Deckla
Games
The screen Deckla opens on: all seven games, with anything you left half-played at the top showing the round and where you stand. Tap a game to play it; tap the bin beside an unfinished one to end it.
Support
How to use it, how to play it, how to fix it.
Everything below describes Deckla as it actually plays. Where card tables disagree — and they disagree a great deal — this says which reading Deckla uses.
Getting started
Your first hand.
- Open Deckla. The first run walks through five short screens: what the app is, the catalog, a choice of card deck, whether to be reminded about a game you leave half-played, and the two promises Deckla makes about fairness and your data. You can change all of it later.
- Pick a game on the Games tab. Seven of them, from War at five minutes to 500 Rummy at forty. Gin Rummy is the one most people start with — around ten minutes, and the rules are below.
- Play the round. On your turn you draw a card and then get rid of one. The pill above your hand always says what the table is waiting for.
- Leave whenever you like. Tap the back arrow at the top left. The match is saved mid-hand and is waiting at the top of the Games tab, the screen the app opens on.
What you need
| Device | iPhone or iPad |
|---|---|
| System | iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 |
| Internet | Not required — Deckla plays fully offline |
| Account | None. There is no Deckla account to make |
| iCloud | Optional, and only for syncing between your own devices |
Getting around
Two tabs, and that is the whole app.
You
Your record, achievements, card deck, opponent difficulty, notifications, the rules screens for every game, what iCloud is doing right now, and a count of what Deckla is storing.
Inside a match, the bar across the top has the back arrow on the left, the round and the running score in the middle, and … on the right for that match's options.
The controls
Tap, or flick a card away.
Every game uses the same gestures. Dragging is the faster gesture once you know it; tapping works everywhere dragging does, so nothing is locked behind a gesture.
Moving cards
- Tap a card in your hand to select it. It lifts. Tap it again to deselect.
- Drag a selected card upward and let go to play it — discard it, or lay it off.
- Tap the stock (the face-down pile, labelled Draw with the number of cards left) to draw from it.
- Tap the discard pile to take the face-up card.
- VoiceOver gets the same moves as a custom action on each card — no dragging required.
The bar at the bottom
Two buttons. The left one cycles how your hand is sorted — by meld, by suit, by rank. Sorting by meld is the quickest read on whether a hand is coming together.
The right one is whatever the table wants next, spelled out: Draw a card, Discard 5♣, Knock · 14, Take the pile. If it is dimmed, the pill above your hand says why.
How to play
Rummy in one paragraph.
You are collecting melds. A meld is either a set — three or four cards of the same rank, like three nines — or a run — three or more cards in sequence in the same suit, like 5 ♥ 6 ♥ 7 ♥. Every turn you take one card and throw one away, working your hand towards melds and away from the loose cards that will cost you. Aces are low: A-2-3 is a run, Q-K-A is not.
The two games differ in what you do with the melds once you have them. In Gin they stay secret in your hand until you end the round. In 500 Rummy you put them on the table as you go, and they score for you the moment you do.
The other four ask for something else entirely — a board, a pile to shed, a deck to win outright, a question to ask — and each has its own section below.
Game one
Gin Rummy.
Two hands, ten cards, one knock. Around 8–15 minutes a match.
The deal
Two players, ten cards each, one card turned face up. Non-dealer gets first refusal on it; if you both pass, non-dealer draws from the stock.
| Hand size | 10 cards |
|---|---|
| Decks | 1, no jokers |
| Ace | Low only in runs, worth 1 |
| Court cards | Worth 10 each |
| Number cards | Face value |
Your turn
Draw one card, then throw one away. That is the whole turn.
| Draw | The top of the stock, or the face-up card |
|---|---|
| Melds | Stay in your hand until you knock — nothing goes on the table |
| Deadwood | Everything not in a set or a run, added up. Deckla counts it for you above your hand |
| Dead hand | With two cards left in the stock and nobody knocking, the deal is void and played again |
Ending the round
You knock by discarding face down and laying your hand out. Deckla offers this as one button — Knock · 14 — the moment your deadwood is low enough, and it picks the discard that leaves you best off.
| Knock at | 10 deadwood or less |
|---|---|
| Gin | No deadwood at all — worth 25 plus the whole other hand |
| Lay-offs | The defender may extend the knocker's melds — but not after gin |
| Undercut | If the defender matches or beats the knock, they take the difference plus 25 |
| Match | First to 100 |
Playing it well
- Sort by meld and look at what is nearly a meld. Two cards that could still become three are worth more than their points suggest.
- High loose cards are the expensive ones. A king doing nothing costs ten if the other hand knocks first.
- Knocking at ten is not always right. If you are only a card away from gin, the extra 25 plus the lay-off protection is often worth one more turn.
