Frequently asked questions

Sign-up, sign-in, Premium, credits, deleting your account.

• How do I sign up?

  Click Sign up on the home page, enter an email address and a
  password (at least 12 characters), and verify the email we send.
  Verification usually arrives within a minute; check your spam
  folder if it doesn't.

• I didn't get the verification email

  Check the spam folder first — that's where it lands most often. If
  it isn't there after a few minutes, request it again from the
  sign-in screen, and make sure the address has no typo in it. If you
  signed up with Google or Apple there is no verification email at
  all; that account is already verified. See
  Trouble signing in.

• Is OutaStory free?

  Yes. Reading and listening on OutaStory are free. The free
  experience is ad-supported. Premium removes the ads and adds
  extras such as keeping more stories on your device for offline
  reading in the apps.

• What does Premium cost?

  Premium is billed monthly. The exact price depends on your country
  (we charge in your local currency where supported). The current
  price for your region appears on the subscription page
  — there's no annual / monthly toggle and no auto-tier-up.

• What does Premium include?

  Premium removes advertising, raises how many stories you can keep
  offline in the apps, and unlocks a few author-side extras such as
  publishing a cover without the OutaStory mark. Reading itself is
  free either way — Premium never puts a story behind a paywall.
  See What Premium includes.

• How do I cancel my Premium subscription?

  Cancel where you subscribed. If you subscribed on the web or in the
  Windows app, open the subscription page and choose
  Cancel. If you subscribed through Google Play or the Mac App
  Store, cancel it in that store's own subscription settings — we
  can't cancel a store subscription for you. You keep Premium until
  the end of the period you already paid for.

• Can I get a refund?

  For technical issues (we charged you while the service was down)
  we'll refund proactively. For change-of-mind cancellations, we
  don't refund the partial month — but cancelling stops all future
  charges. If you subscribed through a store, the refund is handled
  by that store. Open a support ticket if you think
  your situation is special.

• Which payment methods are supported?

  It depends where you're paying. On the web, in the Windows app and
  in the Uptodown build, payment runs through Stripe — credit and
  debit cards, plus the wallet methods Stripe offers in your country.
  In the Google Play build it runs through Google Play Billing,
  and in the macOS app through Apple's in-app purchase. You never
  enter card details in the apps that use a store.

• I bought Premium in one place — does it work everywhere?

  Yes. Premium belongs to your account, not to the device or the
  store you bought it in. Subscribe on the web and it's active in the
  Android app; subscribe through Google Play and it's active on the
  website — as long as you're signed in to the same account.

• What are credits and how do I top up?

  Credits are a prepaid balance on your account. You top up from your
  wallet (/wallet) on the web, or by in-app purchase
  in the Google Play build. The balance belongs to the account, so it
  is the same wherever you sign in. See
  Credits and your wallet.

• Can I get credits without paying for them?

  Some, yes. Most trophies carry a small credit reward, and they're
  earned for things you'd be doing anyway. Your first narration
  version and your first cloned voice are free outright and cost no
  credits at all.

  Beyond that, credits are topped up in your wallet. Reading and
  listening never need any.

• What can I spend credits on?

  Credits pay for optional author-side extras: extra narration
  versions beyond the free first one, extra cloned voices beyond your
  free one, and narrating with a voice another author has shared.
  Reading, listening and publishing never cost credits. AI cover
  generation does not use credits either — it uses a separate
  per-draft round allowance.

• Can I sign in with Google or Apple?

  Yes — Sign in with Google and Sign in with Apple are both
  supported. They create a normal OutaStory account; we don't share
  anything with Google or Apple beyond what they show you on the
  consent screen.

• How do I change my email address or password?

  Both live under Profile → Security (/profile/security). A new
  email address has to be verified before it becomes the address we
  use. If you signed in with Google or Apple, there is no OutaStory
  password to change — you manage that with them. See
  Changing your email or password.

• How do I turn on two-factor authentication or a passkey?

  Open Profile → Security (/profile/security). There you can set
  up two-factor authentication with an authenticator app, add a
  passkey or hardware security key, and generate recovery codes
  to keep somewhere safe in case you lose your device. See
  Two-factor, passkeys and recovery codes.

• How do I delete my account?

  Go to Profile → Close account (/profile/close-account), or use
  the Danger Zone on My Account (/profile/account) — both start
  the same closure, and both ask what should happen to your comments
  (they stay as they are by default, or render as "[deleted]").

  A grace period then runs before anything is removed: 30 days
  if you have never published a story, 90 days if at least one
  story under any of your pen names is published and readable. The
  whole account shares one date — your pen names and all their
  stories go together on it.

  Nothing is hidden in the meantime. You stay signed in, you can read
  and write as usual, and your published stories stay fully
  discoverable; the only change is a notice on each story page and on
  your author profile naming the date the work becomes unavailable.

  On that date the stories and the author profile become
  unreachable and are taken out of our search index, out of the
  sitemap and out of Google and Bing. The story rows themselves stay
  in our database, readable by nobody — you included — because the
  ad-revenue records attached to them carry a statutory 10-year
  retention. Your author record itself is deleted outright, unless a
  financial or moderation record is bound to it, in which case it is
  anonymised to a "Deleted user" placeholder instead. We don't send
  you any email about this — nothing lands in your inbox at any
  stage, so don't wait for a confirmation message.

• I asked to delete my account — can I still cancel?

  Yes, at any point during the grace period — but signing back in
  does not cancel it. You have to sign in, open My Account
  (/profile/account) and click Cancel Deletion; that also takes
  the notices back off your stories and your author profile. If you
  only sign in and close the app again, the deletion still goes
  ahead. The sweep that finalises flagged accounts runs once a day.
  Deleted a single pen name instead? That one is called off with
  Restore on the Pen names page.

• What happens if I delete just one pen name?

  Only that pen name goes. Open Profile → Pen names
  (/profile/pen-names) and press Delete on the one you want to
  retire. It gets its own grace period, worked out from its own
  published state — 90 days if at least one of its stories is
  published and readable, otherwise 30 — with its own date,
  separate from everything else.

  Until that date its stories stay fully discoverable and carry a
  notice naming the date. Afterwards its stories and its profile page
  become unreachable and are taken out of our search index and out of
  Google and Bing. Your account and your other pen names are
  untouched and keep working normally. To call it off, press
  Restore on the Pen names page. Deleting a pen name is not a
  way to close your account, and closing your account is not a
  way to retire a single pen name.

• How do I download a copy of my personal data?

  Open Profile → Privacy (/profile/privacy) and choose Download
  my data. The file is built on the spot and downloads straight to
  your device as JSON — there's no queue to wait in and no email to
  look out for. It covers your profile, your stories, your reading
  activity and the rest of what we hold about you.

• What is "Erase your data" and how is it different from deleting my account?

  They're two separate things on Profile → Privacy
  (/profile/privacy). Erase your data is the GDPR Article 17
  request: we remove or anonymise the personal data we hold, while
  your account keeps working. Closing your account ends the account
  itself. If you want both, do the erasure first, then close the
  account.

Finding stories, serials, notifications, reading settings.

• Do I need an account to read?

  No. You can read without signing in — you'll see everything rated
  12+ and below. An account adds the rest of the catalogue, a library
  that follows you between devices, favourites, comments and
  notifications. Reading is free either way.

