Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: What are the differences between the free and the premium version?

The main purpose of the app is to help people and ultimately save lives. Although the free version includes all the basics for this purpose, developing and maintaining Medical ID has a cost.

The premium version includes some more features (e.g. lock screen widget customization, data backup, multi-profiles, etc.) but also allows me to maintain and update the app regularly.

	Free	Premium
Quick access to medical data from your lock screen
Nearby hospitals localisation
Customizable lock screen widgets
SMS alert contacts
Number of profiles	1	unlimited
Data backup and restoration
Priority updates

Q2: How to define ICE contacts?

The app allows creating profiles. Each profile includes a Medical Notes section. When you write the first letters of an existing contact name in this section a pop-up appears with contacts matching the prefix. Upon selection, a link is automatically created. This way, when your profile is displayed on the lock screen, anybody can tap the link to call your the contact without unlocking your device.

Q3: The lock screen widget disappears after some time

Medical ID unfortunately has no control over this: more and more Android versions are modified by manufacturers to include what they call an "optimization". This kills third-party apps like Medical ID after some time (but their own apps are whitelisted by default). Hopefully, you can fix this issue by editing a few options in your device settings. Most of the time it consists in disabling battery optimizations for Medical ID but some devices may require a few extra configurations.

Below is a link to a page that provides a step-by-step procedure based on your device:
https://dontkillmyapp.com

In all cases, we recommend checking that Medical ID accessibility service is enabled from the app settings.

Q4: Where is my data stored?

By default, your data is stored on your device. If you uninstall the Medical ID app or if you run a cleanup utility app, your data will be erased. The benefit of this approach is that you have real control over your data.

To prevent any loss, the premium version includes a backup feature. However, backups are NOT created automatically. You need to trigger a backup manually. A backup generates a file that is named medicalid-X.backup, where X depicts the creation time of the backup file.

The Android policy to write data to devices has changed a lot from an Android version to another. As a consequence, the location where Medical ID backups are created by default should not be considered safe. For instance, on some devices, backup files are stored in a place dedicated to Medical ID and are erased when the app is uninstalled. That's why it is recommended to move your backup files to a Cloud provider or another storage support you can safely rely on when you will need to retrieve your data.

Here are links to videos showing different actions:

• Creating a backup file
• Moving a backup file in the Cloud (e.g. Google Drive):
• Retrieving a backup from the Cloud
• Restoring the data

To move your data to a new device, a manner to proceed is to create a backup file on your old device, send the file by email to your new device and import it back on the new device. Another solution is to follow the videos above to use Google Drive as a transfer hub.

Q5: How to edit the default SMS alert message?

Open the app, tap on the 3 dots button at the top right side, select Settings then Alerts. At this stage, you should find a section called SMS alert message. Tap on it, set the message you want and confirm with OK. Please note that your message may contain what we call placeholders. Placeholders are replaced automatically by their corresponding value just before the message is sent.

There exist 6 placeholders:

• $firstname is replaced by the first name set on your top profile.
• $lastname is replaced by the last name set on your top profile.
• $address is replaced by the best-estimated address it was possible to find.
• $altitude is replaced by the estimated altitude (in meters).
• $coordinates is replaced by the estimated GPS location, if available.
• $coordinates_link is replaced by the estimated GPS location along with a link to display your location on Google map. Obviously, if location acquisition was possible.