Flora FAQ

Please tap on the “Seed” icon on the main screen before pressing the “Start” button. Then, you enter the “Grand Tour” screen and can choose different types of plants to unlock at different stops. Have a nice trip!

Yes. Flora supports the “Offline Planting” mode. To plant a tree offline, please disconnect from the Internet before pressing the “Start” button. Note, however, that

• your friends will no longer be able to discover and join your room; and

• you will not be able to report a False Detection if the tree is killed

because there is no Internet connection.

On the “More” screen, please make sure that you have allowed Flora to send notifications. Then, even if your phone is locked, you will still receive a notification when your tree successfully grows up.

Note that you won't receive notifications while your phone screen is on because you can see the result directly.

Yes. There are two ways to use other apps while growing a tree:

1. If you only need to use other apps occasionally, simply press the “Pause” button when growing a tree. Then you can go to any other apps without killing the tree. When done, go back to Flora and press the “Resume” button to continue the session. The pause time will be subtracted from the final duration of the focus session. Note that the Pause feature is available only when there is no price associated with the tree. To see how the Price feature works, please click on the “?” (question mark) icon next to the “Price” menu on the main screen.

2. If you constantly need certain apps for work, go to the “More” screen and switch the “Allow apps during Focus” option on. Then, you can select white-listed apps. During a focus session, you can leave the Flora app without killing the tree. But you cannot open the apps not in the whitelist. This feature is available on devices with iOS 16.1+.

Just press the “Pause” button, and then you can leave Flora to do whatever you want. Your total focus duration will be subtracted the pause time and remain correct.

Note that the Pause feature is available only when there is no price associated with the tree. To see how the Price feature works, please click on the “?” (question mark) icon next to the “Price” menu on the main screen.

A focus session does not end when the tree grows. So, keep working! During this phase, the focus duration will automatically count up to record the extra time you input. When done, you can press the “See Tree” button to end the session and see your tree. Your total focus duration, including your extra time after the tree grows, will be correctly recorded in the associated story.

Yes. To turn off this feature, switch off the “Allow pauses during Focus” option on the “More” screen.

You can also set a non-zero Price before growing a tree, which automatically disables the Pause feature for the next focus session. To see how the Price feature works, please click on the “?” (question mark) icon next to the “Price” menu on the main screen.

Yes. After successfully growing a tree, press the “Timer” icon at the left of the “See Stories” button on the green focus screen, then you will be able to adjust the break timer. When the timer is up, a “Back to Work” notification will be sent to remind you to go back to work.

If you get your tree killed and think it was not your fault, please report a “False Detection” by pressing the “!” (triangular exclamation) button at the upper-right corner of the red focus screen. If verifying that it is indeed a false detection, we will revive your tree. If we find any bug that leads to a false kill, we will fix it ASAP. Meanwhile, you can take the following steps to minimize the chance of false detection:

• Do not press the home button before locking your phone during a focus session. Some people have this habit, but it kills the tree. Please leave the Flora app open.

• Keep the version of your iOS and Flora app up to date.

• Make sure you have a stable Internet connection. If you foresee connectivity issues, please grow a tree in the Offline Planting mode.

• The iOS system may actively kill apps under some circumstances, such as when it faces memory pressure or when the phone is locked for a long time. If the Flora app is unfortunately killed by the iOS, your session will end. Flora will do its best to restore your focus session when it is opened again. However, please understand that we might not be able to always successfully recover your focus session due to iOS limitations. You can minimize the chance of an automatic shutdown by closing some memory-hungry apps (like games) in the background.

Share your QR code displayed on the “Friends” screen to your friends, or scan the QR codes shared by your friends. You can also quickly make friends with other Flora users in your contact list by pressing the “Import from Contacts” button on the “Friends” screen, respectively.

There are two ways: you can either host or join a room.

To host a room, tap on the “People” icon at the left of the “Start” button on the main screen, and then select the “Friends” or “Selected Partners” options. You can also share the passcode of your room to other Flora users. To see the passcode, press the “Key” icon at the upper-right corner of the main screen. Other people can discover and join your room only after you press the “Start” button on the main screen.

To join someone else’s room, first you either find your friends’ rooms on the “Friends” screen or enter your friend’s passcode after pressing the “Key” icon on the main screen. Then, you can preview their rooms (for example, seeing the time left) to decide whether to join a room or not. As a guest, you can select your own plant to grow by tapping on the “Seed” icon on the preview screen. You then start growing a tree with the host by pressing the “Join” button on the preview screen.

If you are the host of the session, everyone’s tree will be killed because the session will be terminated. If you are a guest, on the other hand, you will only kill the tree grown by yourself. Other people will continue growing their trees in the session.