• How do I find a story I read before?

  Open My library from the sidebar. Stories appear under
  Reading (in progress), Read (completed), or Favourites
  (you tapped the heart). Use the search bar at the top of the
  library to filter.

• Why does some content require sign-in?

  Stories rated 16+ or 18+ are only visible to signed-in readers old
  enough for them. If you're not signed in you see the family-friendly
  catalogue (everything rated 12+ and below). Sign in and your age is
  worked out from the birthday on your profile.

• My reading progress isn't syncing

  Reading progress syncs across devices when you're signed in to the
  same account on each. Anonymous progress is per-device and doesn't
  sync; if you sign in after starting anonymously, it merges into
  your account on first sign-in.

  One thing that genuinely doesn't sync: where you paused the
  audio. Your reading position follows you between devices, your
  listening position does not.

• How is the home page personalised?

  The home page mixes a curated section (the editor's flagship picks,
  the same for everyone) with personalised rows based on your reading
  history — categories you read often, authors you follow, stories
  similar to ones you liked. New readers see a curated-only home page
  until there's enough history to personalise meaningfully.

• Can I switch the language of an existing story?

  Most stories are written in one language and aren't
  auto-translated. A handful of flagship stories exist in both
  English and German — you'll see a language toggle in the header
  when one does. Otherwise the language choice happens at the
  catalogue filter level.

• How do I report inappropriate content?

  Click the ⋮ menu on the story (or chapter, or comment) and pick
  Report. Choose a reason and add context. Our moderators review
  reports within one business day. Severe issues (CSAM, doxxing,
  threats) can also be reported via abuse@outastory.com.

• What is a serialized story?

  A serial is a story its author releases in parts instead of all
  at once. The story page shows a Serial badge, how many parts
  have been released, and — when the author has named one — the day
  the next part is expected. Parts that haven't been released yet
  aren't on the page at all.

• In what order do the parts of a serial appear?

  In the author's own chapter order, counted from the beginning —
  part 1, part 2, part 3 — and not in the order the parts happened to
  be released. An author who releases a part out of turn still has it
  appear in its proper place.

  A released part then keeps that place for good: a later release
  never renumbers, reorders or rewrites the parts that are already
  out. The story page lists them all with the day each one appeared.

• I opened a link to a later part and the story started at the beginning

  That was a bug on our side, and it looked far worse than it was: a
  link to part 2 used to open the story at page 1 — the first page
  of the story, not of the part — so the newest instalment appeared
  to have been replaced by the oldest one. Nothing was ever
  overwritten; the text of every part was safe the whole time. Links
  now land on the part they name.

  If a link still looks wrong to you, open the story page and pick the
  part from the list of released parts — that always goes to the right
  place. And if it happens again, please
  tell us with the link you used.

• Does a new part change the parts I've already read?

  No. Releasing a part only makes that one part visible — the earlier
  parts keep exactly the text they had, and your position in them is
  untouched. If an author later corrects a typo in an older part, that
  is an edit they made on purpose, not something releasing a new part
  did.

• How do I jump straight to a particular part of a serial?

  Two ways. From the story page, choose the part from the list of
  released parts — each entry opens at the start of that part. Or,
  once you are already reading, use the instalments button in the
  reader's top bar: it lists every part and marks the one you're in,
  so you can hop without going back out.

  You can also just keep turning pages from one part straight into the
  next — a serial is one continuous story, not a set of separate ones.

• How many parts does a serial have in total?

  We don't show a total, and that's deliberate — the page says how
  many parts have been released, never "part 3 of 12". Authors
  write as they go and a planned total would be a promise nobody can
  keep. Whether a serial is finished is something the author marks
  explicitly when it is.

• The next part didn't arrive on the date shown

  That date is an estimate the author set by hand, not a schedule
  — nothing publishes automatically from it. Authors move it, and
  stories sometimes pause. The story page always shows the current
  estimate, and the parts already released stay readable either way.

• How do I get told when the next part is out?

  Open the serial's story page and tap Notify me. That button is
  completely separate from the heart: favouriting a story does not
  sign you up for notifications, and tapping Notify me does not
  add the story to your favourites. Manage the channels under
  Settings → Notifications (/settings/notifications).

• Several parts came out but I only got one notification

  That's on purpose. After you're told about a new part, we hold back
  further installment notifications for that serial for six hours,
  so an author releasing a batch of parts doesn't fill your notification
  list. Nothing is lost — every released part is on the story page.

• How do I hide AI-generated stories?

  Open Profile → AI content (/profile/ai-content), or tap the
  quick button in the top bar, and switch on Hide AI-generated
  content. Stories marked as AI-generated then disappear from your
  view everywhere. It's a per-account setting, off by default, and
  you can switch it back off at any time to bring those stories back.

• Does hiding AI content affect search and my home page?

  Yes — the filter applies consistently. When Hide AI-generated
  content is on, AI-marked stories are left out of your home rows,
  recommendations, author pages, the Story of the Day, your
  continue-reading list, and search results. It only changes what
  you see; it doesn't remove anything for other readers or unpublish
  the story.

• How do I turn newsletters on or off, or unsubscribe?

  OutaStory sends two optional emails: the Story of the Day and a
  weekly digest. The box for them is already ticked when you
  complete your profile, so if you didn't untick it you are
  subscribed — that's why one may arrive without you remembering
  asking. Turn each on or off under your email/notification settings.

  Every newsletter also has a one-click unsubscribe link in its
  footer, and you can unsubscribe from all of them in your settings at
  any time. See
  Story of the Day and the weekly digest.

• How do I manage push and in-app notifications?

  Your notification centre lives at
  /notifications — everything that happened while
  you were away shows up there, and each entry can be cleared away
  with the × on its row. To enable push and fine-tune what
  you're told about, open Settings → Notifications
  (/settings/notifications). A few notifications about your account
  and billing are mandatory and can't be switched off. See
  Notifications and how to manage them.

• How do I turn push notifications on?

  Open Settings → Notifications (/settings/notifications). At the
  top of that page there is one button — Enable push notifications
  in the apps, Enable browser notifications on the website. Tap it
  and your phone, tablet or browser asks you to allow notifications;
  say yes.

  That button only appears while permission is still missing, so if you
  don't see it, you have already allowed it. Below the button, tick the
  Push column for the events you actually want. See
  Turning on push notifications.

• I turned push on ages ago and never received anything

  You weren't doing it wrong. Until 27 August 2026 the mobile apps
  shipped without the setting that starts the push service at all, so
  no phone or tablet could be reached — the settings page showed the
  switches and nothing behind them was listening. That is fixed.

  Please turn it on once more: Settings → Notifications, then
  Enable push notifications and allow the request. If your device
  remembers an earlier refusal, the button hands you straight to the
  system settings for OutaStory, where you can allow it there.

• How do I turn push notifications off again?

  Two ways, and they do different things. Untick the Push column
  on /settings/notifications and save — that silences those events
  for your account, on every device. Or withdraw the permission in
  your device's or browser's own notification settings — that silences
  OutaStory on that one device and leaves the rest alone.

  There is no single master switch in the app; the columns are the
  switch. See
  Managing your notifications.

• Do my notification settings apply to all my devices?

