FerventWord collects nothing about you. There is no analytics, no tracking, no advertising, and no account to sign up for. The app sends nothing anywhere unless you ask it to, and it asks nothing of you in return. This page describes what the app stores, where that stays, and the few times anything leaves.
What Stays On Your Device
- The Bible versions — all of them came with the app.
- 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, the names you give the highlight colors, recent passages and settings sync through your own private iCloud database, and your meditations sync through a second one shared with our Prayer Mentions app — see Sharing With Prayer Mentions below. 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.
On iOS 17 only your reading plans, highlights, notes and notebooks travel. Recent passages and settings stay on the device that made them, whatever their switches say. That is an iOS 17 limit rather than a choice: it allows an app only one kind of synced storage in a single iCloud database, and your own work is the kind worth keeping. Your meditations are unaffected, because they are kept in a database of their own. Settings → Sync says the same thing underneath the switches. On iOS 18 and later everything above syncs.
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. They also include how you last set up a search — whether to match an exact phrase, which Bibles to search, where to look and in what order — but never what you searched for. They also include which study tools you have switched off in Settings → Further Study.
What you call the highlight colors belongs to the notebook you set it in, not to the app as a whole, so each notebook carries its own names and its own choice of which colors it offers. Those words are yours: they are stored with the notebook, sync with it, and are written into the file when you export that notebook. The default names a new notebook starts from are part of your settings.
Searching
Search runs entirely on your device, against the Bible text that came with the app. No part of what you type is sent anywhere, and no part of it is kept: the words you search for are not stored on the device, not synced to your iCloud, and not written into the diagnostic report. When you close the app they are gone. Opening a verse from a result records that passage in Recent, which you can clear at any time in Settings → Data & Backups.
How you last set up a search is remembered and syncs with your other settings, as described above. What you searched for is not part of that.
Spotlight Search
The app adds entries to your device’s Spotlight index so that searching your iPhone for a book of the Bible, a chapter of the Bible Guide, a help topic or one of the reading plans offers to open it in FerventWord. Those entries are the same for everybody: the 66 books, every chapter of the Bible Guide, the help topics, and the plans the app ships with — about 1,300 in all. They are built from the app itself, not from anything you have done.
An entry holds the name of the thing and a link to it, and nothing else. No Bible text is put into the index, and neither is anything the Bible Guide says about a chapter — a Bible Guide entry is the chapter’s name and a way to open it.
Nothing of yours is indexed. Your notes, highlights, notebooks, meditations, bookmarks, recent passages and reminder times are never added to Spotlight, and neither are the names you give your own reading plans. The app also does not tell the system which entries you tapped or when, so nothing you do in Spotlight is recorded or predicted. The index stays on your device, and removing the app removes it.
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 bar 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.
Your meditations are kept in one shared place that both apps read and write, so a meditation you make in either one appears in both, on every device signed in to your iCloud account. That is a second private iCloud database, separate from the one holding your highlights, notes and plans, and it holds meditations and nothing else. You can see them all in Your Meditations, in the main menu, and switch the sharing off in Settings → Sync.
Each meditation records which app made it, when it was made, and — when it came from a passage — the reference and the version. Nothing records how many you have made or when you last made one.
Deleting a meditation deletes it in both apps. Clear Your Meditations, in Settings → Data & Backups, does that for all of them at once, and the screen says so before you tap it. A deleted meditation is marked deleted rather than erased immediately, so that the deletion reaches your other devices and the other app instead of being undone by them; it stops appearing anywhere the moment you delete it.
If Prayer Mentions is installed, it also writes whatever it currently has as your meditation into the shared area on your device, and Today shows whichever of the two is more recent. FerventWord only reads that value — reading changes nothing in Prayer Mentions, and this app never writes to what that app publishes.
Widgets
The app offers two widgets. Today’s Reading shows the passages your plans hold for today. Your Meditation shows the most recent meditation in Your Meditations — the words themselves, whichever app made it.
A widget runs as a separate part of the app, so what it shows has to be handed to it. The app writes what a widget needs into a private area on your device that only FerventWord and its widgets can read. Nothing about a widget is sent over the internet, and nothing about it is stored anywhere but on that device.
Both widgets can be placed on the Lock Screen as well as the Home Screen. Anything on a Lock Screen is visible without unlocking the phone, so a meditation placed there can be read by someone holding it. Remove the widget, or keep it on the Home Screen, if you would rather it were not.
Neither widget shows a date, a count, or anything about your reading.
Copying And Sharing
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.
Sharing Scripture hands exactly the same words and reference to your phone’s share sheet, and they go only where you choose to send them. Share Chapter Highlights, in the reading bar’s More menu, hands over the chapter’s highlights the same way — each with the words you highlighted, the name you gave its color, the notebook it is in, and your note. The app sends nothing itself and keeps no record of what was shared.
Further Study
At the foot of a reading, FerventWord can offer to open the chapter you are on in another study tool — Logos, Olive Tree, Blue Letter Bible, e-Sword, or ferventword.com. Nothing happens unless you tap one. You choose which are offered in Settings → Further Study, and you can switch every one of them off.
When a tap opens a website, the chapter you are reading goes to that company, in the web address itself. A web address is written into the log of the server at the other end, so that company has a record that a device asked for that chapter at that time. We cannot see it, we are not told about it, and we have no arrangement with any of them. What they keep, and for how long, is theirs to say in their own privacy policy and not ours. Nothing else about your reading goes with it — not your highlights, not your notes, not which other chapters you have opened.