- Watch what the opponent takes from the discard pile. On Steady and Sharp it is watching what you take.
Game two
500 Rummy.
Open table, deep pile, long game. Around 20–40 minutes a match.
The deal
| Players | 2 to 4 |
|---|---|
| Hand size | 13 heads-up, 7 with three or more |
| Decks | One up to three players, two from four |
| Jokers | Off by default. Turned on they are wild and worth 15 |
Your turn
Draw, meld as much as you like, then discard. Melds go face up in front of you and stay there for the rest of the round.
| Draw | The top of the stock, or from the discard pile |
|---|---|
| Melding | Select the cards, then take the Meld action. It shows the points before you commit |
| Lay-offs | Onto anybody's melds, including the opponent's. The points go to whoever laid the card |
| Calling rummy | If someone discards a card that fits a meld already on the table, anyone else can claim it |
Digging into the pile — the move the game is built around
In 500 Rummy the discard pile is not just its top card. You may reach for any card in it, but you take every card above it too. Tap Take the pile and Deckla lists the legal depths with the card at each one and how many cards it costs you — Top card · picks up 1 card, 4 deep · picks up 5 cards.
The card you reached for has to be melded on the same turn. Until it is, the pill above your hand reads Meld what you took and you cannot discard. Deckla allows that card to be laid off onto an existing meld as well as used to start a new one — the stricter reading, where it must start a new meld, is a table rule Deckla does not use.
Scoring
Melded points count for you. Whatever is still in your hand counts against you.
| Ace | 15 in a set, 1 in a run |
|---|---|
| Court cards | 10 each |
| Number cards | Face value |
| Negative scores | Allowed — a bad round can cost you |
| Round ends | When a player empties their hand, or the stock runs out |
| Match | First to 500 |
Playing it well
- The number above your hand — 61 at risk — is what you lose if the round ends now. Melding early trades flexibility for safety.
- Taking eight cards to reach one useful one is sometimes right and usually not. Count what the extra cards will cost you if you are caught holding them.
- Aces are 15 in a set and 1 in a run. Three aces is 45 points; an ace stuck at the bottom of a run is worth almost nothing.
- Laying off onto the opponent's melds scores for you, not for them. It is the cheapest way to shed a card.
- Discarding a card that fits something already on the table invites a rummy call. Late in a round, that matters.
Game three
Sequence.
Play a card, claim its square, make five. Around 10–25 minutes a match.
The board
A 10×10 grid. The four corners are free spaces; the other 96 show every card in the deck except the jacks, each one printed twice.
| Decks | 2, jacks included in the hand but not on the board |
|---|---|
| Spaces | 100, of which 4 are free corners |
| Copies | every card appears on exactly 2 spaces |
| Hand size | 7 heads-up, down to 3 at a full table |
Your turn
Play a card, put one of your chips on a space showing that card, and draw a replacement. Either copy of the card — your choice — but only ever one chip.
| Dead card | if both of a card's spaces are covered you may swap it for a fresh one, 1 time per turn |
|---|---|
| Passing | there is none — if you can play, you play |
| Drawing | automatic here; at a table, forgetting to draw costs you the card for good |
Jacks
Eight jacks, two kinds, told apart by the faces on the card. They are not on the board, so they are never dead.
| Two-eyed | diamonds and clubs — wild, place a chip on any open space |
|---|---|
| One-eyed | spades and hearts — take one opposing chip off, and place nothing |
| Protection | a chip in a completed sequence can never be removed |
Winning
A sequence is 5 of your chips in an unbroken line — across, down or diagonally.
| Two sides | first to 2 sequences |
|---|---|
| Three sides | first to 1 sequence |
| Free corners | anybody may count a corner, so a line through one needs only 4 chips |
| Overlap | two of your sequences may share 1 chip, no more — a row of nine is two sequences |
The table
Two players, head to head — you and the house. The printed game seats twelve in two or three teams; the board here is scored by team all the same, and heads-up is the table where a team is one seat.
| 2 players | 2 individuals |
|---|
The opponent
The board is face up, so there is nothing about it Deckla's opponent could be hiding — and it is never shown a hand but its own or the order of the deck. What changes between Casual, Steady and Sharp is how much of the board it reads: whether it sees your threats coming, whether it notices its own dead cards, and whether it saves a one-eyed jack for the four in a row it exists to stop.
Game four
Spite and Malice.
Empty your stock, one card at a time. Around 15–30 minutes a match.