  The tick boxes do; the permission doesn't. Which events reach you at
  all is stored with your account, so unticking something on your
  phone unticks it on your tablet and in your browser too.

  Whether a device is allowed to show a push is a decision each
  device makes separately — you allow it once per phone, tablet and
  browser. That's why notifications can arrive on one of your devices
  and not another.

• Push notifications still don't arrive even though I allowed them

  Three things to check, in this order. Is the Push column ticked
  for that kind of event on /settings/notifications? Is OutaStory
  allowed to notify you in the device's own settings, and is the device
  out of a battery-saver or focus mode? And is it a desktop app —
  there is no system push on Mac or Windows at all.

  Everything still lands in your notification centre at
  /notifications either way, so nothing is lost
  while you sort it out.

• How do I remove a notification from my list?

  Open /notifications and tap the × at the end
  of the row — that's Dismiss notification, and it takes that one
  entry out of your list. To clear out everything you've already read
  in one go, use Clear read at the top of the page. Mark all as
  read is a different button: it clears the unread badge and keeps
  the entries.

  If you looked for this before and couldn't find it, that's because it
  genuinely wasn't there — notifications could not be removed on any
  platform until August 2026. Nothing was wrong with how you looked.

• If I dismiss a notification, does it disappear for other people too?

  No. Dismissing only touches your copy. If the same event was
  announced to several people, everyone else still has theirs — and
  nothing is taken away from the author, the comment or the story it
  referred to.

  It does apply to all of your devices, because the list lives with
  your account: dismiss on your phone and it's gone on your tablet too.
  There is no undo, so the thing itself — the comment, the new part —
  is the better place to go back to.

• Which notifications can't I switch off?

  A small, deliberate set about your account and your subscription
  — things you would be annoyed to have missed, such as a payment
  problem or a change to your plan. They don't appear as rows in the
  settings table at all, which is why you won't find a switch for them.

  Everything else — community activity, new parts, trophies, digests —
  is yours to turn off.

• What's the difference between a toast, a push and an email?

  Three separate ways to be told about the same event, and you tick
  them independently. A toast is the little banner inside OutaStory
  while you have it open. A push is what your phone, tablet or
  browser shows when OutaStory is closed. An email lands in your
  inbox.

  Turning all three off for an event doesn't hide it — it still appears
  in your notification centre at /notifications.

• Can I change the reading theme or background?

  Yes. Pick a reading theme under Profile → Theme
  (/profile/theme) — that's also where the high-contrast look lives,
  as a theme rather than a separate switch. On the default theme, the
  web version additionally shows a gently animated night-sky
  background behind the app. See
  Reading themes and the background.

• Can I change the font or text size while reading?

  Yes — Profile → Reader settings (/profile/reader-settings).
  You can pick the typeface (including a font designed for dyslexia),
  set the text size between 14 and 22 pixels, and choose one of three
  line spacings. The setting follows your account, so it applies
  wherever you read.

• How do I rate or review a story?

  Open the story and use the rating control (the stars) on the
  story page to leave your score. Where reviews are enabled you can add
  a short written review alongside your rating. You can update or remove
  your rating later from the same place.

• What's the difference between favouriting a story and following its author?

  The heart on a story adds it to your favourites — a bookmark
  list, nothing more. Following an author is about future work:
  you hear about what they publish next. And on a serial, neither one
  subscribes you to new parts — that's the separate Notify me
  button. See Favourites and follows.

• Why do I see ads?

  Advertising is what pays for free reading, and it's part of how
  authors earn from their work. Ads only load after you've allowed the
  matching cookie category — decline it and you'll still see ads, just
  non-personalised ones. Premium removes advertising entirely.

• What is the Story of the Day?

  One story we put in the spotlight each day, shown on the home page
  and sent out as an optional email. It's a way to surface work you'd
  otherwise scroll past. You can turn the email off in your
  notification settings without losing the home-page slot.

AI voices, creating narration, professional speakers.

• Does every story have audio?

  No. Narration is something the author chooses to create for a
  story — it never happens automatically, and it can't be triggered by
  readers. If a story has no play button, its author hasn't had it
  narrated. See
  How audio narration works.

• What do the AI narration voices sound like?

  They're neural text-to-speech voices — high quality, but not human.
  Most listeners find them comfortable over long sessions. Everyone
  hears the same quality: there is no lower-quality voice for free
  readers and no premium voice tier.

• Which voices can I choose from?

  The list of available voices is fetched live when you open the voice
  picker, so it changes as the catalogue does — we deliberately don't
  publish a fixed number of voices per language here, because it would
  be out of date within weeks. Open the picker on your story to see
  what's currently offered.

• Can I pick a different voice as a listener?

  Only among the versions the author has actually made. The author
  chooses the voice; if they created more than one narration version,
  you can switch between them in the player. You can't ask for a
  story to be narrated in a voice its author never generated.

• How do I create narration for my story?

  Publish the story first, then open it from My stories
  (/my-stories) and start the narration from there, choosing the
  voice you want. The first narration version is free. See
  How audio narration works.

• Why can't I generate audio for my draft?

  Narration only runs on a published story — a draft can't be
  narrated at all. Publish first, then generate the audio. This
  catches people out most often on a story they're still polishing.

• How long does narration take?

  Expect several minutes per chapter. Long stories take
  correspondingly longer, and you don't have to stay on the page —
  the job continues in the background and the audio appears on the
  story when it's finished.

• Is there a length limit for narration?

  Yes — a story of up to 200,000 characters can be narrated. Above
  that the job won't run. If you're writing something that long,
  splitting it into two stories (or publishing it as a serial) is the
  practical answer.

• What happens to the old audio when I regenerate narration?

  It is deleted first, before the new narration is produced. So
  there's a window where the story has no audio at all, and if the new
  run fails you don't fall back to the old file — you regenerate
  again. Worth knowing before you regenerate a narration listeners are
  already using.

• What does an extra narration version cost?

  The first narration version for a story is free. Each additional
  version — a second voice, say — costs 50 credits from your
  wallet balance.

• Does listening cost my readers anything?

  No. Once a story has narration, anyone can play it for free — there
  is no per-listen charge and no listener-side unlock. The only costs
  on the audio side sit with the author, when they create more than
  one narration version.

• Can I control how a word is pronounced?

  Not today. There is no pronunciation markup for authors — nothing
  you can put in the text to steer the voice. If a name comes out
  wrong, the practical workarounds are a different spelling in the
  text or a different voice. Tell us via
  support which word tripped it up; those reports are
  what drive the fixes.

• Can a human professional narrate my story instead of the AI voice?

  Yes — the speaker marketplace at /speakers lets you
  hire a professional narrator. You agree a fee in euro, it's held in
  escrow until the recording is delivered, and it releases
  automatically seven days after delivery if you don't raise anything.
  OutaStory keeps an 8 % platform fee. Credits are not involved.
  See Have a professional narrate your story.

• How do I become a speaker on OutaStory?

  The speaker marketplace is invitation-only at the moment. There
  is no application form and no self-registration — speakers are
  invited, and an invitation is what creates the portal account. See
  Your speaker invitation.

• What is the voice marketplace, and how is it different from hiring a speaker?

  Two different things. /speakers is about hiring a
  human narrator for a fee in euro. /voices/marketplace
  is about cloned voices that writers share with each other, paid
  for in credits — nobody records anything for you there; you're using
  a voice model someone made available.

