Support

Modeh Ani — Morning Prayer Alarm

Getting started

After installing, a short setup walks you through four steps: a welcome screen; a single screen where you choose the Modeh or Modah prayer form, pick a male or female recitation voice, and optionally turn on the "Intense" energy style — with an audio preview so you can hear your choices; alarm permission (required); and location permission (optional, so Shabbat skip can respect local sunset). Location can be granted or refreshed later from Settings.

The alarm isn't firing

iOS 26 uses AlarmKit, which is a separate permission from standard notifications. If your alarm isn't going off, check:

• Alarm permission: Settings → Modeh Ani → Alarm (must be enabled).
• Focus/Do Not Disturb: Alarms fire through most Focus modes, but a custom Focus filter can silence them. Check Settings → Focus.
• Device volume: AlarmKit uses alarm volume, not media volume — make sure the side switch isn't set to silent and the alarm slider isn't at zero.
• "AlarmKit unavailable" banner: If the app shows this banner, iOS's alarm framework couldn't be loaded. Make sure the device is on iOS 26 or later, then force-quit and reopen the app.
• Reinstall: If all permissions look right, delete and reinstall the app. Permissions reset cleanly.

Why did my alarm skip today?

If you've enabled Shabbat skip and/or holiday skip, the alarm will be suppressed on those days. The home screen shows a small badge indicating the reason (e.g., "Shabbat", "Rosh Hashana", "Pesach I", "Erev Pesach I"). Turn off the relevant toggle in Settings to restore the alarm immediately.

If every day your alarm is enabled currently falls on a skipped day — which can happen during a multi-day stretch of Shabbat and Yom Tov — the alarm pauses entirely and stays silent until the next non-skipped day. Turning off the relevant skip toggle restores it immediately.

Shabbat skip timing

Shabbat begins at candle-lighting time — 18 minutes before sunset on Friday — and ends at nightfall, 42 minutes after sunset on Saturday. These are the standard Ashkenazic defaults. They depend on your location, so if you've declined location access the skip uses a less-precise calendar-day fallback (all of Saturday). A future update will let you choose different minute offsets for customs that use different boundaries.

Israel vs. Diaspora holidays

Settings → Holiday observance lets you toggle between the Diaspora holiday calendar (two days of Yom Tov) and the Israeli calendar (one day). Your alarm schedule and the "skipped" badges both update automatically.

Changing the voice later

Settings → Recitation → Voice. The Recitation section also holds the Prayer Audio mode selector and the "Intense" energy toggle. Changes take effect for the next alarm.

The prayer text looks too small or too large

The app respects the Dynamic Type size set in iOS Settings → Display & Brightness → Text Size. If the prayer doesn't fit on screen, the prayer surface now scrolls — drag up to see any lines hidden by the dismiss button.

VoiceOver and accessibility

Every screen is navigable with VoiceOver. The Hebrew prayer lines are tagged with the Hebrew language code so VoiceOver can voice them correctly. The dismiss button becomes available after the prayer animation completes.

"Alarm scheduling error" banner

If the home screen shows "Alarm scheduling error. Try turning the alarm off and on again," the app couldn't sync your alarm with iOS. Turn the alarm off and back on to reschedule it. If the banner keeps coming back, delete and reinstall the app, then email us.

Something else?

Last updated: August 19, 2026