You can always invite your family, friends, and colleagues to plant a tree together while you work, enjoy meals together, or try to go to sleep on time, etc. Psychologists and researchers, such as Festinger (1957), Heider (1946), and Newcomb (1953), have found that this will boost your productivity in the long term because your commitment to them keeps your behavior in sync. Group focus sessions can also strengthen your relationships as the sense of accomplishing something together brings you closer.

Flora encourages joint tree planting by allowing each participant of a successful group focus session to win an additional tree grown by a random peer. Are you ready to win your friend’s trees?

Tap on your avatar in the garden to go to the “Badges” screen. You will see the total amount of time that you have logged and how far you are away from the next badge.

Sure. Just tap on your Garden for the current week, and then the layout will be changed. There are 5 different layouts for you to choose from. So, you can repeatedly tap on the Garden until you are satisfied with it.

Each tree in your garden for the current week lasts for 7 days. For example, if you grew a tree last Wednesday, the tree will disappear on this Wednesday. So, you have to plant trees regularly to maintain a beautiful garden, just like how you would maintain a garden in the real world.

You can swipe the “Garden” view to the left or right see all the trees that you have grown.

Yes. You can either note what you will be doing in the “What to focus on next?” area on the main screen before pressing the “Start” button, or note what you have done in the “Attach a message...” area of the associated story on the “My Stories” screen after growing the tree.

Tap on the “⋮” (Kebab) button at the upper-right corner of the story, then you can change its visibility. Select the “Only Me” option to be the only person who can see it.

Note, however, that your story may be a great motivator to your friends and could trigger fun interactions. You will lose these opportunities if you make your story private.

You can create a to-do item by navigating to the “To-Dos” tab on your “Garden” screen and then pressing an “+” (add) button. If you would like to be reminded of the do-to item at a specific time in a week, turn on the “Reminder” in the “To-Do” menu.

Yes. First, turn on the “Goal” in the menu of a to-do item. A progress bar will appear in the item. Then, during a focus session, you can tap on the “Tag” icon to tag your tree with the to-do. After the tree grows up successfully, the time you have spent on the session will be automatically added to the progress bar. You can also make progress by tagging your stories shown in the “My Stories” tab with different to-do items.

No problem. In a to-do menu, you can set up a “Repeating Goal” that automatically resets its progress at the beginning of every day, week, or month.

You can track your activities for a specific to-do item by enabling the “Habit Tracker” in the menu of the to-do. Then, you will get a winning streak if you successfully grow trees and tag them with the to-do in successive days.

Flora also compiles your focus activities into detailed daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly statistics so you can find opportunities to improve your time-management and planning skills. Your stats are shown in the “Stats” tab of the “Garden” screen.

The widget syncs with the main app about every 30 minutes. So, please give it some time. If you have waited for a long time and there’s still nothing in the widget, please

1. Update the Flora app to the latest version;

2. Open the app and navigate to your “Garden” (this is necessary);

3. Remove the widget from your “Home” screen and add it again.

The content should appear within 30 minutes. If the problem persists, please contact us via the in-app feedback system. We will help you out there.

Please go to the “More” screen and press the “Restore In-App Purchases” button. Then, all the torus you bought will be restored.

When using the Price feature, you are not charged unless you confirm that you killed a tree by pressing the “Honor My Price” button on the red focus screen. If you get your tree false killed, please report a “False Detection” by pressing the “!” (triangular exclamation) button at the upper-right corner. If you have pressed the “Honor My Price” button and want a refund, please contact us via email at support@flora.appfinca.com and describe the situation you encountered. We will help you from there.

Please email the error code to support@flora.appfinca.com and describe the situation briefly. We will help you from there.

Of course. Please send an email to support@flora.appfinca.com with your account name, account email address, and purchase date and time. We will email you back your receipt.

We partner with tree-planting organizations working in Africa and East Asia, such as the Trees for the Future and Eden Reforestation Projects, to plant fast-growing soil rebuilding trees, fruit trees that diversify nutrition, and trees that can provide forage and fuel-wood. All these trees help make the earth greener and provide long-term financial aid to families who need it most.

While most of your data (including the tour progress, garden, to-dos, and stories) are kept in the cloud, Flora currently does not store your “stats” on our servers. This means that you will lose your stats if you re-install the app. We will expand our servers to store everything in the future.

Although Flora uses a sophisticated algorithm to correctly detect whether you have left the app open during a focus session, we kept the energy consumption in mind when designing the detection mechanism. Based on our experimental results, the app does not consume more energy than an average music-streaming app.

No. There is only one, free version of Flora. Flora is the original app for multi-user tree planting. Any other apps that tried to clone this feature (and even charge it for money) are not associated with us. If you like planting trees with your friends and enjoy our unique features such as the Grand Tour, to-do list, and habit tracker, please choose the original Flora.