• Can I narrate my story in a voice another author made?

  Yes, if its owner has listed it. Authors who cloned their own voice
  can put it on /voices/marketplace for others
  to narrate with, and using one costs 50 credits per narration.
  Your own voices are always free to you.

  Nobody records anything for you here — you're using a voice model
  someone shared, and the listener is told the narration is
  synthetic. See Shared voice clones.

• Where did my listening position go?

  Audio resume position is stored on the device you were listening
  on and doesn't travel between devices — start on your phone,
  continue on your laptop, and the player begins from the top. Your
  reading position does sync; the listening one doesn't yet.

• Can I listen offline?

  In the apps, yes — a story you've made available offline keeps its
  audio on the device. In a web browser there is no offline mode at
  all. See "How do I read or listen offline?" under Apps &
  platforms.

Drafting, covers, serials, publishing your story.

• Who can publish on OutaStory?

  Anyone with a complete profile (display name, bio, avatar). No
  application or approval is required for the first story; stories go
  through an automated content review for age-rating consistency. See
  Writing your first story.

• Can I write in any language?

  We currently support English and German for catalogue indexing,
  audio narration, and AI-assisted descriptions. You can publish in
  another language, but readers won't find you through the language
  filter and the narration won't generate.

• Are AI-generated stories allowed?

  Stories must be substantially authored by you. You may use AI tools
  for ideation, editing, or research, but a fully AI-generated story
  (where you only typed the prompt) is not allowed and will be removed
  if reported. Stories marked as AI-generated are also hidden from
  readers who've switched that filter on.

• Why was my story flagged during the content review?

  The automated review checks whether the age rating you chose matches
  what the text actually contains. A flag usually means the rating
  looks too low for the content, not that the story is unwelcome. Raise
  the rating if that's fair, and if you think the check got it wrong,
  say so through support — a person can look at it.

• I pasted my chapter but nothing appeared (or it lost its formatting)

  Two things to know. First, click inside the large chapter Body
  editor so the cursor is in the text area, then paste (Ctrl+V on
  Windows, ⌘V on Mac) — pasting only lands in the field your cursor is
  actually in, so it won't work if you're on the title or the short
  description. Second, the editor keeps your words and paragraphs but
  strips the original formatting on purpose (bold, italics, fonts,
  colours), so the text arrives clean; add emphasis back with the toolbar
  or Markdown (**bold**, *italic*). If text still won't appear at all,
  tell us your browser and device so we can look into it. More in
  Writing your first story.

• How do chapter updates affect readers?

  Editing a chapter doesn't interrupt anyone mid-read; readers see the
  current text the next time they load that page.

  Two things do not happen by themselves: the narration is not
  regenerated — audio is always something you trigger, so an edited
  chapter keeps its old audio until you regenerate it. And on a live
  serial, editing an already-released chapter moves you into a new
  unpublished version of the story (see "I edited a released chapter
  and the serial panel disappeared" below).

• How do I publish a story as a serial?

  Tick Publish this as a serial on the first step of publishing.
  If the story is already published, you can still switch it over with
  Make it a serial on /my-stories. See
  Publishing a story in parts.

• How do I release the next part of my serial?

  Open /my-stories, choose Manage serial on the
  published story, and use Release on the chapter you want to make
  visible. Until you do that, the chapter isn't on the story page at
  all — writing it is not the same as releasing it.

• Can I release the parts of my serial out of order?

  You can — the Release button doesn't insist on the next one in
  line. What readers see is still your chapter order, not the
  order you released in, so a part released out of turn appears in its
  proper place rather than at the end.

  Worth thinking about anyway: readers who follow the serial are told
  "a new part is out", and a gap in the middle reads as a mistake even
  when it isn't.

• Can I un-release a part once it's out?

  No. Releasing a chapter is irreversible — there is no
  un-release. Pressing Release twice on the same chapter does
  nothing extra, but you can't take a released part back off the story
  page. Read it through once more before you release.

• I edited a released chapter and the whole serial panel disappeared

  Nothing is lost. Editing the text of an already-released chapter
  creates a new unpublished version of the story and moves you into
  it — and the serial controls only exist on the published story, so
  they vanish from the screen you're now looking at. Since August 2026
  a panel explains this in place instead of leaving you on a blank
  area.

  To get back: go to /my-stories and choose Manage
  serial on the published row. While that unpublished draft
  version exists, edits to the live story are refused — finish or
  discard the draft version first.

• Can I reorder the chapters of a serial?

  Only the ones you haven't released. Chapters still waiting can be
  moved up and down freely; a chapter that is already out is pinned
  where it is, and a reorder that would move one is refused outright
  rather than partly applied.

  That's the same rule as releasing being irreversible: once readers
  have a part in a given position, it stays there.

• Can I publish under a pen name?

  Yes. You can publish a story under a pen name instead of your
  usual display name, so readers see the pseudonym on the story and
  the author line. Your account stays the same behind the scenes —
  revenue, audio, and story management all still belong to you.

• Can I collaborate with other authors?

  Co-authoring isn't directly supported — every story has one author
  of record. For collaborations you can credit contributors in the
  author note at the top of the chapter; attribution flows to the named
  author and anything you agree between you happens off-platform.

• How do I delete a story I published?

  From My stories (/my-stories) you can unpublish a story,
  which takes it out of the public catalogue. A draft you never
  published can be deleted outright. A published story isn't wiped from
  the database when you unpublish it — comments, audio and the
  accounting history it's tied to would break. If you need it gone for
  a legal reason, contact support.

• Can I disable ads on my own stories?

  Yes. Switch Ads enabled off in the story-edit screen and no ads
  are served on that story. You give up the ad income it would have
  earned; you can switch it back on at any time.

• How do I make a cover for my story?

  On the cover step of publishing you can upload your own image, let
  the AI generate one, or open the cover designer from the card on
  that step (/write/{id}/publish/cover/designer) and build one with
  text, shapes and images. The designer works on every platform,
  including all the apps.

• Why can't I open the cover designer for my story?

  The cover designer is draft-only. Once a story is published it
  refuses to open — you'll get a "not a draft" response rather than the
  editor. Design the cover before you publish, or work on an
  unpublished version of the story.

• My cover image upload fails with an unhelpful error

  Check the file size. Uploads are limited to 5 MB, and a file
  between roughly 5 and 10 MB is rejected on the server with a generic
  error message that doesn't say why. Shrink the image below 5 MB and
  it will go through.

• How do I get a cover without the OutaStory mark?

  Two conditions have to hold at the same time: your account is
  Premium, and you tick the box that hides the mark. Premium is
  checked again at the moment the cover image is rendered — so if
  Premium lapses and you re-save the cover later, the mark comes back
  on the newly rendered image.

• How many AI cover attempts do I get?

  Three generation rounds per draft. Those rounds are not credits
  and don't touch your wallet balance — a story you never publish
  simply uses up its own three rounds. Uploading your own image or
  using the cover designer doesn't consume a round.

• What do I need before I can create a narration voice?

  Two things: a Premium membership, and at least one published
  story — the feature is for authors narrating their own work, so it
  stays closed until you've published something. If either is missing,
  the page tells you which one.

  Then it's Profile → Your narration voice, accept the consent
  notice, and record. See
  Creating a voice clone.

