Patina is a calm home-maintenance companion: it remembers the small things your home needs — filters, gutters, alarms — and reminds you on the day, so all you have to do is the doing. This page answers the most common questions. If you don't find what you need, we're happy to help.
Patina is on iPhone, iPad and Android. Nearly everything here is true on both — where the two genuinely differ, the answer says which platform it belongs to.
Tap the + button. Pick from the library of 40+ real tasks — each arrives with a sensible schedule and a note on why it's worth doing — or write your own in seconds, on whatever rhythm your home actually keeps. Either way you choose a category, how often it repeats, and when you last did it.
Exactly what your home needs today: tasks due today or overdue, plus a peek at what's coming up. A short, finishable list — often nothing at all, and that's a good day too.
Swipe it to the right. (It's a small thing. You'll like it.) You can also open the task and complete it there — including early, before it's due.
Yes. An Undo button appears in the confirmation right after you complete a task. If you miss it, open the task: its history offers Undo on the most recent completion.
No, and there never will be. Patina is free to download, with no ads and no account. Your first five tasks are free forever, with every feature included, and one purchase — once, not monthly — makes room for as many as you like.
Nothing is deleted, and nothing will be. Past the first five, a task is paused: it stays in your list under “Paused” in the Tasks tab, keeps everything it has recorded, and you can still open it, edit it and read its history. What it stops doing is reminding you and counting toward your streak. Delete an active task and the next one comes straight back, or unlock to bring them all back at once.
Settings → Unlock → Restore purchases. It’s tied to your store account — your Apple Account on iPhone and iPad, your Google account on Android — so a new device, a reinstall or a second device just needs that tap. If it doesn’t find it, check you’re signed in with the same account you bought it with.
Yes. Patina follows your device's appearance automatically.
By default, a task's next due date is counted from the day you actually complete it — finish the deep-clean two weeks late and the next one is still a full interval away. Turn Count from when I finish off and the task keeps a fixed schedule instead: doing it late snaps you back to the original rhythm rather than drifting.
A few library tasks follow the calendar, not you — winterizing sprinklers and outdoor faucets, mulching the garden beds. They come due at the right time of year no matter when you last did them, because the season doesn't drift.
Just the first due date. Not yet done makes the task due today, so it shows up right away; Just did it schedules the first reminder one full interval out.
It moves the task out of your way for a week, without touching its real schedule. Snooze appears when a task is due within 7 days — snoozing a task due next month wouldn't change anything, so the button waits until it can help. You can snooze from the task itself or straight from the reminder notification.
Yes — choose Doesn't repeat. Once completed, it quietly leaves your list for good.
On the day a task is due, at an hour you choose — 9:00 AM unless you change it in Settings → Reminder time. You can complete or snooze right from the banner without opening the app. When several tasks come due on the same morning, they arrive as one notification rather than a pile of them.
That's Android's battery saving doing its job. Patina asks the system for your reminder time and the system delivers it when the phone next wakes — usually within a few minutes, occasionally longer if the phone has been asleep and untouched. Nothing is lost: an unfinished task simply reminds you again the next morning.
Patina nudges gently — an overdue task reminds you again at your reminder time, with a note of how overdue it is. No guilt, just a tap on the shoulder.
The number of tasks due today or overdue — the same list the Today screen shows. Complete or snooze them and it goes down; turn notifications off and it disappears entirely. Android has no app-icon badge, so Patina doesn't show one there.
The weeks your home has stayed on track — not the number of chores you've ticked. It advances with time: keep up with your tasks and it climbs one week at a time, no matter how many or how few tasks you have.
Nothing. There's a full week of grace on every task before the streak is at risk, and snoozing a task keeps it in good standing too. The streak is built to be kept.
The streak pauses — rather than resets — when you've got nothing scheduled ahead, so finishing your last task is always a good thing. It picks up right where it left off when something is on the calendar again, with no time lost.
Letting a task go more than a week past due (or snoozing the same task for more than a month). Complete or snooze things within their week of grace and the streak is never in danger.
Yes — through your own iCloud. Sign into the same Apple Account on each device and your tasks, history, and streak stay in sync. It's on by default, there's no account to create, and there's nothing we can see.
Yes — through your own Google Drive, once you switch it on. Open Settings → Google Drive backup and tap Connect Google Drive; sign in with the same Google account on each device and your tasks and history stay in sync. Patina asks for a single permission that grants access to a private folder only this app can see — we can't read anything else in your Drive, and we can't read the folder either.
Because it's your Google account, and reaching into it isn't something an app should assume. iCloud is part of the device and simply works; Drive is a grant you give deliberately. Patina works completely offline and local-only until you connect it.
Your tasks and their history sync; the streak is worked out fresh on each device from that same list, so a new device catches up on its own rather than importing a number. On Android the two can read differently for a moment after connecting, until each device has seen the whole list.
It shows whether your tasks have reached your own cloud — a reassuring "backed up" when all is well, or a plain explanation when something needs your attention. On iPhone and iPad that's usually being signed out of iCloud or full iCloud storage; on Android it's usually a Drive that hasn't been connected yet, or a connection that couldn't be made. Tap the row for details and what to do.
Settings → Delete all app data permanently removes every task, completion record, and your streak. If sync is on, it clears them from your other devices too — and the confirmation tells you which of the two it's about to do. You'll be asked to confirm, and it can't be undone.
Yes. Add the Patina widget from the widget gallery to see what's due today at a glance; there are Lock Screen versions too. Tap a task’s circle to mark it complete right there. Tapping anywhere else opens the app.
Yes. Long-press your home screen, choose Widgets, and drag Patina's Due Today widget out. It shows what's due today, follows your light or dark theme on its own, and refreshes itself at midnight. Tap a task’s circle to mark it complete right there. Tapping anywhere else opens the app.
Yes. Ask Siri "What's due today in Patina," or complete a task by name. Both actions are also available as building blocks in the Shortcuts app.
Long-press the Patina icon on your home screen and the tasks needing attention soonest appear as shortcuts — tap one to open it directly.
Patina indexes your tasks with Spotlight so you can jump straight to one from the home-screen search. This stays on your device — it's Apple's on-device index, not something we can see.
Check that Notifications is on in Patina's Settings tab, and that your phone is allowing them: Settings → Notifications → Patina on iPhone and iPad, or Settings → Apps → Patina → Notifications on Android. If you've restored from a backup or moved to a new phone, opening Patina once re-asks for permission.
Your tasks are safe on your device — Patina keeps retrying on its own. If you've just signed in or changed a setting, quit and reopen Patina. If the row says your storage is full, freeing up space is the fix and Patina catches up automatically.
Patina reached for Google Drive and couldn't get there. Check your connection and tap Connect Google Drive again from that row. Your tasks are safe on the device either way — the backup simply never started. If it keeps failing, tell us and we'll look into it.
That's usually the schedule working as intended: tasks on a fixed schedule (seasonal ones especially) come due on their calendar date regardless of an early completion, and a task marked "Not yet done" is due today on purpose. Open the task to see its exact rhythm spelled out.
Somewhere, one task went more than a week past its due date — deleting or completing it afterwards doesn't undo the lapse. The streak pill explains the rules if you tap it. Then it's a fresh start: the first week begins the moment you're back on track.
Contact us with your question and, if it's a bug, your device model and its iOS or Android version. You can also reach us right from the app: Settings → Request a feature or Report a bug. Thank you for looking after your home with Patina.
Contact usUse of Patina is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.