Questions and fixes

Because you are installing it from outside the Play Store. Android calls that sideloading, and it shows the same warnings for every app installed that way, regardless of what the app does. You will typically see two of them: your browser warning that this type of file can harm your device, and Play Protect saying the app was not scanned or comes from an unknown developer.

Neither message means anything has been detected in Orbit. They are Android telling you it has not vetted the file itself. If you want to confirm you have the file we published, check its SHA-256 against the checksums on the download page before installing.

Google sign-in is currently limited to invited testers. Orbit is going through Google’s OAuth verification, and until that is complete only accounts on the tester list can sign in.

Sign-in exists for one purpose: backing up to your own Google Drive. Everything else works without it — drawers, tasks, deadlines, priorities, notes, tags, repeating tasks, reminders, the calendar, search and the widget are all fully available offline with no account.

If you would like a tester invitation, email info@skordlabs.com from the Google account you would use.

In your own Google Drive, in a private application-data folder. It does not show up when you browse Drive normally, it counts against your own storage quota, and we cannot read it — Orbit has no server for it to pass through.

Orbit requests only the drive.appdata scope, which reaches Orbit’s own backup file and nothing else. It cannot access any other file in your Drive.

To remove it: delete the backup from inside Orbit, or in Drive go to Settings → Manage apps and delete the hidden app data. To cut off access entirely, visit myaccount.google.com/permissions.

A repeating task can repeat daily, weekly or monthly. The important part is that completion is tracked per day, not once for the whole task.

Ticking off today’s occurrence marks today done and nothing else. Tomorrow’s occurrence still appears tomorrow, and a day you skipped stays marked as missed rather than quietly disappearing. The calendar shows that history: which days you completed the task and which you did not.

Three settings account for almost every case. Check them in order:

• Notification permission. Android Settings → Apps → Orbit → Notifications. This must be allowed, or nothing can be shown.
• Alarms & reminders. Android Settings → Apps → Orbit → Alarms & reminders (on some phones it sits under Special app access). Orbit uses exact alarms so a reminder lands at the minute rather than whenever the system feels like it.
• Battery optimisation. Android Settings → Apps → Orbit → Battery, and set it to Unrestricted. Aggressive battery management is the usual reason a reminder arrives hours late or not at all — this is especially common on Xiaomi, Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus and Huawei devices, which often add their own “protected apps” or “autostart” list you need to add Orbit to as well.

Also worth checking: the task actually has a deadline set, and Do Not Disturb is not silencing it.

Long-press an empty area of your home screen, tap Widgets, find Orbit in the list, then drag the widget onto the screen or long-press it and place it.

The widget follows your light or dark setting. From it you can tick tasks off and switch between drawers without opening the app. Resize it by long-pressing it once it is placed.

No to both. Orbit is Android only, Android 7.0 (API 24) and newer, and it is distributed here as an APK you install yourself. There is no iOS version and no Play Store listing.

If you have backup enabled, install Orbit on the new phone and sign in with the same Google account — Orbit reads the backup from your Drive. Without backup, the data stays on the old device, since there is no copy anywhere else. Bear in mind that sign-in is invite-only during verification.