When a tap opens an app already on your phone, the chapter does not leave your device at all. Olive Tree and e-Sword always work this way, and they are only offered if you have them. Blue Letter Bible works this way if you have its app, and opens its website if you do not — so installing it means less about your reading goes anywhere, not more.
To know whether Olive Tree, Blue Letter Bible or e-Sword is on your device, the app asks iOS about each by name — the same way it asks about our own Prayer Mentions app. iOS answers yes or no and nothing else; the app cannot see what else you have installed, and it does not ask. Those four are the whole list, and asking is the only way an app on iOS can find out. Logos and ferventword.com are not on it: a Logos link opens the Logos app when you have it and the Logos website when you do not, and iOS decides that without being asked.
If you never tap one, none of this ever happens.
Exporting And Importing
Settings → Data & Backups → Export & Import saves a reading plan, a notebook of highlights, or your meditations 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 of those holds the Bible text itself.
A single plan can also be saved from its own Edit Plan screen, in three forms: a PDF made for printing, a spreadsheet, and the same file the Export screen writes. All three list the plan’s days and the passages appointed for them; none of them holds the Bible text, and none of them carries any record of your reading, because the app keeps none. The PDF and the spreadsheet are printouts and do not read back in — the Export file is the one that does.
Your meditations’ file holds every one of them, from FerventWord and from Prayer Mentions, each with its words and with the passage it came from. These are passages you chose one at a time, so they are yours to keep; what the app never exports is the Bible text it came with.
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.
Plan Codes
When you make a reading plan you are offered a code for it, and the offer is on unless you turn it off. If you leave it on, the plan’s settings are sent to ferventwordministries.org and stored there: its name, its length, its edition, its start date, and which passages it appoints. Anyone who types the code gets the same plan.
Nothing about you goes with it. Not your name, not your device, not your reminder times, not your highlights or notes, and nothing about your reading. The server keeps no record of who published a plan or who asked for one, and it does not keep the address a request came from. What it does count is how many plans have been made and how many times a code has been used, and it groups those two numbers four ways: by which reading plan a code carries, by how long that plan runs, by the edition it is read in, and by whether it begins on 1 January. Every one of those is a fact about a plan, and none of them is a fact about a person.
For a plan you built yourself, the first of those says what it covers and no more — the Old Testament, the New Testament, the whole Bible, or a selection of books. It never says which books you chose, and it never carries the name you gave the plan. Those are in the plan a code hands over, because that is what you published; they are not in anything that gets counted.
You can let a code be made for you, or ask for one of your own — a church might want something its people recognise. A code you choose is a name you are publishing. Whatever you type is stored and shown to anyone who uses it, so it is worth choosing something you are content to have read out. We refuse codes that would pass for FerventWord itself, and codes that spell obvious profanity or slurs.
The people at FerventWord Ministries who look after codes are sent a list of new codes each day, with the name of each plan, so that one nobody should have to read aloud can be taken down. FerventWord on the web shows a plan’s own name on its public page and picture only once they have looked at it; until then it calls it a FerventWord reading plan. The names of FerventWord’s own plans are shown as they are. Nothing about you is in the list, because nothing about you is stored with a code.
A code is yours to keep. We do not withdraw one because you changed your mind, and other people may be relying on it. The one exception is a code that has to be taken down — one impersonating someone, or one nobody should have to read aloud. The app says all of this beside the switch before you publish anything. If you would rather not, turn the switch off — the plan works exactly the same, and you can still send it to someone as a file.
One thing is worth naming plainly: for a plan you built yourself, the books you chose are part of what a code carries. That is a reading interest, and it is the only thing a code reveals about anybody. Entering someone else’s code sends only the code, and the app shows you what the plan holds before anything is added to your own.
An invitation to a plan carries its code as a link to ferventword.com. On an iPhone with the app, tapping it opens the app with the code typed in, and nothing is sent until you tap Find The Plan. Without the app the link passes through ferventword.com to FerventWord on the web, at webapp.ferventword.com, which shows the code and the plan it holds. So the code is in both sites’ ordinary request logs, the way any address you visit is, and FerventWord on the web asks ferventwordministries.org for the plan without counting it as a use of the code. A code is meant to be shared, and nothing about you travels with it.
Giving
If you choose to give from the menu’s Support The Ministry 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. Apple Pay also asks whether you want to share your email address, and if you do, that address is passed to Stripe for one purpose: so Stripe can send you a receipt. We do not ask for your name, your postal address or your telephone number, we keep no record of who gave, and nothing about a donation is stored on your device or linked 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.
Auto-Advance Chapters, in Settings → Versions, is off unless you turn it on. With it on, the next chapter is looked up in exactly the same way when the one you are hearing finishes — so a request goes out without a further tap from you, and goes on doing so until you stop it. What is sent, and what is counted, is the same either way.
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 ask for it. Four things ever leave your device and nothing else: your own work syncing to your own iCloud, looking up a recording when you tap Listen, completing a donation if you give, and publishing or fetching a plan code. Each is described above. One is the syncing you can switch off by category; two of the others happen only on a tap of yours, and the third is the recording lookup, which repeats on its own if you turn on Auto-Advance Chapters. Searching the Bible text is not one of them — it happens entirely on your device. Neither is tapping a study tool at the foot of a reading: that hands the chapter to another company’s app or website, which then makes its own request. See Further Study above.
If you send a diagnostic report from the menu’s Feedback & 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, which passages you have read, or anything you have searched for. 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.