For the iPhone and Android app

7 · Settings & appearance

Making it look and behave the way you want.

Contents

Read every chapter on one page

Change the theme (light / dark)

  1. Profile → Settings → Appearance.
  2. Choose Light, Dark, or follow your phone's setting.
The Settings screen listing App language, Timezone, Appearance, Text size, Notifications, About, Translation, Private account, Who can quote my posts, Sign out and Delete account.
Fig. 1 · Settings, top to bottom.
The Appearance setting.
Fig. 2 · Appearance — light, dark, or system.
Don't confuse the two

This is the app's light/dark theme. The colour you can give a single conversation (chapter 5) is a different, private thing.

Change the app's colours — the Theme Store

Beyond light and dark, the app itself can wear a different palette.

  1. Settings → Appearance → Theme Store.
  2. Tap a theme under Free to apply it immediately.
  3. Themes marked 🔒 Premium aren't purchasable yet — they're shown, but locked.

Make the text bigger

  1. Settings → Text size.
  2. Pick one of five sizes from the list — Small, Default, Large, Larger, Largest. It applies the moment you tap; there's nothing to save.
  3. A live Preview card underneath shows what a post will actually look like at that size.
Two dials, and they stack
  • This setting sits on top of your phone's own text-size setting — so if you've already made text large in iOS or Android, Shiijak starts from there and this makes it larger still.
  • At the bigger sizes the app reflows rather than shrinking or cutting text off: rows grow taller and side-by-side controls stack.

Change the language

  1. Settings → App language.
  2. Pick from 18 languages, each shown in its own script. By default the app follows your phone.
  3. Set your Timezone here too — it decides how every timestamp reads.
Arabic

Arabic flips the entire layout right-to-left. Switching into or out of it needs a full restart of the app before everything settles.

Notifications & sounds

  1. Settings → Notifications.
  2. Choose what's worth interrupting you for — follows, replies, mentions, messages.
  3. In-app message sounds are here too (not in the DM settings screen), along with five sound choices and a Pause notifications schedule.
Two things worth knowing
  • Everything that happened to you is in the Activity tab, whether or not it buzzed your phone.
  • A message notification only ever says "New message" — never the sender, never the text. Anyone glancing at your lock screen learns nothing.
The Activity tab.
Fig. 3 · Activity — follows, likes, replies, mentions, in one list.

Translation Beta — off by default

  1. Settings → turn on Translation (marked BETA).
  2. There is no Translate button. Posts in another language are simply translated for you as you read.
  3. The original always stays visible underneath, with a quiet "Translated from …" line. You're never shown a translation instead of the words someone actually wrote.
Today

Translation is off in the shipping app. Very short posts, and posts already in your language, are skipped even when it's on.

Two-factor authentication — not in the app

If you've scrolled Settings looking for it: it isn't there, and you haven't missed it.

It's a browser setting

Two-factor lives at /settings/two-factor on shiijak.com — there is no screen for it in the phone app. Set it up in a browser (scan the code with an authenticator app and keep the backup codes somewhere safe); it then protects your account everywhere, including here. It's required for admins and optional for everyone else.

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