Frequently Asked Questions

Prickly is a personal plant care tracker built for serious collectors. You can log every plant in your collection, track watering and feeding schedules, store photos, and get AI-powered care advice and health checks — all in one place.

It works entirely in your browser. Your data is saved to your own Google Drive, so nothing is stored on our servers and you're always in control.

You sign in with your existing Google account — no separate account or password needed. Signing in lets Prickly save your plant collection to your Google Drive so it's backed up and available whenever you open the app.

When you sign in for the first time you'll see a Google consent screen asking permission to save files to Drive. Prickly only creates one file (prickly-data.json) in a folder called Prickly in your Drive — it can't access anything else.

Yes. Your plant data is saved directly to your own Google Drive. Prickly never stores your plant information on its own servers. The only things we record are your email address (to check if you're a new user and to manage your plan) and any feedback you choose to send.

The free plan lets you track up to 3 plants. If you have a larger collection, you can upgrade to Pro for unlimited plants. Pro access is $6.80/month — tap the upgrade prompt in the app to get started.

Tap the large + button at the bottom right of the plant list. You can then:

• Take or upload a photo — Prickly will try to identify the plant automatically using AI.
• Type the name into the search field to look it up in the plant database.
• Enter the name manually if you already know it.

Fill in as much or as little as you like — only a name is required to save a plant.

When you add a photo, Prickly sends it to Google's Gemini AI which analyses the image and returns its best guess at the common name, scientific name, and plant family. If it can't identify the plant from the photo, it falls back to searching a global plant database (GBIF) using any name you type.

AI identification is a helpful starting point but isn't always perfect — especially for unusual cultivars. You can always edit the name afterwards.

Open the plant profile by tapping its card in the list, then tap Edit. You can change the name, location, acquisition date, care fields (light, temperature, humidity, soil, fertiliser), and notes.

Care fields also have suggestion chips — tap a chip to fill in a common value instantly.

Yes. Open the plant profile and scroll down to the photo gallery. Tap Add photo to upload more images. You can set any photo as the main one (shown on the plant card) and delete photos you no longer want.

All photos are automatically resized to 800px before saving to keep storage use low.

Open the plant profile, tap Edit, then scroll to the bottom and tap Delete plant. You'll be asked to confirm before anything is removed.

Open the plant profile and tap the Log care button. Choose the type of care (water, feed, or repot), pick the date, add an optional note, and save. The log entry appears in the plant's care history and the badges on the plant card update immediately.

The badges show how each plant is doing based on your last care log entries:

• Green — all good, no action needed.
• Amber — care is due soon (feeding or repotting).
• Red — overdue, the plant needs attention now.

The 💧 Water!, 🌿 Feed!, and 🪴 Repot! filter pills at the top of the list let you quickly see only the plants that need a specific type of care.

Open the plant profile and tap Health check. Take or upload a photo of the plant and Prickly sends it to AI for analysis. You'll get two sections in return:

• 🔬 Observations — what the AI can see (leaf condition, signs of stress, pests, etc.).
• 🛠 Actions — specific steps to take based on those observations.

The photo is automatically added to the plant's gallery so you have a record over time.

Open the plant profile, tap Care details, then tap Get AI care advice. Prickly will generate tailored recommendations for light, temperature, humidity, soil, and feeding based on the plant's species.

You can accept the suggestions or edit them to suit your growing conditions.

Go to Settings → Locations and add the rooms or spots where your plants live (for example: Lounge, Bedroom, Balcony). Once added, you can assign a location to each plant and use the Location filter on the plant list to see just the plants in a specific room.

Use the search bar at the top of the plant list. It searches across common names, scientific names, and plant families — start typing and the list filters instantly.

Go to Settings → Filter options to choose which filters appear above your plant list. The available filters are:

• Location — filter by room (on by default).
• Feed! — show only plants that need feeding.
• Repot! — show only plants that need repotting.
• ⭐ Favourites — show only your favourited plants.

The Water! filter is always visible. Turn the others on or off to keep your filter bar tidy.

Enable the Stats button in Settings → Stats, then tap the 📊 Stats button that appears in the header. You'll see:

• Total plants, and counts for plants needing water, feeding, and repotting.
• A breakdown of plants by location.
• A recent activity feed.

Tapping any of the number tiles jumps straight to that filtered view in your plant list.

Tap ⚙️ Settings in the top right, then tap the theme toggle to switch between dark and light. Prickly defaults to dark (forest green) mode. Your preference is saved automatically.

Your Google Drive connection is managed through your Google sign-in. When you sign in to Prickly, Drive sync is set up automatically. If you see a "Not connected to Drive" bar, tap Connect → to authorise access again.

To sign out entirely, go to Settings → Sign out. Your plant data stays saved in Drive even after signing out.

Yes. Go to Settings → AI and paste in your own Google Gemini API key. This overrides the default key and lets you use your own quota. You can get a free API key from Google AI Studio.

Go to Settings → Language / Taal and tap EN (English) or NL (Dutch). The app will reload with the selected language applied. Language switching works on the live app at pricklyapp.pages.dev — it requires HTTPS and isn't available when running locally.

Go to Settings → Feedback & Support. You can choose the type of feedback (general, feature request, or bug report), write your message, and send it. We read every message.

Your plant data is stored in two places:

• Your browser — a local copy in localStorage so the app works immediately when you open it.
• Your Google Drive — a file called prickly-data.json in a Prickly folder, which acts as your backup and lets you pick up where you left off on any device.

Photos are included in the Drive backup and are also stored locally in your browser.

If you clear your browser's localStorage, the local copy of your plant data is removed. However, your data remains safely stored in Google Drive. The next time you sign in and open the app, it will reload everything from Drive automatically.

Yes. Because your data lives in Google Drive, you can open Prickly on any device, sign in with the same Google account, and your full plant collection will load. Settings sync across devices too.