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Fold'em and iOS

Why are notifications delivered quietly?

Updated September 2026

Because every install starts on provisional delivery, which iOS files in Notification Center with no banner, no sound and no permission prompt at all. After you seal your term the app asks once, on a screen you are free to decline, whether it may show them on your lock screen instead. Declining costs nothing and leaves the same ask waiting in Settings. Tapping Don't Allow inside the iOS dialog is different: iOS will not ask again from inside the app, so that one is changed in iOS Settings.

What provisional delivery is

iOS has a quiet tier. An app may ask for provisional authorization instead of the usual one, and iOS grants it on the spot without putting a dialog in front of you. What arrives goes straight to Notification Center, with no banner on your lock screen and no sound. Fold'em asks for that tier the first time it has anything to send, which is why the app can go a long time without ever having interrupted you.

The trade is that quiet notifications are easy to miss. So the app asks, once, whether it may raise its voice, and it asks after the seal rather than during the funnel, when you have already seen what it would be sending.

Four kinds, one centre, one switch

Two kinds come from the server: the message that says your app deletion lock has finished opening, and the process updates that follow an exit, a handover, an invite, a term completing, a lapse release or a keyholder stepping away. Two come from your phone with no server involved: the trial reminder, which is scheduled when you buy a plan that starts with a free trial, and motivation lines, which ship switched off and only exist once you set them up.

All four go through the one notification centre and the one switch in Settings, and there is no page of per kind switches. Two of the four are sent by the server, and a switch on a phone cannot stop a server sending, so four switches where two of them are decorative would be worse than one honest one.

Four kinds of notification, one centre and one switch Four sources feed one place. Two come from the server: the deletion lock finishing its window, and an exit or handover moving. Two come from the phone: the trial reminder on day four, and motivation lines if you turned them on. All four converge on one notification centre and one switch in Settings. Below, the two ways they can be delivered: quiet, which is Notification Center only with no banner and no sound, and visible, which needs you to allow banners. FOUR KINDS, ONE SWITCH FROM THE SERVER Deletion lock finished opening An exit or handover moved FROM THE PHONE The trial reminder, day 4 Motivation lines, if on One centre one switch, in Settings QuietNotification Center only Visibleif you allow banners
Four kinds of notification, two from the server and two from the phone, pass through one centre and one switch. Quiet delivery lands in Notification Center only; the app asks once whether it may show banners.

The ask, and the row that carries it afterwards

  1. The screen that asks, once

    It sits near the end of setup, carries the heading Approve notifications. and shows two inert examples of what would arrive above a line naming the set: your trial reminder with the date it is set for, and every change to your block or your circle. Allow notifications raises the real iOS dialog. Not now raises nothing at all: no prompt is spent, delivery stays quiet, and the ask is still available later. A phone that already allows Fold'em's notifications never sees this screen.

    There is no picture of this screen here, because it appears only on a phone that has not yet answered the notification question, and a phone that has answered skips straight past it.

  2. Settings, Preferences, Notifications

    The switch here is on by default and belongs to this phone. While it is on and delivery is still quiet, a row appears under it reading Allow alerts, with the line "They arrive quietly today, in Notification Center only." Tapping it raises exactly the same iOS prompt the setup screen offers, and the row disappears the moment permission is granted. This is the whole route for anyone who tapped Not now, and for any install that predates the ask.

    Settings in the app, showing the Preferences group with the Notifications switch on and no Allow alerts row under it, then Motivation, Haptics and Block screen.

    Settings, Preferences

  3. If you already tapped Don't Allow

    That answer is spent: iOS refuses to raise its dialog a second time for the same app. The row changes to Allow alerts in Settings and says that iOS will not ask again from here, and tapping it opens Fold'em's page in iOS Settings, where the choice can be changed. Nothing was lost in the meantime, and nothing was turned off; the notifications simply kept arriving quietly.

What this does not do

The switch does not stop the server sending. It gates what this phone does: whether Fold'em asks iOS for permission at all, and whether tapping a notification opens the screen it belongs to. Turning it off changes nothing about your block, your term or your exit, and your keyholder is told nothing about it either way. It is also not the keyholder's own alerts, which are emails and which are governed by a separate setting in the app that only you can change. And granting full delivery changes the tier and not the content: the same four kinds are sent, on the same terms, and none of them can release anything.

Still stuck? Email support@foldem.app and we answer within two working days.