Welcome: here's how orbiTome works

First steps: signing up

All it takes to start is your phone number: no password to remember, no endless forms. Your number isn't shown to other users — it only opens your account and lets friends who already have you in their contacts find you.

One detail that makes all the difference: orbiTome works across several countries, so the number must be entered with its international dialling code — +44 for the UK, +1 for the US. It is the most common mistake on first sign-in: without the code, the SMS never leaves.

Accept the Terms, tap “Send SMS code” and type in the six digits you receive. If this is your first time opening the app, a single screen sums it up in three words — What, When, Who — and takes you straight to creating your first event. There is nothing to read: the first event is the introduction. You can replay it any time from Profile, under Introduction.

Find your friends

On first launch orbiTome offers to import your contacts, so you can see who is already on board. You decide who to pick: one by one, or everyone at once with “All” — and “None” clears the selection. A progress count runs while the import goes on. The same goes for every import screen in the app — the choice stays yours.

The point we won't compromise on: your address book stays on your phone. Contacts are imported to make the app work locally and are not uploaded to our servers: to recognise who is already on orbiTome, only a fingerprint of the numbers is sent.

Home: your map

Home is a living map. A small colour key tells you at a glance what each pin means: purple for events happening now, blue for scheduled ones, pink for Wishes — ideas floated by someone looking for company, and lime green, with a square marker, for the ones open to everyone. Public events from cities, associations and businesses appear when you choose «In town» under Who in the Filter panel: those published by an organisation can have its logo as the pin. On your contacts' pins it's the outline that tells you when: if the inside of the drop is coloured, it's the colour picked by whoever created the event, with orbiTome Plus.

At the top centre there's city search: handy for peeking at what your friends are up to abroad without leaving the sofa. Top left, the Filter button opens a panel where you choose the time window and who you want to see, then you confirm with “Show events”. Bottom right, the button that snaps you back to your own location.

The bar along the bottom links the four main pages — Map (which is also Home), Profile, Contacts and Events — and in the middle sits the + button, where all your events begin.

🏛️ Public events from cities, associations and businesses

In the In town view — in the Filter panel, under Who — the map shows public events: initiatives from cities, neighbourhoods, associations and businesses. They are published by registered organisations, after a check or with the business subscription, or added by the orbiTome team.

On those published by an organisation you find its name with «Verified ✓», or «Business», the practical details — accessible, free entry, kids welcome, dogs welcome — how many people will attend and how many of your contacts, always as a number. If there are no places left, your “I'm in” goes on the waiting list and moves up if someone drops out. In the Filter panel you can ask to see only events with the details you need. No notification goes out when a public event is published and, if one does not look right to you, you can report it from its card.

You can tell them apart because they don't come from someone in your address book: they are visible to anyone using the app nearby, even to people who don't know the organiser. You open one, read the details and decide whether to go, exactly as with any other event.

How many you find depends on where you are: coverage grows city by city.

Create an event in three steps

Tap + and follow the three steps: what we're doing, when, and who. In the first one you add a title if you feel like it (it's optional) and pick an activity from the icons — coffee, pizza, sport, cinema and plenty more. Below the icons you can also pick the pin colour on the map, with orbiTome Plus. Right after that you can add a Cover photo, also with orbiTome Plus: a picture that anyone who sees the event finds on its card, and that shows up in the invite link's preview. Afterwards you change it or remove it from the card's More menu, under Cover photo; removing it is always free, and the cover photo goes away with the event.

The second step is when: the quick chips for something immediate, Tonight for the evening, or the clock and the calendar for an exact date. The Wish toggle sits in the same flow and changes what the event is: from “I'm organising it” to “I'd love someone to”.

Two numbers worth knowing before you run into them: you can keep eight events active at once, plus five Wishes, and the date can be set up to thirty days ahead. With orbiTome Plus the limits go up to twenty events and ten Wishes.

⏳ How long an event lasts

orbiTome events are built to be short-lived: they appear, they happen, they vanish.

The event disappears from the cloud shortly after it ends: how long it stays visible depends on how you created it — the quick chips keep it short, Tonight carries it to the end of the day, a date and time from the calendar gives it a wider window. A Wish expires at the time it names. Your history stays on your phone.

If you created the event and you are there, the app notices and pushes the expiry back an hour at a time, up to six hours from the start: the party doesn't end on your phone while it is still going. If you walk away, the event closes itself shortly after.

