Most bugs are found by people who were in the middle of something else. You tapped a thing, it did not do what it should, and nobody was watching. Those are the bugs most worth hearing about, so reporting takes about a minute, and a useful report earns extra usage.
Reporting takes about a minute
Under your account at the bottom of the sidebar, choose Report a bug. On iPhone it is in the account menu, or you can simply shake the phone. Shake to report is on until you turn it off in Settings.
The form opens over whatever you were doing, with the app and the section you were in already picked. Say what you did, what you expected, and what happened, in up to 1,000 characters. Steps to reproduce the problem help more than a summary. You can dictate it with the microphone, and attach up to three screenshots by choosing them, pasting them, or dropping them onto the form.
Each screenshot is scaled down on your device before it is sent, so a full-screen capture comes to well under a megabyte. The form will not accept text that looks like a password, an API key or a private key, so describe the problem without the secret. You can send one report a minute.
What is seen, and what is not
- You send a report. Words, diagnostics, screenshots
- Review of the text only. Spam, harmful, or not a new bug?
- Turned away. The text is not stored
- Kept for the review queue. Screenshots uploaded
- Extra usage added. If new and actionable
- You send a report to Review of the text only
- Review of the text only to Turned away: Yes
- Review of the text only to Kept for the review queue: No
- Kept for the review queue to Extra usage added
Two things travel with your report besides the words. Include diagnostics is on by default. It is a snapshot of the app, the device and recent errors, with private data removed. Your chats, your files and your secrets are not in it, and you can switch it off before you send. The other is your screenshots. Look at them before you attach them, because only you know what is on your screen.
An automated reviewer reads only the text you wrote, with zero data retention and no-training filters on. It never sees diagnostics or screenshots. It turns away spam, harmful text, and anything that is not a new bug, and text it rejects is not stored.
Screenshots are deleted after 30 days. Reports and their diagnostics are deleted after 90 days.
What earns extra usage
Credits go to reports that the review marks as new and actionable:
- The first new, actionable report each day, counted in UTC, adds $0.50 of extra usage.
- The seventh new, actionable report in a rolling seven days adds $1.00, once per calendar week. One report can earn both.
The amount you have earned this way shows up in your usage bar as its own lighter fill, with the total from reports written beneath it.
| A report that earns usage | A report that does not |
|---|---|
| Says what you did, what you expected, and what happened | "It's broken" |
| Describes a bug that is not already known | Describes one that is already known |
| Is about something that does not work as it should | Asks for a feature |
| Has steps that can be repeated | Is something that cannot be investigated |
The rules, stated plainly
The review is automated, and its decision is final. The form gives you the same confirmation whether or not a report is accepted, so a credit is the only sign that it was. A report that earns nothing is not necessarily a bad one, and it is still worth sending.
Credits are extra usage under the Terms of Service. They have no cash value, they cannot be withdrawn or transferred, and they can be taken back if a report turns out to be fraudulent or automated. The program may change or end.
What happens next
Reports that get through go into a queue, and the most serious ones are worked first. Fixes that started as a report end up in the release notes.