• What is the "own voice" narration feature?

  Own-voice narration lets OutaStory narrate your stories in your
  own voice instead of a generic AI voice. You record a short voice
  sample (about 60 seconds), OutaStory builds a personalised voice
  model from it, and you can then choose that voice when you generate
  narration for a story.

• How long does my voice recording have to be?

  At least 45 seconds and at most five minutes. Reading the
  whole passage on screen at a natural pace lands you around a minute
  or two, which is the sweet spot — more material makes a noticeably
  better voice than the bare minimum does.

  Read it the way you'd tell someone a story, pause at the
  punctuation, and don't rush.

• How do I record my voice sample?

  Go to Profile → Your narration voice and follow the steps there:
  accept the consent notice, tap Start recording, read the passage
  aloud at your natural pace, then tap Submit. Any microphone works —
  your phone's built-in mic is fine. Find a quiet room for the best result.
  Processing usually completes within a few minutes.

  See the full guide: Record your narration voice.

• My voice recording was rejected — what went wrong?

  We measure the audio after you submit, and turn down three things:
  recordings under 45 seconds, recordings where too much of the
  time is silence rather than speech, and recordings that are
  distorted from being too loud.

  The fixes are dull but reliable: read the whole passage, sit closer
  to a quiet room than to a loud one, and keep the microphone a hand's
  width away rather than against your mouth.

• Is my voice sample stored and shared?

  It is stored securely and used only to build your own narration
  voice. Building that voice means sending the sample to
  ElevenLabs, the specialist provider whose technology does the
  cloning — that's what the consent notice before recording is telling
  you. It is not used to train general-purpose AI models, and it is
  never handed to other users unless you deliberately list the
  finished voice on the voice marketplace.

  You can remove it at any time from Profile → Your narration
  voice with Delete, which clears it at the provider as well as
  here. Full detail is in the privacy policy.

• How do I delete a narration voice I created?

  Open Profile → Your narration voice, find the voice and choose
  Delete. That removes the voice model, your recorded sample and
  the demo clip — at our voice provider as well as here — and takes it
  off the voice marketplace if you had listed it. It can't be undone.

  Narrations you already generated with it are unaffected; they are
  finished audio files and keep playing. Deleting your account applies
  the same clean-up automatically.

• How many cloned voices can I have?

  Your first cloned voice is free. Each additional one costs 500
  credits, and the total is capped at five voices per account —
  that cap includes the free one.

• Can I let other authors narrate with my voice?

  Yes, if you want to. Listing a cloned voice on
  /voices/marketplace is a separate decision
  from creating it, with its own consent step: you confirm you are the
  speaker and that you may license the voice. Each narration another
  author makes with it earns you credits, and OutaStory keeps 30 %.

  You can unlist it at any time — narrations already made with it
  aren't affected. See
  Shared voice clones.

Revenue share, ads on your stories, rights, payouts.

• Will I earn money from my stories?

  That's the plan, and it isn't live yet. Revenue share is built and
  documented but no payouts are running today — so please don't
  count on income from a story you publish this month. When it starts,
  it starts for everything already published; you don't have to
  re-publish anything. See
  How revenue share works.

• How will the revenue share work?

  The design is a 55/45 split of the net revenue a story
  generates, with the larger share going to authors, distributed
  according to how much reading time each story actually attracted.
  The full rules, including how ads and Premium are pooled, are in
  How revenue share works and
  in the revenue-share terms.

• When will payouts start?

  We haven't announced a date, and we'd rather say that plainly than
  name one we might miss. Several pieces have to be in place first,
  including tax and payout onboarding. Watch your notifications — this
  is exactly the kind of change we'll tell authors about directly.

• Do I need to apply or sign up to be included?

  No application, no separate sign-up. Publishing a story is what
  makes it eligible. If a payout step later needs details from you —
  tax and bank information, for instance — we'll ask for them then, and
  not before.

• Do ads on my stories earn me anything?

  Ad revenue is one of the two pools the author share is calculated
  from (the other is Premium). Since payouts haven't started, nothing
  has been paid from either pool yet — but ad impressions on your
  stories are recorded, so the record exists.

• If I switch ads off on a story, do I lose everything?

  No — only the ad side. Switching Ads enabled off means no ads run
  on that story and it earns nothing from the ad pool, but the reading
  time it attracts still counts towards the Premium pool. It's a
  trade-off, not an opt-out of earning.

• Does it matter how long people read, or just how often they click?

  Reading time is what the author share is built on, not raw
  clicks. A story someone opens and abandons contributes far less than
  one they read through. That's deliberate: it rewards work that holds
  a reader rather than a striking title.

• Do I keep the rights to my stories?

  Yes. You keep the copyright in what you write. Publishing on
  OutaStory grants us the rights we need to host, display, narrate and
  promote the story on the platform — it does not transfer ownership,
  and you can publish elsewhere too. The exact wording is in the
  terms.

• What happens to my earnings if I unpublish a story?

  Anything already recorded for that story stays recorded — taking a
  story out of the catalogue doesn't erase the reading it already
  attracted. From the moment it's unpublished it stops accruing,
  because nobody can read it.

• What happens to my stories if I delete my account?

  Public access to them ends with your account. When the grace period
  ends — 90 days if any of your stories is published and readable,
  30 if none is — your stories and your author profile become
  unreachable and are taken out of our search index and out of Google
  and Bing; the rows stay in our database for the statutory
  revenue-share retention, readable by nobody. Until that date
  nothing is hidden: they stay fully discoverable and simply carry a
  notice naming the date. Want to retire one pen name rather than the
  whole account? Delete that pen name on
  Pen names — your account and your other pen
  names stay untouched.

• Will I have to give tax details?

  To receive money, eventually yes — paying an author is a taxable
  matter and OutaStory is a German company, so identification and tax
  details are part of any payout process. Nothing is required from you
  until payouts actually begin.

• Can I earn by narrating other people's stories?

  Through the speaker marketplace, yes — authors hire narrators there
  for a fee in euro, with OutaStory keeping an 8 % platform fee. It's
  invitation-only today, so there's nothing to apply to. See
  Have a professional narrate your story.

• Who do I ask about earnings and payouts?

  Open a support ticket and pick the billing topic.
  Please include which story or period you're asking about — that's
  usually the difference between a same-day answer and a long
  back-and-forth.

Age ratings, reporting, privacy, accessibility.

• How do age ratings work?

  Every story carries a minimum age rating the author sets when
  publishing — 0 (all ages), 6+, 12+, 16+, or 18+ (the German
  youth-protection bands), checked during moderation. If you're not
  signed in you only see stories rated 12+ and below. Once you
  sign in, your age is worked out from the birthday on your profile
  and the rest of the library opens up as appropriate. See the
  parental controls overview.

• Can I filter the catalogue by age myself?

  There's no age slider to set. Age filtering happens automatically on
  our side, from whether you're signed in and what your birthday says —
  it isn't something you switch on, and it isn't something a reader can
  switch off. What you can control yourself is the AI-content filter
  (/profile/ai-content).

• Is OutaStory safe for children?

  There are real protections: every story carries an age rating,
  visitors who aren't signed in only ever see 12+ and below, and an
  account the device's app store reports as belonging to a child under
  13 has social features switched off and sees all-ages stories only.