The deck
180 cards, and suits never matter: an Ace counts as 1, a Jack 11, a Queen 12 and a King 13. On top of those, 24 wilds.
| Ranks | 12 each of Ace, 2 through 10, Jack, Queen and King |
|---|---|
| Wilds | 24 wild cards |
| Stock pile | 30 cards each |
| Hand | 5 cards, drawn back up at the start of every turn |
The four places a card can be
Knowing which pile is which is most of learning this game. Two of them are yours alone; the piles in the middle belong to everybody.
| Stock | yours, face down, top card showing. Emptying it wins |
|---|---|
| Hand | 5 cards, yours, hidden |
| Discards | 4 piles, yours, face up — only the top card of each can be played |
| Building | up to 4 in the middle, shared, anyone may play on any of them |
Your turn
Draw back up to 5, then play as much as you like from three places: the top of your stock, your hand, and the top of any of your 4 discard piles. There is no limit.
| Building up | every pile starts with an Ace and goes up by one — never down, never skipping |
|---|---|
| Finishing a pile | a pile that reaches a King is taken away and its slot opens at once |
| Emptying your hand | play all 5 and you draw 5 more and carry on — the engine of the game |
| Ending the turn | put one card from hand onto one of your discard piles. Not optional — and never a wild |
Wild cards
A wild takes whatever value the pile wants next — and is then stuck with it. Played as a 7, the next card has to be an 8.
| Starting a pile | a wild can be the Ace that opens a new pile |
|---|---|
| Locked | once down, its value never changes |
| Discarding one | not allowed — a wild only ever goes to the middle |
Winning
First to empty their stock pile wins, the moment the last card goes down. There is no obligation to finish the turn with a discard.
| The draw pile | when it runs out, the completed building piles are shuffled and become it |
|---|---|
| Never recycled | cards in hands, stocks and discard piles stay where they are |
| A stalled game | if nobody can move and there is nothing left to draw, the game is drawn and redealt |
The opponent
Almost everything on this table is face up — the building piles, every stock card, every discard — so there is very little Deckla's opponent could be hiding, and it is never shown a hand but its own or the order of the draw pile. What changes between Casual, Steady and Sharp is how much of it they read: whether they remember their own discard piles are a legal source at all, whether they stack those piles into descending runs, and whether they notice they are about to hand you the card you are waiting for.
Game five
Deck Dash.
Race to empty your stock, 1 to 12. Around 15–30 minutes a match, or five in Blitz.
The deck
170 cards, and no suits: 12 each of 1 through 12, plus 18 wilds and 8 swaps. No ace, jack, queen or king.
| Numbers | 12 copies of every value from 1 to 12 |
|---|---|
| Wilds | 18 wild cards |
| Swaps | 8 swap cards, never dealt into a stock pile |
| Stock pile | 30 cards each |
| Hand | 5 cards, drawn back up at the start of every turn |
The four places a card can be
Knowing which pile is which is most of learning this game. Two of them are yours alone; the piles in the middle belong to everybody.
| Stock | yours, face down, top card showing. Emptying it wins |
|---|---|
| Hand | 5 cards, yours, hidden |
| Discards | 4 piles, yours, face up — only the top card of each can be played |
| Building | up to 4 in the middle, shared, anyone may play on any of them |
Your turn
Draw back up to 5, then play as much as you like from three places: the top of your stock, your hand, and the top of any of your 4 discard piles. There is no limit.
| Building up | every pile starts at 1 and goes up by one — never down, never skipping |
|---|---|
| Finishing a pile | a pile that reaches 12 is taken away and its slot opens at once |
| Emptying your hand | play all 5 and you draw 5 more and carry on — the engine of the game |
| Ending the turn | put one card from hand onto one of your discard piles. Not optional |
Wild cards
A wild takes whatever value the pile wants next — and is then stuck with it. Played as a 7, the next card has to be an 8.
| Starting a pile | a wild can be the 1 that opens a new pile |
|---|---|
| Locked | once down, its value never changes |
| Discarding one | allowed, and sometimes right — but it is the scarcest card you hold |
Swap cards
A swap never goes on a building pile. Play it from your hand or the top of a discard pile, and the top card of your stock trades places with the top card of your opponent's.
| How | pick the swap up, then tap your opponent's stock card |
|---|---|
| When | any time in your turn; it does not end the turn |
| Afterwards | the swap leaves the game for good |
| Best used | to take a card that goes down right now, and leave them one that does not |
Blitz
A mode, switched on before the deal. The whole match is 5 minutes of table time, and the clock stops while the app is in the background.
| The buzzer | when time runs out, the fewest stock cards wins |
|---|---|
| Level at the buzzer | sudden death: the next stock card down wins |
| Emptying your stock | still wins outright, clock or no clock |
| Undo | off in Blitz |
| Against a friend | not offered — those games are played a turn at a time |
Winning
First to empty their stock pile wins, the moment the last card goes down. There is no obligation to finish the turn with a discard.
| The draw pile | when it runs out, the completed building piles are shuffled and become it |
|---|---|
| Never recycled | cards in hands, stocks and discard piles stay where they are |
| A stalled game | if nobody can move and there is nothing left to draw, the game is drawn and redealt |
The opponent
Almost everything on this table is face up — the building piles, every stock card, every discard — so there is very little Deckla's opponent could be hiding, and it is never shown a hand but its own or the order of the draw pile. What changes between Casual, Steady and Sharp is how much of it they read: whether they remember their own discard piles are a legal source at all, whether they stack those piles into descending runs, and whether they notice they are about to hand you the card you are waiting for.
