Help and support

Last updated 3 November 2026

Signing in

• You can sign in with an email address and password, with Google or with Apple. You need to be 13 or older.
• Confirm your email before you post. With an email and password account, tap the link in the email we send you before telling a lantern or adding a message. If it hasn’t arrived, check your spam folder, then use Resend email beside the release button. Google and Apple sign-ins don’t need this.
• Forgot your password? Choose Forgot password? on the sign-in screen and we will email you a link to set a new one.

Catching lanterns

• Lanterns are offered to you when they drift over the area saved in Settings under Your location. Pick a town or city from the list, or tap Use my current location. Your phone rounds its position to a coarse area before anything is sent, and only that area is kept.
• When the sky tells you a lantern is overhead, you have two hours to catch it. You can catch up to three a day.
• Not being offered anything? Check that Catch lanterns is on in Settings and that your location is set. The wind decides where lanterns go, so a quiet sky can just mean nothing is passing over you yet.
• To stop being offered lanterns, turn Catch lanterns off. Your own lanterns still fly and get caught.

Notifications

• Choose what you hear about under Notifications in Settings. Quiet hours keep your phone silent during the hours you choose; lanterns can still reach you then, just less often.
• If nothing arrives on your phone, check that notifications for Tell the Sky are allowed in your phone’s settings.

Something unkind

• A short list of slurs is turned away before it is posted. Nothing else is checked automatically, so please report anything that shouldn’t be there.
• Report a line or a whole lantern from the ⋯ button beside it. A moderator looks at every report. The person you report is never told who reported them.
• Block the person who wrote a line from the same button. Their lines are left out of every chain you read.
• If someone is in danger, contact your local emergency services first.

Your account and your data

• Delete your account from Settings: choose Delete my account under “Your account” and type DELETE to confirm. It happens straight away. Our privacy policy explains what is removed and what stays.
• Can’t sign in any more? Email [email protected] from the address on your account and we will delete it for you.
• To ask for a copy of your data or to correct it, write to the same address.

More

How we handle your data is in our Privacy policy, and the rules for using Tell the Sky are in our Terms of Use.