Every preference, every data control and every honesty surface in Pilot EFB lives behind one door: the Settings hub, reached from Home. It is one searchable screen - identity at the top, eight folders below, the app-wide disclaimer at the foot. This chapter walks the hub, the account story as it really is, the backup and sync machinery, and the About screen that keeps the app honest.
One hub, eight folders
The hub opens with a search field that jumps straight to any setting - type "backup" or "units" and matching rows appear from every folder, so you never have to remember where something lives. Below it: your profile banner, the Pilot EFB Pro row with your subscription state at a glance, and the folder cards.
The folders map the app: General (theme, units, time, home base, accessibility), Pilot profile (your flying profile, credentials, FTL regime), Briefing, weather & NOTAMs (weather defaults, cruise speeds, NOTAM keywords, personal minimums, the offline cache), Logbook & currency (entry defaults, carry-forward, currency rules, export), Notifications & widgets, Privacy & security, Data & storage, and Help & about. Each card names what it holds, and rows carry live values - your current theme, your home base - so the hub doubles as a status readout.
The card at the foot is the app's standing disclaimer, verbatim: "Pilot EFB is NOT a certified Electronic Flight Bag. It is an informational and organisational tool only. All outputs: weather, NOTAMs, FTL calculations, descent planning, and any other aviation data are for personal reference and planning purposes only. Pilots must always verify all data against official, certified sources before making any operational decisions. The developer accepts no liability for decisions made based on information displayed in this app." You accepted it at first launch; it stays here, and in About, permanently.
And the line under it is the whole save model: changes save automatically. There is no Save button anywhere in Settings.
General is where the app takes your shape: theme (Light, Dark and a cockpit Red-light mode), units for speed, altitude and fuel, clock and timezone display, your home base ICAO (it anchors briefings, local time and the Home weather cards), and the accessibility controls - text size, haptics, motion and colour-vision options.
Guest or signed in - the honest account story
Pilot EFB never makes you create an account. Everything in the app - logbook, duties, flights, weather, NOTAMs - lives in a local database on the device and works offline as a guest, forever. The profile banner says which mode you are in: as a guest it reads "Guest - tap to sign in"; signed in it shows your name and opens Profile & Account, the one screen for your name, photo, email, password, sign-out - and deleting your account, which is done in-app, no email or website required. Deleting the account erases your cloud data too; signing out just backs up, then clears the device, leaving the account intact.
What an account actually adds is a safety net: backup and restore are free for every signed-in user. Your subscription state is separate from your account on iOS - the Pro row in the frames above shows a subscription active on a device that is not signed in, which is a real state: iOS purchases attach to your App Store identity, so neither requires the other.
Cloud Sync
Settings > Data & storage > Cloud Sync is the account safety net's control room. Signed out, it does not pretend otherwise:
Signed in, the screen shows your sync status - online or offline, last synced, last backed up, anything still waiting - and a single Sync now button that checks your entire logbook, duties, flights and saved weather/NOTAM history against your account and uploads only what is missing or newer. Restore from account pulls your records back; your local data is never deleted by a restore - server entries merge in, and only genuinely newer ones update your copy. Crew name fields are never uploaded.
The How it works card on the screen says the model plainly: your device keeps a full local copy and always works offline; sync sends your latest changes up and brings other devices' changes down; if the same item changed in two places, the most recent edit wins; saved weather and NOTAM briefings are copied up unchanged and never overwritten.
Auto-sync in the background Pro is the one gate here: with Pro, every signed-in device syncs automatically when you open the app or reconnect, and a cloud storage meter manages your photo and PDF attachments. Backup and restore themselves stay free.
The screen's own footer is worth repeating verbatim: "Cloud Sync is informational and is not a backup of record. Keep your own copies of anything you must retain."