💫 Wish: with or without a date

In the first step — What — there is the 💫 Wish switch, “I'll go only if someone's in”. With it on, what you publish is not a commitment: it's a proposal.

Two ways to use it. Without a time: the proposal stays on the map for seven days — the way to say “I could do with a pizza, sometime”; in your events it is marked 📅 Any time. With a time, from the quick buttons or the calendar: the proposal runs until that moment — Saturday's gig, Sunday's day out.

When enough people are in, the Create button on the proposal turns it into a real event, with place, time and guests. That button only appears to whoever started the proposal.

Invite and share

In the third step — Who — you pick who to invite: one by one from Contacts, or by groups. The description and the Where belong to the first step; extra details can be added later from the event card.

Invitations go out one by one or by group, and you can build the group right there: pick the people, give it a name, and it's waiting for you next time.

Then decide whether the event is for invitees only (Invisible event) or open to your contacts who use orbiTome, and tap “Invite”. The moment it's shared, the event appears on the map with its icon and your contacts in the area can see it. Public events from cities, associations and businesses work differently: anyone using the app nearby can see those, in the «In town» view.

Groups: how many people are in one

A group is a list of contacts you give a name to — “Flatmates”, “Gym” — so you can invite them all with one tap. You manage them in Groups, and you can create a new one on the spot while inviting.

Next to each group's name is the number of people in it: you can tell whether it's the right one before picking it, without opening it.

If you pick an empty group, the invite screen says so: “No contacts in this group”. Without that notice an event would go out with nobody invited.

“Invite others”: even once it has started

From the card of an event you created, “Invite others” adds people at any time, until the event ends: if the evening grows, you don't need to create a second event.

You can only add: people already invited appear greyed out and can't be removed, because the invite has already gone out. New guests get the notification; those already on the list don't get a second one.

If your selection adds nobody, the app says so instead of pretending: “No new guests: they were all on the list already”. For anyone without orbiTome there is still the link, which you can share again.

🔗 The invitation link: one tap and you're in

When you share an event, orbiTome mints a dedicated web address — something like orbitome.com/join/… — that you can send wherever you like: messages, email, your social apps, even printed as a QR code. The app shows you the messaging apps already on your phone and you pick one.

The interesting part is what happens at the other end. If they already have orbiTome, the link skips the browser and opens the event straight inside the app, ready to join.

If they don't, they aren't forced to install anything: a web page opens with all the event details — what, where, when, who's proposing it — along with a link to the right store, App Store on iPhone and Google Play on Android. Anyone who installs at that moment finds the invitation waiting for them.

The event's QR code lives in the More menu on its card: show it from your phone or print it, and whoever scans it lands on this same page.

“I'm in” and “I'm out”: the two answers

There is only one way to answer an invite: I'm in or I'm out. The second replaces the first, and you can change your mind as often as you like until it starts.

The organiser sees the number of 👥 confirmed. The number of people who said no (🙅) is visible to the organiser only: there is no public list of who declined.

Once the event has started the answers become I'm here and I'm off. Your answer stays in your events, so you always know what you said yes to.

👻 Invisible event: invitees only

Some events are for a select few. When it is invisible, the event shows up only for the people you invited: for everyone else it simply doesn't exist. The screen spells it out, with a counter of how many people can see it.

Note what it applies to: invisibility acts on the event, not on you. It does not make you invisible and it does not depend on tags or groups: it only settles that this event is seen by the people you invited.

If your events are nearly always for a few, orbiTome Plus lets you make them always invisible: in Profile, under Visibility and backup, turn on “Always invisible” and every new event starts invisible, including when you do it again or duplicate one. Each event's own switch stays free and always has the last word: you can turn it off event by event.

🎲 The games: how a game starts

In groups where not everyone knows each other, a game gets people talking. You start it from the 🎲 Play pill at the top of the map, or from the 🎲 button on an event.

New game opens: pick the game from the three cards at the top, invite whoever you want — by group or from Contacts — and choose when (now, in an hour, tonight, tomorrow night, or a date of your own) and where, which defaults to where you are. So a game doesn't have to be right now: you schedule it like an event, and it starts out invisible — only the people you invited can see it. Only the people you invite who have orbiTome can play. There are three games — icebreaker bingo, photo hunt and find the pin — and with up to 12 players, you included, a game is free, every time and for everyone.

