Kept on your phone

Kept has no app-store app. It is a web app you install from the browser (a PWA): it opens from its own icon, full screen, keeps a copy of your inventory on the phone, and works offline. Everything on this page needs Kept on HTTPS: over plain HTTP, phones block the camera, installing, push notifications and location (HTTPS).

Install it

Install on your phone on Home’s checklist, and Help → Install on your phone, show the steps for your device:

Device	Steps
iPhone, iPad	In Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen, then Add. Open Kept from its new icon.
Android	Open the browser’s menu (the three dots), tap Install app or Add to Home screen, and open Kept from its new icon.
Computer	In Chrome or Edge, the install icon at the end of the address bar, or Install Kept in the menu. In Safari on a Mac, File › Add to Dock.

The checklist step ticks itself the first time you open Kept from its icon. When a new version is ready, Kept shows A new version is ready with Reload; it never reloads by itself while something is uploading or a capture is open.

What works offline

The phone keeps a copy of every location you belong to, refreshed each time it syncs. Offline answers say as of last sync and the time.

Works offline	Needs a connection
Browsing locations, rooms, boxes and things	Editing a thing’s details, settings, admin
Search, labelled On this phone	The assistant and AI naming
Capture, move, mark seen, not here	Imports, exports and reports
Logging a reading, adding a room or spot	Logging a service (it carries money)
Box check, for a box opened once while online	Anything with money or secret values
Scanning a label, claiming a blank label

The copy never holds secret values or people’s contact details. Money and documents stay off the phone unless you keep a location offline behind the app lock (below). Signing out removes this person’s copy from the phone.

Syncing, as you see it

What you do offline goes into a queue and is sent when the phone is back online. A line under the header appears only when there’s something to say:

• Offline · 12 waiting to sync, or Offline · as of last sync, 14:02.
• New things show ID pending until the server gives them their short ID; labels for them can be printed once it arrives (Labels offers Print pending labels).
• On iPhone, the queue moves only while Kept is open: the line says Open to finish syncing (12). Leave Kept open on screen for a moment when you’re back online.
• Update Kept to finish syncing means the server is newer than the app: reload. The queue is kept.
• This browser may clear Kept’s offline copy after weeks unused: the phone refused Kept permanent storage. Open Kept now and then so it syncs.

When a change can’t apply. If someone else trashed, moved or removed a thing while you were offline, your change to it is dropped and the line says so, for example “A change couldn’t apply: the drill was trashed by Alfred”, with Restore to try it again. Other changes that need a decision go to the Inbox (“2 changes need a look”).

When you both edit the same thing online, Kept merges the fields only one of you changed and asks about the rest: Keep mine, Keep theirs or Edit.

Signing out with unsent captures warns you first: signing out deletes captures that haven’t synced. If your session expires, the phone drops its copy of your inventory but keeps your unsent captures, locked, until you sign back in. If someone else signs in on that phone, Kept says how many captures are waiting from another account and deletes them only when that person agrees.

Camera, gallery and scanning

• Capture keeps the camera open for one shot after another. Gallery picks several photos at once; each becomes a draft. If the camera is blocked, Kept says how to allow it, and over plain HTTP Capture falls back to choosing files.
• iPhone photos in HEIC are kept as originals; if one can’t be previewed, it says Preview unavailable and is never refused.
• Share into Kept: on Android and desktop Chrome, the installed app appears in the share sheet, so a receipt or PDF from another app lands in Capture. iPhone doesn’t let web apps appear in the Share sheet: save the file, then use Gallery in Capture.
• Scan reads Kept labels and product barcodes, offline too, from the phone’s copy.
• Suggest where I am, a switch in Capture’s place picker, compares your position with your locations on the phone itself and suggests the nearby one. Your position is never sent or kept.
• Dictate fills the name by voice where the browser supports it.

Settings → Diagnostics checks the camera, offline support and storage, and copies a report of what it found.

The app lock

Settings → This device → App lock locks Kept on this phone with a PIN of 6 to 12 digits, and with Use Face ID or fingerprint where the phone can verify you. With the lock on, Kept asks on a cold start and after 5 minutes hidden or idle, online or offline.

• Ten wrong PINs in a row remove Kept’s copy from this phone and sign you out, keeping your own unsent captures. Forgot it? Sign out and sign in again does the same.
• The lock keeps out someone holding the phone. It doesn’t stop someone who has copied the browser’s storage from trying PINs; the settings page says so.

Keep available offline, on the same page, adds one location’s prices and documents to the phone’s copy, encrypted behind the lock. It needs the app lock on, shows the download size first, and warns that whoever unlocks Kept on the phone sees them. A device keeps at most 250 MB this way, with files up to 25 MB each.

Notifications

In Settings → Me → Notifications, under This device, Enable turns on push: reminders pop up even when Kept is closed. Test sends one to check.

• iPhone and iPad deliver push only to the installed app: add Kept to the Home Screen, open it from there, and enable it. Until then, reminders can come by email.
• Push needs HTTPS. If the server has no way to send push, or the browser can’t receive it, the page says so; email and the notification centre still work.
• Quiet hours hold push and email until they end. What each location sends, and how, is covered in everyday use.