Save a backup file
For data you hold yourself - or if you never sign in at all - Settings > Data & storage > Save a backup file writes everything to a single password-protected file. The screen lists exactly what goes in (logbook and duties, flights and notes, settings and personal config, airports, weather and NOTAM history, and optionally your photos and PDFs) and what does not (data the app re-fetches on its own).
The warning on the screen is the one thing to take seriously before you tap the button: "There is no way to recover this passphrase. If you lose it, the backup can never be opened - Pilot EFB cannot reset it for you. Store it somewhere safe, like a password manager." There is no escrow and no reset - that is what makes the file safe to keep anywhere.
Restoring reads a .pefb file back with the same honesty the rest of
the app applies to records: saved weather and NOTAM snapshots are
re-checked against their integrity hashes as they restore, and any
that do not match are skipped, never overwritten. An optional Remind
me to back up switch schedules a local nudge if you have not backed
up in 30 days.
Your devices
Settings > Privacy & security > Your devices lists every device that has synced to your account - platform, model, app version, and when each last synced - with this device marked. Per-device sign-out lives on each row, and a Sign out everywhere action covers them all. As a guest the screen is another honest gate:
The rest of the Privacy & security folder is the "what happens on this device" cluster: App lock (a biometric or PIN gate at launch), API usage (a transparency log of the third-party calls made on your behalf), Analytics (anonymous event counts only - no flight data, and you can turn it off), Diagnostic logs (on-device technical records you can export), and Search & index (whether your logbook and flights appear in iOS Spotlight).
The data controls
Data & storage is the single home for where your data lives, moves, and dies:
Offline maps manages the regional basemap packs the chart engine uses - the Aviation Map chapter covers that screen. Network & data holds the data-saver guards: Wi-Fi-only, manual fetches only, and a roaming guard, each honoured by everything in the app that touches the network, sync included. Storage & maintenance shows the app's footprint and runs the database integrity check and compaction.
And then the red row. Delete all data is deliberately the most honest screen in the app:
It says exactly what goes (your records, preferences, caches, and the disclaimer acceptance - the app returns to the first-launch flow) and exactly what is kept: the wipe is device-local, so cloud backups survive it and restore automatically at the next sign-in. To erase cloud data too, you sign in and delete the account - the screen points there itself. Nothing happens until you tick the acknowledgement and confirm a second dialog.
About - the honesty ledger
Settings > Help & about holds the learning surfaces - Learn & Reference and Help & onboarding, covered in the Learn & Reference chapter - and About Pilot EFB: the version and build you are running, the standing disclaimer with its version stamp, the privacy policy and Terms of Service in full, release notes, a feedback form, and Acknowledgements - every open-source licence and every data-source credit in one list.
Its Module disclaimers page is the ledger: the verbatim caveat each module shows beside its data, all in one place.
The first cards set the tone and are worth knowing by heart: Weather - "Reference only - verify officially." NOTAMs - "May be incomplete - verify officially." Flight & duty time - "Personal planning only." Logbook - "Personal record only." Descent planning - "Approximate - use approved procedures." The list continues for every module in the app; none of it is decoration, and the intro says why: read them before relying on any output.
Settings on iPad
On iPad, Settings is the one part of the app that splits into a persistent two-pane layout: the folder list becomes a rail that stays open on the left, and whatever you pick renders beside it - no full-screen pushes, and the landing pane carries quick links and the same verbatim disclaimer.
The web edition arranges these same settings as panes inside its own Settings area - same rows, same honesty surfaces, at desk size.
Where next
- Notifications & Widgets - the Notifications & widgets folder's screens: alerts, reminders, quiet hours, widgets and the Live Activity.
- NOTAMs and Weather - the alert screens and keyword highlights the Briefing folder points into.
- Aviation Map - the Offline maps packs.
- Logbook - imports, exports and the logbook defaults behind the Logbook & currency folder.
- Learn & Reference - everything behind Help & onboarding.
- Free vs Pro - what Pro changes here: live auto-sync and attachment storage; backup and restore stay free.