For a bigger game, up to 30 players, pick “Up to 30” instead of “Up to 12 · free” before you tap Start. A big game uses 1 of your games or the 30-day Pass, which covers them all for thirty days; if you have neither games nor a Pass, the app offers you 1 game, 3 games or the Pass: one-time purchases, no renewal, and you see the price before confirming. In Profile, the Big games row shows the games you have available and when your Pass ends. Big games are separate from orbiTome Plus: even with Plus, going beyond 12 players is paid. Only the organiser pays: playing is always free.

In icebreaker bingo everyone gets a grid of 9 squares — “has travelled abroad this year”, “plays an instrument” — and has to find the person who fits and get it confirmed. There is no winner and no ranking: your events keep only your own result, 🎲 Bingo · N/9.

📸 Photo hunt: nine subjects to find

Same grid as the bingo, but instead of people there are nine subjects to photograph: a dog, a staircase, something red. You take the photo, show it to another player and they confirm it from their own phone.

The photo is only for that: it does not end up in your Gallery and it does not go to our servers, and it is deleted straight afterwards. Your events keep the result, 📸 Photo hunt · N/9.

🧭 Find the pin: hot or cold

A point is hidden nearby, and there are two ways to start. With Choose, whoever starts the game hides it, within one kilometre of the meeting place: only they can see it, and they don't play. With Random, the app picks it on a public pedestrian path: nobody knows it, and the organiser plays too.

The others walk around and press Check, once every 15 seconds. The app answers with a single band — freezing, cold, cool, warm, hot, boiling hot — and, from the second check on, whether you are getting warmer or getting colder. No numbers and no direction: walking a few steps between checks is what makes the difference. When you get there you read “Found it! You are on the point.”

There is no ranking and no arrival order: when you get there the game is over for you, and your events keep 🧭 Find the pin · found.

Your position is read only when you press Check, and only if the GPS is precise enough: otherwise the check doesn't go out and the app tells you so. It goes to our server to work out the band and it is not stored, neither on the server nor on your phone; it is not shown to the other players. With no connection the check goes out as soon as you are back online, carrying the time the position was read — so the band stays honest. The hidden point is on nobody's phone: it is known to whoever hid it, or to nobody if it was picked at random.

Contacts: your address book, managed by you

The Contacts page holds the contacts you've imported. Worth repeating, because it matters: they stay on your phone and serve only to make the app work.

For each contact it's your call: keep it, edit it, delete it or block it. And you can add new ones by hand, name and number, without going through an import at all.

Every contact can be filed under one or more tags — your groups: “five-a-side”, “work”, “Rome–Amsterdam”. From there, inviting a whole group is a single tap.

🚫 Blocking and reporting, with peace of mind

Sometimes you'd rather not run into someone again. From the Contacts you block them in two taps, with a confirmation so it isn't done by accident.

The block works both ways: from then on neither of you sees the other's events on the map, in either direction. The other person gets no notification at all. And if they had somehow received an invitation to one of your events, opening it in the app would simply tell them the event isn't available.

If the trouble comes from an event, the same thing is possible from its card: every event — yours or someone else's, past or future — carries a report option for unpleasant content. Reporting automatically blocks whoever created it.

You can also block someone who isn't on orbiTome yet: the block sits waiting against the phone number and takes effect by itself should that person ever sign up. Blocks can be lifted from Contacts whenever you want.

A privacy detail: contacts you remove are deleted from orbiTome on this phone, and the app doesn't keep their number aside. You can import them again whenever you like from your address book. If you delete your account, the app also deletes all your other contacts from the phone.

One detail that matters: in your address book the “blocked” label and the Unblock button only appear for the people you blocked yourself. If someone has blocked you, nothing tells you: you simply stop seeing each other's activity — events on the map, guests, invites. Existence stays visible, activity doesn't.

The Events page and event cards

The Events page gathers everything that concerns you and puts it in order: today's and upcoming events first, sorted from the nearest in time to the furthest, then the “Already past” section. Search sits at the top, for finding an event by name.

Upcoming events can be added to your phone's calendar with the dedicated button, so they don't slip your mind.

There is a reminder too: if you granted the notifications permission, the app reminds you in the evening about what's coming up. If you'd rather not get them, notifications can be muted from Profile.

