. Besides tables, Qardbox reads JSON, XML and Markdown tables.

If you have no file but only text, use “Paste text”. Qardbox does not work together with any other app; recognition goes solely by structure and column contents. Before the import you see how many cards are new and how many were already there.

Yes. Qardbox reads tables (CSV, TSV, TXT), JSON, XML and Markdown tables, plus headers of the form #separator and #columns.

Packed collections work too: .apkg and .colpkg from Anki, .xlsx from a spreadsheet and .zip with a table inside. Images and audio stay out, because Qardbox does not show them. If an Anki note has more than two fields, Qardbox asks once which field is the question and which is the answer.

This has been checked against the export formats of Anki, Quizlet, StudySmarter, BrainYoo, Repetico and Mnemosyne. Only one newer, heavily compressed Anki format stays out; export it again in Anki with the “Support older Anki versions” box ticked.

Anki, Quizlet, StudySmarter, BrainYoo, Repetico and Mnemosyne are trademarks of their respective owners. Qardbox is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.

Under Settings → “Privacy” → “Save data copy” you create a complete copy. “Restore from data copy” plays it back; Qardbox backs up the current state first.

Settings → "Learn" → "Reset" removes learning states and reviews; the cards themselves remain. You delete individual subjects and cards directly in the Cards tab.

None. No analytics, no tracking, no advertising identifiers, no server of our own. Your data lives only on your device and – if you want – in your private iCloud. Details are in the privacy board under “Info”.

Privacy and quality.

A built-in AI would send text (your study material, notes, topics) to an external provider. Qardbox sends no data to servers, and it should stay that way.

There is a second, practical reason: AI-generated cards are often too long, too vague or factually unreliable, especially on specialized topics. A good card holds a single precise idea. Formulating it means you have understood the material, and that is not a bad way to prepare for learning.

A tool for quick bulk import.

In the import area you'll find a technical prompt you can paste into an AI of your choice. Add your topic, and the AI returns a ready-made CSV file in Qardbox format that you can import directly.

Qardbox itself sends nothing to an AI. Which service you use — and what happens to your data there — is up to you.

iOS keeps a record. In iOS Settings under “Privacy & Security”, switch on App Privacy Report. After a few days it shows, for every app, what data it uses and which addresses it contacted.

Qardbox has no server of its own. What appears there are Apple services.

That is Apple's iCloud. The entry only appears if you switched sync on; Qardbox then keeps your cards in your private iCloud database so they match across your devices.

Without sync, everything stays on the device. The address belongs to Apple, and nobody but you can reach that database.

Also Apple. The address belongs to the App Store, and iOS contacts it on the app's behalf, for example to check whether a review prompt may be shown.

No study data goes with it. Neither cards nor statistics leave your device for this.

Because nothing happened. The report records only what actually takes place. If you leave sync off, there is nothing to see for Qardbox.

VoiceOver, Voice Control, Switch Control, large text up to the highest size, dark appearance, increased contrast, reduced motion and differentiation without color.

No learning step depends on a swipe alone. On iPhone and iPad there is always a button or a key alongside it; on Apple Watch, where there is no room for buttons, named VoiceOver actions carry the same job.

Anything that affects the whole device: VoiceOver, Switch Control, Voice Control, Assistive Access, Invert Colors.

Qardbox detects these states and follows them, but cannot switch them on for you. That is deliberate: an app should not flip a system setting on your behalf.

Settings, Accessibility. Six areas, and every row says who provides it: Qardbox always, iOS right now, or a switch there.

Every Qardbox switch is off by default. With no accessibility feature active and no switch set, the app looks exactly as it always did.

Because there is no interface for it, and for good reason. Accessibility features apply to the whole device; a single app must not toggle them.

Where something is only possible in iOS, Qardbox shows an info symbol and says where the setting lives.

An iOS feature that reduces the whole device to a few large controls. Qardbox brings its own calm interface for it: pick a subject, read the question, reveal the answer, rate, done.

Your study progress is the same as in the normal app.

In the Cards tab, tap the store symbol at the top right. That is the deck store. Tap a deck, tap the price, confirm with Face ID or your code: the usual Apple purchase dialog.

Qardbox then loads the cards into a new subject. That takes a moment and needs no internet: the cards are already in the app, the purchase unlocks them.

Open any deck in the store and tap “Restore purchases” at the bottom. Qardbox then asks Apple what belongs to you and unlocks it.

That is the right move after a new device, after a reinstall, and when a purchase made with Ask to Buy was approved later. It costs nothing: a deck you bought once belongs to your Apple Account.

Yes, on every device with the same Apple Account. The purchase belongs to the account, not the device.

On a second device the deck shows as purchased once you have opened the store there; if it does not, “Restore purchases” helps. With iCloud sync on, your progress comes along too.

Every deck is enabled for Family Sharing. If one member of your family group buys a deck, everyone else can use it at no further cost.

You set this up in iOS Settings under Family. Qardbox needs nothing for it: the system tells the app which purchases are available.

Yes, through Apple, not through the developer. The purchase is between you and Apple; only there can it be refunded.

The way is reportaproblem.apple.com or the receipt in your mail. In the European Union the right of withdrawal applies as well; the details are in Apple's terms.

The purchase stays. Deleting removes the subject and its cards from the app, not the purchase from your Apple Account; you can install the deck again at any time.

What does not come back is your progress on those cards. A fresh install starts at zero.

The cards live in the app and arrive with its updates. If an official question catalogue is corrected, the deck is rebuilt and travels with the next version of Qardbox.

A subject you have already installed does not change by itself: your cards stay as they are, progress included. If you want the new state, install the deck again.

Because a deck is only offered where it is of use. The German citizenship test is explained in twenty-one languages; the German fishing exam is not, because it is taken in German.

The language courses are cut the same way. An English speaker is not offered an English course, a French speaker no French course.

Through the ready-made decks in the deck store. Qardbox began as a personal project, because I wanted a decent flashcard tool myself; the decks carry the work on it.

The app stays free, and completely so: every feature, no subscription, no ads, no limits. Make your own cards, import decks from friends, study as much as you like — none of that changes.

The only things that cost anything are the ready-made decks in the deck store. And you don't need those to use Qardbox either.

Barely. No investors, no subscription, no ads, no tracking. Qardbox is built in my spare time.

The only thing that brings anything in are the ready-made decks in the deck store: a small one-off amount per deck. They are an offer, not a condition — the app works exactly the same without them.

In three ways, and none of them is required.

With a review on the App Store, ideally in your own words. Without words only a star count registers; with words, someone who doesn't know Qardbox can judge whether it suits them.

By telling people. Qardbox has no marketing and no ad budget. People who know the app usually heard about it from someone.

And if you want to do the developer a good turn: buy one of the ready-made decks. A one-off purchase, no subscription, and you get something for it.

Because there is work in each of them that ought to show: researched content, checked wording, pronunciation and distinctions in every note, sorted by level.

The app itself is untouched by this. Your own cards, decks from friends, importing from a file — all unlimited and free. The ready-made decks are a shortcut you can take if you feel like it.

A one-off purchase per deck, with Family Sharing.

The App Store weights recent reviews more heavily. Old ratings lose visibility over time. An honest review with your own words today is more valuable than a 5-star rating from two years ago.

Also: someone looking for the app can judge from a personal experience report whether it does what it promises better than from a silent star count.