  What there isn't, yet, is a "child mode" you set up as a parent.
  Verifiable parental consent for under-16 accounts is built but not
  switched on, so please don't expect a parental-control screen to
  appear — read the
  parental controls overview
  for where things actually stand.

• Can children comment on stories?

  When the device's app store tells us the account belongs to a child
  under 13, commenting, liking and following are switched off
  automatically. Above that, commenting is available and subject to
  the community guidelines like everyone else's.

• Why are comments, likes or follows unavailable on my account?

  OutaStory checks the age signal provided by your device's app store
  account (Apple Declared Age Range, Google Play Age Signals, or the
  Windows family-safety age group). If the store tells us the account
  belongs to a child under 13, social features — commenting, liking
  stories and comments, and following authors — are switched off and
  only all-ages stories are shown.

  We only ever read this signal for the moment of the check: it is
  never saved, never used for advertising or analytics, and never
  shared. If you believe the signal is wrong, review the age settings
  of the store account (Family Sharing / Family Link / Microsoft
  Family Safety) — OutaStory cannot change it for you.

• How do I report a safety issue?

  In-app: ⋮ menu → Report on a story, chapter, comment, or author
  profile. By email: abuse@outastory.com for severe issues (CSAM,
  doxxing, threats). Both routes reach the same moderation team; the
  email path is for cases where you can't sign in or the in-app report
  doesn't fit.

• Someone is bothering me — what can I do?

  Report them. There is no reader-side block button — blocking an
  author is a moderation action our team takes, not something you can
  apply yourself — so a report is genuinely the effective route, not a
  fallback. Use ⋮ → Report on the profile, story or comment, say
  what happened, and moderators review it within a business day.
  Anything severe also goes to abuse@outastory.com.

• What happens after I report something?

  A moderator reviews it, usually within one business day, and decides
  — that can mean removing the content, restricting the account, or
  deciding the report doesn't meet the threshold. We don't publish
  case-by-case outcomes, so you won't necessarily see what happened;
  repeated reports on the same account do accumulate.

• How is my reading data used?

  For two things: personalised recommendations on your home page, and
  the author revenue share (attributing the time you spent to the
  stories you spent it on). We don't sell reading data, and we don't
  share it with third parties beyond what an ad network necessarily
  sees about the page an ad rendered on.

• What accessibility options does OutaStory have?

  Reader settings (/profile/reader-settings) let you choose the
  typeface — including one designed for dyslexia — a text size between
  14 and 22 pixels, and one of three line spacings. A high-contrast
  look is available as a theme under /profile/theme. Audio
  narration is an alternative to reading where an author has created
  it.

  We don't currently publish an accessibility statement or claim
  conformance to a specific standard. If something is hard to use,
  tell us — those reports are what we prioritise
  from. See Accessibility features.

• How do I change my cookie and tracking choices?

  There is no settings page for it — consent is reopened from the
  small floating consent badge on the website, which brings the
  banner back so you can change each category.

  If you can't find that badge, a content blocker is almost certainly
  the reason: the badge is loaded from cdn-cookieyes.com, and
  blocking that domain removes it entirely. Allow the domain (or pause
  the blocker) and it comes back.

• Does OutaStory sell my data?

  No. We don't sell personal data. We do use processors — hosting,
  email delivery, AI narration, ad networks — and each one is named in
  our privacy policy with what it receives and why.
  Non-essential ones only run after you've consented.

• What data does OutaStory hold about me?

  The quickest honest answer is to look: Profile → Privacy →
  Download my data (/profile/privacy) produces a JSON file of what
  we hold, on the spot. The categories and why we keep them are
  described in the privacy policy.

• How long do you keep my data?

  It depends on the category, and each one has a stated limit rather
  than "forever". Analytics rows are kept for 14 months; data held for
  abuse prevention, such as an IP address attached to a report, for 12
  months. Accounting records are the one long exception, because German
  law requires ten years. The full table is in the
  privacy policy.

Contests, comments, following authors, trophies.

• What are contests?

  Themed writing competitions that run for a set period. Each contest
  has its own page with the theme, the rules, the dates and — where
  there are any — the prizes. You'll find the running ones at
  /contests.

• How do I enter a contest?

  By publishing a story that carries the contest's tag. There's no
  "enter" button to press — the tag is the entry. The contest page
  names the tag to use and links to everything already carrying it, so
  you can check your story turned up.

• Can I enter a story I already published?

  Technically yes — adding the contest tag to an existing published
  story is enough to make it appear among the entries. Whether an
  older story is eligible is up to the individual contest, so read
  that contest's page before you count on it.

• Can I withdraw my entry from a contest?

  Remove the contest tag from the story and it stops appearing among
  the entries — the tag is what puts it there in the first place. That
  leaves the story itself published; if you want it gone entirely,
  unpublish it from /my-stories.

• Who decides who wins?

  It depends on the contest: some are decided by reader likes, some by
  a jury, and some by a combination of the two. The contest's own
  page states which, along with when judging ends.

• Where do I see contests that have finished?

  Contest pages stay up after the closing date — /contests
  lists them and each page keeps its results and entries. A contest
  marked SAMPLE is a demonstration, not a real competition; that
  ribbon is permanent and deliberate.

• How do comments work?

  Signed-in readers can comment on a story, and authors can reply.
  Comments follow the community guidelines and can be reported through
  the ⋮ menu like anything else. Accounts the store reports as
  under 13 can't comment.

• What does following an author do?

  It tells us you want to hear about their future work, and it feeds
  into what your home page shows you. It doesn't notify them of
  anything about you, and it isn't the same as favouriting one of
  their stories. See Favourites and follows.

• Can I send another user a private message?

  No — OutaStory has no private messaging. Public comments and author
  replies are the only way to reach someone on the platform. That's a
  deliberate choice on a platform used by minors; if you need to reach
  an author privately, look for contact details they've chosen to put
  in their public profile.

• What are the community guidelines?

  The short version: write what you like, don't attack people, don't
  post anything illegal, rate your story honestly for age, and don't
  pass off someone else's work as yours. The binding version is in the
  terms; moderation decisions are made against that,
  not against this summary.

• What are trophies and how do I earn one?

  Trophies are achievements you pick up for things you were doing
  anyway — finishing your first story, publishing, keeping a serial
  going. They live at /profile/trophies, some carry a small credit
  reward, and a few stay hidden as "???" until you earn them.

• Where do I see my trophies, and can other people see them?

  Yours live at /profile/trophies, with a counter at the top and
  filters for All, Earned and Locked so you can see what's
  still out there. Each earned one is stamped with the day you got it.

  They are private. Trophies don't appear on your public author
  page and nobody else can browse your shelf — the only way anyone
  knows is if you tell them. See
  Trophies.

• Do trophies actually give me anything?

  Most of them come with a small handful of credits — a few for
  the everyday ones, rather more for the rare ones. Credits are what
  pay for optional extras like a second narration version, so a
  trophy is a real, if modest, source of them.

  There's nothing to claim: the credits are added when the trophy is.

• Why is one of my trophies just a silhouette and "???"

  Because it's a surprise. A small number of trophies deliberately
  hide their name, their picture and what they're for until you earn
  one — telling you would turn them into a checklist, which is exactly
  what they're not.