Every event has its own card, and the card changes with what you're looking at. If the event is yours and still ahead, you can add more people. If it's a Wish of yours that has gathered enough interest, the “Create” button turns it into an event that will actually happen. If it's someone else's and has not started yet, you answer “I'm in” or “I'm out”. If it's under way, a single button takes their place: “I'm here” if you are not down as present yet, “I'm off” if you are. If it's past, you see its details and can recreate a similar one in a tap. Invitations and cards also carry the “Navigate to location” button, which opens turn-by-turn directions.

All told, there are at most two answers on screen: before the event “I'm in” or “I'm out”, during the event “I'm here” or “I'm off”. One answer per person per event — changing your mind means picking the other one — and whoever created the event does not see these buttons.

Only one thing to watch: delete a past event and it's gone for good. The app asks for an explicit confirmation, but the action is final.

❌ A cancelled event stays marked in red

If the organiser cancels an event before it starts, it doesn't vanish from your events without explanation: the card stays, with the red label ❌ Cancelled by the organizer. So if you had said you were coming, you find out just by looking at the list.

You can remove it with the bin whenever you like. Otherwise it disappears on its own a week after the time it was due.

If you had already added photos or videos to that event, the card stays as long as they are there: your memories are not deleted by someone else's decision.

“Do it again”: the same thing another time

Open a finished event and you'll find Do it again: creation starts over with the what, the emoji and the place already filled in. All you choose is the new time and who to invite.

The old event is not touched: a new one is created, with its own life and its own invites. It's the short way to Thursday's drinks or Sunday's game.

⭐ orbiTome Plus: for people who organise often

orbiTome stays free: you create events and Wishes, invite people, play the games, use groups and the archive without paying anything. Plus is an optional subscription, monthly or yearly, that adds eight things for organisers:

• “Let's decide by …” and “at least N” — on Wishes and scheduled events (tonight, tomorrow evening or a date you pick): a decide-by date, a minimum headcount and a nudge for those who haven't replied. Guests see the deadline on the event card and on the invite-link page.
• Duplicate an event that's still on, from its card's menu. “Do it again” on a finished event stays free.
• Higher limits: up to 30 photos and videos per event, 20 events and 10 Wishes active at once (without Plus: 2, 8 and 5).
• Event templates — at the last step of creation, “Save as template” records the title, place, time, groups, people and visibility. You find them again in Profile, under Event templates: one tap and the event is already filled in. They stay on your phone.
• Chip-in tracker — at the bottom of the list of people who said “I'm in”, you set a share per person, adjust it name by name and tick off who has paid; you see how much has come in and how much is missing. It stays on your phone only, and no payment goes through the app.
• Pin colour — at the first step of creation you pick the colour that fills your pin on the map; the outline still tells you when. The people you invite see it.
• Always invisible — every new event starts invisible, and you can still turn it off event by event. You switch it on in Profile, under Visibility and backup.
• Event cover photo — a picture on the event card and in the invite link's preview: you pick it at the first step of creation, and it's gone when the event is.

You'll find it in Profile, under orbiTome Plus, and it also opens when you tap one of these features. You see the price and renewal before confirming, in your store's currency; you cancel the subscription from your App Store or Google Play settings. Big games, beyond 12 players, aren't included: they're bought separately. Plus takes nothing away from people who don't use it: it only adds.

📷 The event album: it stays on your phone

You can add photos and short videos to an event card: up to 2 per event (30 with orbiTome Plus), with videos recorded up to 15 seconds. A few shots of the evening, to remember it better when you find it again in your events.

They stay on your phone and only you see them: they don't end up in an online album, the other guests don't see them. Your photos, on the other hand, do go into the backup you create yourself, encrypted one by one; videos stay out, because a single video file can weigh more than everything else put together. And if you sign out and come back with the same account on the same phone, the album is still there.

You delete them whenever you like, one by one, and they go together with the event if you remove it from your events. The event's cover photo, with orbiTome Plus, is another matter: anyone who sees the event sees it.

My Stash: your memories

Every finished event lands in your personal stash: what, where and when, icon included. A small chronicle of the good things you did together.

Your stash also keeps the answer you gave. At most two of them appear on screen: before the event “I'm in” or “I'm out”, while the event is under way “I'm here” or “I'm off”. And if an invitation slipped past you, there is room to add it.

