FerventWord collects nothing about you. There is no analytics, no tracking, and no advertising. The app sends nothing anywhere unless you ask it to — the one thing it sends on its own behalf is a donation, if you choose to give. This page describes what the app stores, where it stays, and the one time it leaves.
What Stays On Your Device
- The Bible versions you download.
- Your highlights, the notes you attach to them, and the notebooks you sort them into — including whatever you name a notebook and what you write about what goes in it.
- The three bookmarks in the reading bar, and the version each one is read in — these stay on the device that set them and never sync.
- Recent passages — where you have been reading, so you can return there, including which passages you were holding together.
- Your app settings.
- Crash and performance reports the system gives the app, kept for 30 days.
What Syncs Through Your iCloud
Your highlights, notes, notebooks, recent passages and settings sync through your own private iCloud database. That data is visible to you on your devices and to nobody else — not to us, and not to anyone we work with. Each category can be switched off separately in Settings → Sync.
Records carry the name of the device that last changed them, so the app can tell your devices apart. Downloaded versions are never synced, and neither are the three bookmarks in the reading bar or the versions set on them — those belong to the device you set them on.
Your settings include your Default Version, any default versions you set for individual bookmarks, and the version each reading plan is read in. Recent passages record which version you read a passage in.
Reminders And Notifications
The first time you save a reminder, the app asks iOS for permission to show notifications. Reminders are scheduled on your device and delivered by iOS; the app does not register for push notifications, and nothing about a reminder is sent anywhere. If you decline, your reminders are kept exactly as you set them — iOS simply does not show them.
A reminder names the passage assigned for that day and carries a link back to it. It does not record whether you opened it, and there is no badge count on the app icon. Which reminders you have set syncs through your own private iCloud database with the plan they belong to; the schedule itself is worked out separately on each device.
Sharing With Prayer Mentions
If you choose to send a verse to our Prayer Mentions app — from the menu that appears when you select Scripture, or from a Shortcut — that verse and its reference are written to a shared area on your device that both apps can read. Nothing is sent over the internet, and nothing is written unless you ask for it. Unclaimed items are deleted after two weeks.
Copying
When you copy Scripture, the words you selected and their reference go to your device’s clipboard, the same way copying works anywhere else on your phone. Where that goes next is up to you; the app neither reads the clipboard nor keeps a record of what was copied.
Exporting And Importing
Settings → Data & Backups → Export & Import saves a reading plan or a notebook of highlights as a file. A plan’s file holds its settings, its reminders and its whole schedule; a notebook’s file holds each highlight’s passage, its color and the note you wrote. Neither holds the Bible text itself.
The file is written to a temporary area on your device and handed to whatever you choose to share it with — Files, Mail, a note. Nothing is sent over the internet by the app, and the app keeps no copy of its own. Importing reads a file you choose and shows you what it contains before anything is added.
Giving
If you choose to give from the menu’s Give screen, Apple Pay authorises the payment and the app sends two things to ferventwordministries.org: a one-time payment token from Apple, and the amount. The donation is then charged through Stripe, our payment processor.
Your card number never reaches the app or our server — Apple Pay does not disclose it, and the token cannot be reused. We do not ask for your name, your address or your email; if you want a receipt, Apple and Stripe send one to the address already on your Apple account. Nothing about a donation is stored on your device, and nothing links a donation to anything else in the app.
If you never give, none of this ever happens.
Listening To ESV + Audio
ESV + Audio is one of the Bible editions you can choose. Its text is on your device like every other edition; only the recording is streamed. When you tap Listen, the app sends the passage you asked to hear — and nothing else — to ferventwordministries.org, which asks Crossway’s audio service where that recording is and sends you back the address. Your device then plays it directly from Crossway.
The passage travels in the body of the request rather than in the web address, so it is not written into our server’s access log. We keep a count of how many audio requests arrive each day, and which edition they were for. We do not record which passage was asked for, and nothing identifies you — no account, no device identifier, and nothing that could join one request to another. A day and a number is all there is.
If you never choose that edition, the app never makes this request. Reading, and every other edition, needs no connection at all.
What Leaves Your Device
Nothing, unless you send it or you give. Apart from a donation, the app makes no network request of its own except to download a version you asked for.
If you email a diagnostic report from the menu’s Help & Support screen, it contains your app version, your device model and system version, your sync settings, and counts of what is stored. It does not contain your notes, your highlights, or which passages you have read. You can read the file before you send it.
What We Do Not Do
- No analytics or usage reporting of any kind.
- No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
- No third-party trackers. The app bundles exactly one piece of third-party code — Stripe’s payment library — and it runs only when you give. It is not used for analytics and it is not present anywhere else in the app.
- No account. There is nothing to sign up for.
- No record of whether or when you read.
Deleting Your Data
Settings → Data & Backups → Clear Recent Passages removes your reading history — both the passages you opened and the arrangements you held them in — from this device and from your iCloud. Deleting the app removes everything it stored on the device; turning off iCloud sync for a category and deleting the app removes that category from iCloud as well.