Common questions

Short answers about Nowlark: getting started, when nothing arrives, tones, history, your devices and your data.

How do I get started?#

1. Open Nowlark. There is nothing to sign up for. Your account is created for you and kept in your iCloud.
2. Allow notifications when asked. Without that, notifications still arrive in the app's feed, but nothing appears on your Lock Screen.
3. Send yourself a test. On the empty feed, tap Send a Test. It usually arrives within seconds and carries a link, so you can check where links open.
4. Make your key. A key is what lets a script send to you. Settings › Connect an App › Create Your Key. Copy it when it is shown; it is shown once.
5. Send one from anywhere, for example from Terminal on a Mac:

curl https://nowlark.com/v1/notify \
  -H "X-Nowlark-Key: nlk_…" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"source":"Backup","title":"Finished","priority":1}'

Settings › Connect an App has your server address, your key and this command ready to copy. The API reference covers everything a notification can carry.

Why is nothing arriving?#

Work through these in order; the first one is the usual cause.

• Notifications are turned off for Nowlark. Settings in Nowlark shows a warning at the top if so. Turn them on in your iPhone's Settings › Notifications › Nowlark.
• A Focus is on. Priorities 1 and 2 (High and Urgent) are time-sensitive, so they break through a Focus that allows time-sensitive notifications. Lower priorities wait quietly.
• The source is muted. Open the Sources tab. A muted source is still recorded in your feed but does not notify you.
• The key is wrong or was replaced. A replaced or deleted key is refused. The sender gets an error saying so.
• The key has reached its hourly limit. Each key can send 1,000 notifications an hour, which stops a runaway script. Until the hour is up, the sender gets an error saying so.
• This iPhone is not in your devices. Settings › Devices & Security lists every device that receives your notifications.

Every send answers with delivered, the number of your devices that accepted the notification. delivered: 0 with devices: 0 means no device is registered yet: open the app once.

Why does it keep repeating?#

A notification sent at priority 2 (Urgent) keeps alerting, every 5 minutes for up to an hour, until you open it on any of your devices. Tapping it, reading it in the feed or Mark as Read stops it; swiping it away does not. Change how often and for how long, or turn it off, in Settings › Alerts & Sounds. Long-press a repeating notification in the feed and choose Stop Repeating to stop it without marking it read. With the Upgrade Pass, each source can repeat its own way: open it and change Repeat to turn repeats off for a noisy sender, or to keep the one that matters going longer.

How do I change the sound?#

With the Upgrade Pass you can choose the sound each priority makes, in Settings › Alerts & Sounds › Tones, and give a source a tone of its own on the source's page. Tapping a tone plays it. Low priority notifications stay silent whatever you choose, and a silenced source stays silent too.

Where does a link open?#

A notification can carry a link, and web addresses written inside its text are tappable too. Tapping a notification that has a link opens the link, straight from the Lock Screen. Choose where links open in Settings › Links: the In‑App Browser, which keeps you in Nowlark, or your Default Browser, which has your logins and extensions.

How do I quiet one sender?#

Every name your senders use appears in the Sources tab. Tap one to turn its notifications off, make it arrive silently, or give it a colour so you can tell senders apart at a glance. Muting keeps the record and loses the interruption.

Priority is chosen by the sender, and each notification shows it: Urgent (gets through a Focus and repeats until opened), High (gets through a Focus), Normal, or Low (silent). If one sender is louder than you want, open it in Sources and set Priority to "At Most High" or lower. Its notifications then arrive at that level at most, whatever it asks for.

Each source is whatever the sender puts in source, so give each script or job its own name. If several jobs share one name, like the name of the computer they run on, they share one row, and muting one mutes them all. The API reference has the details.

How long is my history kept?#

Notifications are kept for the length you choose in Settings › Feed › Keep History: 1 month for everyone, and 3 months, 6 months or 1 year with the Upgrade Pass. Older ones are deleted, on every device. Choosing a shorter length deletes what is now too old, so the app asks first.

Which apps work with Nowlark?#

Uptime Kuma, anything built on Apprise (changedetection.io and others) and most self-hosted apps have an ntfy option for notifications. Nowlark answers ntfy's interface, so they work unchanged: choose ntfy, set the server to https://nowlark.com, pick any topic (it becomes the source), and paste a Nowlark API key as the access token. An app's built‑in Prowl option usually will not work: most send it to Prowl's own server and do not let you change it. Your own scripts that already speak Prowl can switch by changing the address; Moving from Prowl has the details.

Do my settings sync?#

With iCloud Sync on (Settings, on by default), your theme, accent, links, badge and general settings are the same on every device signed into your iCloud. Turn it off on a device to give that device its own settings.

How do I move to a new iPhone?#

On the same Apple Account there is nothing to do: install Nowlark and your account is already there. For a device on a different Apple Account, on your current device go to Settings › Devices & Security › Add a Device › Create a Code, then on the new device Settings › Devices & Security › Add a Device › Enter a Code. The code works once and expires in ten minutes.

What is the Upgrade Pass?#

The Upgrade Pass is optional. What it adds, and what it costs, is on the pricing section.

• Buy or restore: Settings › Upgrade Pass. Restore Purchases brings back a pass bought on another device.
• Cancel the yearly pass: your iPhone's Settings › [your name] › Subscriptions › Nowlark. It stays active until the end of the period you paid for. The lifetime pass has nothing to cancel.
• What you keep: with the yearly pass, features released while it was active stay yours after it ends. The lifetime pass keeps everything, including what comes later.
• Refunds are handled by Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com.

Can my team share notifications?#

The Teams page says who a team is for and what it costs. To start one, open Settings › Console in the app, choose Get a Sign‑in Link and open it in your browser. In the console, name your team and choose Create team. Members use the free app and never pay; the team owner pays for seats on the web.

How do I delete my data?#

Settings › Delete Account erases your account, every notification, every key and every device from our server immediately. It cannot be undone. Deleting the app does not cancel an Upgrade Pass; cancel it in your iPhone's Settings. The Privacy Policy explains exactly what is stored.