At the top of the stash there's search: look up a name and you find an evening from months ago without scrolling through everything.

Profile, tags and permissions

At the top you edit your photo and name. Below, the entries are gathered in three sections.

Your orbiTome: orbiTome Plus, Big games, Organisations and businesses, Event templates, Groups, Mute notifications and Visibility and backup, where you choose who sees your events and back up your data. Help: the Guide — this very page — the Introduction to review the first steps, Feedback to tell us how it's going (thirty seconds is enough) and Permissions. Account: Delete account, should you ever decide to say goodbye, and Logout.

In the Permissions section every entry is spelled out: contacts, location and notifications, with the reason each is needed and its current state. The crescent-moon icon at the top switches on dark mode.

🔕 Mute notifications

From Profile you can pause notifications without uninstalling anything: pick Off, 8 hours, 24 hours or until tomorrow. When the time is up they come back on their own.

The same works for a single group: if one tag is particularly busy, mute that one and keep receiving the rest.

Muting doesn't take you out of any event and doesn't tell anyone: you still see everything in the app, the phone simply stays quiet.

Your data, at home

orbiTome runs locally first: events and contacts live in a database on your own device. Whenever you like — and now and then the app reminds you — you create a backup and save it to whichever cloud you prefer, Google Drive for instance. The command is in Profile, under Visibility and backup.

The backup file is encrypted: reopening it requires your orbiTome account.

It holds your data and also the photos of your events, encrypted one by one. Videos stay out: a single file would weigh more than all the rest. The copy the app saves by itself when you sign out holds the data only, because the photos are already on your phone and that is where they stay. The file stops at 200 MB: if the photos go past that, the most recent ones are left out and the data is there all the same. A backup created from 1.0.15 onwards reopens only with 1.0.15 or later; older backups keep opening as before.

Changing phone? “Restore data” puts everything back where it was. And if you decide to leave, account deletion is final and wipes your data — the app asks twice before going ahead.

🏛️ For public bodies and associations

Community associations, councils, libraries, parishes and sports clubs publish their public events for free. The path, from start to finish:

1. Request — in Profile, «Your orbiTome» section, tap Organisations and businesses: under «I also use orbiTome as», choose «Public body» or «Nonprofit association» and fill in the profile — name, logo, description, location and, if you have them, email or certified email and registry number. Then tap «Save and send for review».
2. Verification — we do it by hand. Until it is approved, the page is not online and public events do not go live; then «Verified ✓» appears next to the name. One request can be sent per day; if it is not accepted, you can send it again after 30 days. A new name or a new type requires a new check.
3. Post as — when you create an event, at the first step you choose between yourself and your organisation, and add the poster, places with a waiting list and the practical details. The event appears in the «In town» view to people nearby, with no notifications, and on the page orbitome.com/org/…, which opens even without the app.
4. Places — in the profile you save up to 20 places; when you create an event, under «Details» you tap the place and it becomes the event's location. Up to three co-managers, from your contacts who use orbiTome, publish for you.
5. QR code — in the More menu on the event card, under «QR code»: show it from your phone or print it, and whoever scans it opens the event and can reply “I'm in”.
6. Numbers — on the card you see how many people will attend, never who they are.

When the event ends — a public event expires like every orbiTome event, at most six hours after it starts: it disappears from the map and from the organisation's page, and soon after the cloud deletes the event, the replies and the poster. The page keeps showing the upcoming events.

The rest of the app does not change. More details in For organisations.

🏪 For businesses

Bars, gyms, bookshops and shops publish their events with the orbiTome Business subscription: €9.99 a month or €79.99 a year, with the first 3 months free. The path:

1. Profile — in Profile, under Organisations and businesses, choose «Business» and fill in the profile: name, logo, description, location, opening hours and phone.
2. Subscription — tap «Activate Business» and accept the Terms for businesses; while the subscription is active, your business page is online.
3. Post as — when you create an event, choose your business and add a poster, places and practical details. The pin is your logo.
4. QR code — in the More menu on the card, under «QR code»: show it at the entrance or print it on the poster.
5. Numbers — you see how many people said “I'm in”, not who they are.

When the event ends — as for organisations, the event expires on its own, at most six hours after it starts. If the subscription ends, you no longer publish public events and the page goes offline. No promotion of alcohol, tobacco, gambling or adult content.

More details in For businesses.