  Everything else is listed openly under Locked, so there's plenty
  to aim at if you'd rather aim.

• Is there a trophy just for being around a long time?

  There is — one at six months, one at a year and one at two years
  from the day you signed up. They arrive on their own; you don't have
  to read, write or do anything in particular to get them.

  They're awarded by a job that runs once a day, so one may land the
  morning after your anniversary rather than on the hour.

• Someone copied my story — what do I do?

  Report the copy with ⋮ → Report, choose the reason that mentions
  someone else's work, and give us the link to your original — that
  link is what lets a moderator act quickly. For a formal copyright
  complaint, write to us via support so it's on the
  record.

Which apps exist, offline reading, widgets, deep links.

• Which platforms is OutaStory available on?

  The website works in any modern browser. Native apps exist for
  iPhone, iPad and Mac
  (App Store — one universal
  download covers all three), Android
  (Google Play,
  the Amazon Appstore for
  Fire tablets and Fire TV, the Samsung Galaxy Store and Uptodown) and
  Windows
  (Microsoft Store, or a
  direct download from us). Everything signs in to the same account and
  shares the same library.

• Is there an iPhone or iPad app?

  Yes. OutaStory is on the
  App Store as a universal
  app — the same download runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac. It signs in to
  the same account as the website, so your library, favourites and
  reading positions are already there. The website still works fine in
  Safari if you'd rather not install anything.

• Where can I download the apps?

  Everything we ship is listed on /about/apps with the
  store links for each platform: the
  App Store for iPhone, iPad
  and Mac;
  Google Play,
  the Amazon Appstore
  (Fire tablets and Fire TV), the Samsung Galaxy Store and Uptodown for
  Android; and the
  Microsoft Store or a
  direct download for Windows.

• How do I read or listen offline?

  Offline works in the apps only — a web browser has no offline
  mode at all. Open the story you want at /stories/{slug} and use
  Make available offline. It's per story; there is no global
  "download everything" switch, and by default downloads only run on
  Wi-Fi.

  Choosing a story to keep is a Premium feature. Without Premium
  the app still keeps your most recent story on the device by itself,
  so you're not left with nothing when the signal goes.

• Does an offline story include its audio?

  Yes, when the story has narration — text, cover and every chapter's
  audio come down together. A story with no narration downloads as
  text and still counts as complete; the downloads list marks those
  rows Text only so you know why there's no play button.

  One limitation offline: you can skip between chapters, but you can't
  scrub to a position inside a chapter the way you can while
  streaming. See Listening offline.

• Are there stories on the app before I go online at all?

  Yes. Every install ships with a small set of public-domain stories
  in English and German, already on the device — so a fresh app on a
  plane or in a tunnel still has something to read. They sit alongside
  anything you download and are never cleared to make room.

• How many stories can I keep offline?

  Stories you choose yourself with Make available offline aren't
  capped at a number — keep as many as the device has room for. That
  part needs Premium.

  Separately, the app keeps recently-read stories on the device by
  itself without being asked: one without Premium, twenty with
  it, oldest dropped first. Everything on the device is listed at
  /profile/downloads in the apps, where you can remove what you're
  done with. See Reading offline.

• Why is /profile/downloads empty on the website?

  Because offline downloads only exist in the apps. On the web that
  page has nothing to show — it isn't a bug and there is nothing to
  enable. Open it in the Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac or Windows app
  instead.

• Do my offline downloads sync between devices?

  No. Downloads are per device — making a story available offline on
  your phone does nothing on your laptop, and you'd make it available
  again there. Your reading position does sync; the downloads
  themselves don't.

• Do offline downloads expire?

  Premium downloads keep working for 30 days past the last time we
  could confirm your subscription online — so a long stretch offline is
  fine, but the app does need to see the internet occasionally. Signing
  out clears downloaded content on purpose.

• Why doesn't a story download on mobile data?

  Downloads are Wi-Fi-only by default, so nothing eats your data
  allowance by surprise, and audio files are the big ones. Change it in
  the download settings in the app if you'd rather use mobile data.

• How do I know the app has gone offline?

  A slim Offline bar appears under the top header and stays there
  until a request genuinely succeeds again — so a hotel Wi-Fi that is
  connected but useless doesn't fool it. While it's up, the home
  screen shows your offline shelf instead of the usual rows, and
  comments, ratings and recommendations are hidden rather than shown
  empty.

• Is there a home-screen widget?

  On Android only — "Story of the Day" and "Continue Listening".
  Long-press your home screen, choose Widgets, find OutaStory and
  drag one where you want it. There are no widgets on iPhone, iPad,
  Mac or Windows.

• What do the two Android widgets actually show?

  Story of the Day shows the day's featured story — cover and
  title, plus the author and a short description as you make the
  widget bigger. Tapping it opens that story. Continue listening
  picks up your last audio story where you stopped and carries play,
  pause and skip buttons.

  Both can be resized after you place them, and both work whether or
  not you're signed in.

• My widget is showing yesterday's story or a blank cover

  Widgets refresh about every half hour, and also when you resize one
  or open the app — so give it a moment, or open OutaStory once to
  nudge it. Just after you place a widget it shows a placeholder for a
  few seconds while it fetches.

  A missing cover with the text intact is usually a temporary hiccup
  fetching the image; it fixes itself on the next refresh. Tapping a
  stale widget opens the story it is currently showing, which may not
  be today's pick until it has refreshed.

• Why don't I get push notifications on my desktop app?

  There is no operating-system push on macOS or Windows — nothing
  pops up outside the app there. The in-app notification centre
  (/notifications) still fills up normally, so nothing is lost, it
  just doesn't interrupt you. Push does work on the website, on
  Android and on iPhone and iPad — you allow it once there.

• I tapped an OutaStory link and it opened in a browser instead of the app

  Only some links open the app: the home page, story pages, author
  pages, categories, speakers and contests. Everything else — help
  pages, legal pages, your profile, the subscription and wallet pages —
  deliberately opens in a browser. It isn't a misconfiguration on your
  device.

• Do I need an account on every device?

  One account, as many devices as you like. Sign in with the same
  email (or the same Google / Apple sign-in) everywhere and your
  library, favourites and reading positions follow you. You can read
  without an account at all, but then nothing is kept beyond that
  device.

• How do I sign out on a shared device?

  Use the avatar in the top right and choose Sign out. In the apps
  that also clears the content stored on the device for offline use —
  which is what you want on a shared machine, and worth knowing before
  you sign out on your own.

• How do I update the app?

  Through whichever store you installed it from — it updates like any
  other app there. When your version is behind, OutaStory shows a
  small An update is available bar with a button that takes you
  to the right listing. The website is always current and needs no
  update.

  If something looks broken after an update, a restart of the app is
  the first thing to try.

• What is the "An update is available" notice?

  A small bar at the bottom of the screen telling you the build you're
  running is behind the one published for your platform. On the
  website the button says Refresh and simply reloads the page; in
  an app it says Update and takes you to the listing for the store
  you installed OutaStory from.

  It never blocks anything — you can close it with the × and carry
  on. See Keeping the app up to date.

• The update notice sent me to a store that doesn't have the new version

  That can happen, and it isn't your device. Each store reviews and
  publishes on its own timetable, and we only learn a version was
  accepted, not the moment it goes live — so if a review runs long,
  the notice can arrive before the download does. We hold a new version
  back for a day or more before it may prompt anyone, precisely to
  leave room for that.

