FAQ
Questions, answered calmly.
What SurvivalKnife is, how it handles your information, and what you get when you install it.
SurvivalKnife works online when you have a signal — for sync, updates, AI planning, and richer features — and stays usable when you don't. Your plans, Family Profile, Offline Field Guide, and downloaded map packages live on the device. We say offline-ready rather than "fully offline" because the app happily uses connectivity when it's there.
No. SurvivalKnife is a household preparedness and educational reference companion. It is not an emergency device, a 911 substitute, or a replacement for professional training or qualified medical care. In any actual emergency, call 911 or your local emergency number.
Every install starts with a 14-day free trial of the whole app. After that it's $19.99/year for Field Edition (one person) or $39.99/year for Family Edition (up to 5 people total — you plus 4). Both plans include everything: personalized plans, offline maps and routing, inventory and calculators, your household profile, the Personal Vault, Saved Materials, the Field Guide, and the Survival Quiz. Family Edition is what adds household sharing and Youth View. Billed yearly through the App Store; cancel any time.
Download map packs by state (all 50 + D.C.) and you get offline turn-by-turn navigation and automatic rerouting — the routing engine runs on your phone, not in the cloud — plus map layers for hazards, facilities, and infrastructure. Hazard and infrastructure layers are advisory and modeled — useful for planning, not a guarantee of conditions at a specific spot.
Yes — advisory hazard-awareness layers for wildfire activity, severe-weather alerts, air quality, earthquakes, and FEMA flood-zone advisories — alongside layers for facilities, cell coverage, power, and evacuation routes, so you can plan with more awareness. These layers are advisory and modeled, not a guarantee of conditions on the ground, and they're no substitute for official guidance — always follow instructions from local authorities.
No. The Field Guide is general preparedness information, not professional medical, legal, or safety advice. High-consequence topics — CPR/AED, medication, tourniquets, edible plants, firearms — carry a clear 'consult a professional / trained source' note. In any actual emergency, call 911 or your local emergency number.
Core Field Guide content is drawn from recognized public sources and cited in-app — including FEMA, CDC, EPA, NWS/NOAA, and U.S. Army field guidance. Map data comes from public datasets; "emergency services" reflect mapped facility/place data, not a verified live emergency-services feed.
The most useful preparedness data is the most personal, so we try to keep it close. Your plans and household data are designed to live on your device, and the app has no analytics or ad tracking in it at all. Two things do send data off your phone: AI features, which are on by default and can be switched off in Settings → Privacy, and a household account, which syncs what your family shares through our servers so everyone's phone shows the same thing. The Personal Vault is never part of either — it never syncs and is never sent to AI. We don't sell data. Our privacy policy spells out exactly what goes where.
AI planning runs on Google Gemini — there is no AI chat or assistant in the app — and AI is on by default — you can turn it off any time in Settings → Privacy, which disables every AI feature and stops anything being sent. When it's on, a plan request includes your household's first names with ages, roles, and any medical, dietary, allergy or mobility details you've entered, plus your saved contacts and addresses, vehicles, and inventory gaps. Supply photos you snap are sent to be read — but documents the app spots as sensitive, like IDs, insurance cards and medical records, are never uploaded and are read on your device only. Your Personal Vault is never sent. Devices set up for a child or teen never send data for AI at all.
A private, on-device place for the records you'd otherwise scramble for: IDs, insurance, prescriptions, and medical notes. It's kept out of AI and general search, and it never syncs — vault contents stay on your phone, not shared with your household and not stored by us. Set a vault PIN and everything in it is encrypted on your device with a key only that PIN unlocks.
Family Edition covers up to 5 people total — you plus 4. You send an invite link, they sign in with their own Apple Account, and plans, saved materials, routes, inventory, and one shared household profile stay in sync on everyone's phone — which means those categories sync through our servers to reach the other devices. Sharing starts on for each category and you can turn any of them off in Family Management → Sharing. Younger members can be invited into Youth View, a simplified version showing only what a guardian has approved. Each person's Personal Vault stays private to their own device.
SurvivalKnife is on iPhone first, available now on the App Store, with Android to follow. Android is still in development and we are not giving it a date yet.
On the App Store for compatible iPhones running iOS 17 or later. Your 14-day free trial starts when you install it, and you manage or cancel the subscription in your Apple Account settings like any other app.
Now on the App Store
Build your household's system — calmly, in advance.
Every install starts with a 14-day free trial of the whole app.
Download on the App Store →