  Nothing is wrong with your installation. Close the notice and try
  again in a day; if it keeps appearing for a version you can't find,
  tell us which platform you're on.

• Do I have to install the update straight away?

  No. Nothing is forced and nothing stops working — the notice is a
  suggestion. Closing it hides it for now; it comes back the next time
  you launch, and immediately if a newer version appears after that.

  Updating is still worth doing before you report a problem: quite a
  few things people write to us about are already fixed in the version
  the notice is pointing at.

• Does the app work with no internet at all?

  Partly. Stories you made available offline open and play; the
  catalogue, search, comments and anything that needs your account
  checked don't. Reading progress made offline is sent up the next time
  you're connected.

• Can I use OutaStory on a Windows PC?

  Yes — there's a proper desktop app for Windows, and it signs in to
  the same account as everything else, so your library, favourites and
  reading positions are already there. Offline reading works in it,
  the same as on a phone or tablet.

  The one thing it doesn't do is pop notifications up outside the app;
  Windows has no push for it. Your notification centre still fills up
  normally.

• How do I install the Windows app?

  Three routes, all listed at /about/apps. From the
  Microsoft Store;
  from a terminal with winget install Threebit.OutaStory; or by
  downloading the installer from us directly on that page.

  The direct download is a single file that carries both the x64 and
  the ARM64 build — Windows picks the right one. On a first install
  you may see a "Windows protected your PC" screen: choose More
  info, then Run anyway.

• How do I update the Windows app?

  However you installed it. If it came from the
  Microsoft Store,
  Windows handles updates for it like any other Store app. If you used
  winget, run winget upgrade Threebit.OutaStory. If you downloaded
  the installer from us, fetch the current one from
  /about/apps and run it over the top.

  The in-app "update available" notice points at the Microsoft Store
  listing regardless of which of the three you used, so on the other
  two routes treat it as a nudge rather than an instruction.

Browsers, sync, errors, the assistant, reporting bugs.

• Which browsers are supported?

  Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari — current versions. We don't test
  Internet Explorer or older mobile browsers; there you may see visual
  glitches or missing features.

• The app crashed — what should I do?

  Restart the app first. If it crashes again, open a support ticket
  with topic "Technical" and include your platform + OS version and
  what you were doing when it crashed. We see crash reports in our
  error tracker, but the ticket gives us the missing context.

• Audio playback stutters

  Stuttering usually means an unstable connection — the audio is
  streamed. Pause for a few seconds and start again to let it buffer.
  In the apps, using Make available offline on the story removes
  the problem entirely, because the audio then plays from the device.

• My library is empty after signing in

  Most likely you're signed in to a different account. Sign out, then
  sign in with the email you used the first time — a Google or Apple
  sign-in creates its own account, so the same person can end up with
  two. If you only ever had one and it's genuinely empty, open a
  ticket.

• I get a "session expired" error

  Sign in again. If it happens on every page load, your browser is
  rejecting our cookies — check ad-blockers, privacy extensions and
  third-party-cookie settings, then reload.

• How do I clear my data on this device?

  Sign out — in the apps that clears the session and removes the
  content stored for offline use. To remove individual stories without
  signing out, use /profile/downloads in the app. In a browser, clear
  the site data through the browser's own settings.

• What is the Ernest assistant and how do I turn it on?

  Ernest is OutaStory's built-in assistant. You can chat with it by
  text or voice to ask questions, find and get around the app, or get a
  hand with your writing. It stays off until you open it — the first
  time, you accept a short one-time notice before it starts. Ernest can
  guide you, but it never moves money or makes a purchase for you. See
  Meet Ernest, your assistant.

• Can I use Ernest without an account, or without talking?

  Both. Without an account you get Ernest as a text chat, with a
  limit on how many conversations you can start per day. Signed in,
  you can talk to it as well as type.

  Nothing starts on its own either way: Ernest only runs while you
  have it open, and closing it ends the conversation.

• What does Ernest send away, and to whom?

  Your side of the conversation — what you type, and what you say when
  you use voice — goes to ElevenLabs, the company whose technology
  produces Ernest's answers. That's what the one-time notice you accept
  before the first conversation is telling you, and it's the reason it
  exists.

  We don't send them a stable identifier for you, and we don't keep the
  transcript on our side. Please don't tell Ernest anything you'd mind
  a third party holding; the privacy policy sets out
  the detail.

• Ernest can't hear me

  Voice needs microphone permission, and in the apps that's asked for
  twice — once by the operating system for OutaStory, and once
  inside the app for the page itself. Turning one down is enough to
  leave you silent, so check your device's microphone settings for
  OutaStory and then close and reopen Ernest.

  If it still doesn't pick you up, type instead — the same assistant
  answers either way.

• Can I delete my conversations with the assistant?

  Not entirely, and we'd rather say so than imply otherwise. The voice
  assistant runs on a third-party service (ElevenLabs) that keeps its
  own transcripts, and we can't delete those remotely on your behalf.
  Keep that in mind before telling Ernest something sensitive. What we
  hold on our side is covered by the
  privacy policy and your data export.

• The site looks unstyled or shows an error banner

  Usually a blocked or half-loaded asset. Reload with a hard refresh
  (Ctrl+F5, or ⌘⇧R on Mac), and if that doesn't do it, try
  without extensions — privacy and script blockers are the usual
  culprit. If it persists, tell us your browser and the page URL.

• Covers or images don't load

  Reload the page first — images are served from a cache and an
  occasional miss resolves itself. If a specific story's cover is
  permanently missing, tell us which one via
  support; a single broken cover is something we can
  fix directly, unlike a general connection problem.

• Search doesn't find a story I know exists

  Check three things: whether you're filtering by a language the story
  isn't in, whether its age rating is above what your account can see,
  and whether you have Hide AI-generated content switched on. Each
  of those removes results silently and by design. A brand-new story
  may also take a short while to be indexed.

• Nothing happens when I click a button

  On the website, interactive parts of a page need a live connection to
  our server; if that connection drops, buttons go quiet while the text
  still looks fine. Reloading the page restores it. If it happens
  constantly, a firewall or proxy blocking WebSocket connections is the
  usual explanation.

• Which languages is OutaStory available in?

  The interface is available in English and German, and follows
  your browser or device language by default. You can switch it
  manually from the language control in the header. Story text itself
  is whatever its author wrote — the interface language doesn't
  translate stories.

• How do I report a bug?

  Open a support ticket with topic "Technical". The
  three things that make a report actionable: what you did, what you
  expected, and what happened instead — plus your platform and the page
  URL. A screenshot beats a description almost every time.

• Is my connection to OutaStory encrypted?

  Yes — every connection to OutaStory, from the website and from the
  apps, runs over HTTPS. Payment details are handled by the payment
  provider or the store, never stored by us.

• I got a link starting with outa.at — is that really OutaStory?

  Yes. outa.at is our own short address; it forwards to the ordinary
  page on outastory.com and nowhere else. We use it where a full
  link would be unwieldy — in social posts, for instance.

  It's a shortener we run, not a public one, so nobody else can point
  an outa.at link somewhere unpleasant. If a link claiming to be
  ours takes you anywhere other than outastory.com, please
  tell us.