Game six
War.
Flip. Higher card takes the pile. Around 5–20 minutes a match.
The deck
One standard pack, jokers out, dealt all the way out and face down. Nobody looks at their cards, and there would be nothing to do with the information if they did.
| Cards | 52, no jokers |
|---|---|
| Deal | 26 each at two players |
| Ranking | Two is lowest, ace is highest. The usual game. |
| Suits | irrelevant — that is what makes a tie a tie |
The turn
Everybody turns their top card over at the same time. The highest card takes every card on the table and puts them under their stack. Equal cards mean war.
| Winning the pile | the whole pile, not just the two cards |
|---|---|
| Where it goes | under your stack, face down |
| Shuffled first | yes — see "why it would otherwise never end" below |
War
Tied cards win nothing. Both players bury 3 cards face down — one syllable each, I-de-clare-WAR — and turn a fourth card face up. The higher of those takes the lot.
| Cards at stake | 10 at two players, and more if it chains |
|---|---|
| Tied again | another 3 down and one up. It can go several deep |
| Running short | Short of cards, you play your last one face up. Win it and you are still in. |
| Three or more players | only the tied players go to war; everybody else's cards sit in the pile and go to whoever wins it |
Winning
One player ends up with all 52. That is the only win the game itself has, and it is what this table plays to unless you shorten it in settings.
| Play it out | until somebody holds the deck |
|---|---|
| A fixed number of rounds | whoever holds more cards when they run out |
| First to a card count | 40, say, out of 52 |
Why it would otherwise never end
Worth knowing, because it surprises people. Put your winnings under your stack in a fixed order and the game becomes a machine with no randomness left in it, and a large share of deals fall into a loop they never leave. Shuffling the cards you take breaks the loop, and this table does it. Most people do it by accident and never learn it was holding the game up.
Strategy
There is none, and that is not an under-explanation. You have no hand, no information and one legal move, and the result was settled when the deck was shuffled. The only thing anybody at this table actually chooses is how long to play for.
Game seven
Go Fish.
Ask well, and remember what you asked. Around 5–15 minutes a match.
The deal
One standard pack, jokers out. Everything left after the deal goes face down in the middle — the pool.
| Deck | 52 cards, jokers out |
|---|---|
| Players | two |
| Hand size | 7 each |
| A book | 4 of a rank |
| Books in the pack | 13 — one for every rank |
Your turn
Ask one named player for one rank. The rule everybody forgets is that you must already be holding a card of that rank — you cannot fish blind, and that is what makes the question worth listening to.
| A hit | they hand over every card of that rank, not just one |
|---|---|
| Going again | a hit earns you another ask, as long as you keep hitting |
| A miss | "go fish" — draw one from the pool, and the turn passes |
| Fishing it out | draw the very rank you asked for, say so, and ask again |
| Empty hand | draw back up from the pool; you are only out when the pool is out too |
Winning
The deal ends when all 13 books are made. Most books wins.
| Scoring | one point a book, and nothing else counts |
|---|---|
| A tie | level on books is a genuine draw, and it is redealt |
What the table knows
Every question is asked out loud, so every question is public. Asking for sevens tells the whole table you hold a seven; being told to go fish tells the whole table that player has none — until they draw, at which point it stops being true about anything.
| Casual | asks for something she holds, of somebody who has cards, and no more |
|---|---|
| Steady | remembers roughly the last time round the table |
| Sharp | remembers all of it, and once the pool is gone works out the last card of a rank by elimination |
| None of them | can see your hand or the order of the pool |
Settings
The opponent, the cards, and the house rules.
Opponent difficulty
Set it under You, or inside a match from …. Changing it takes effect on the opponent's next turn.
| Casual | Plays its own hand and little else. No memory of the discards, and it only ever takes the top card of the pile |
|---|---|
| Steady | Remembers the discards, so it stops chasing cards that are already dead |
| Sharp | Remembers the discards and reads what you have been taking. Digs as deep into the pile as it needs to |
None of them can see your hand or the order of the stock, at
any setting. Difficulty is an attention limit, not a peek.
Card deck
| Geometric | Flat pips and bold numerals. The rank reads from the top-left corner at any fan angle |
|---|---|
| Typographic | No pips. The rank fills the top of the card and one oversized suit mark anchors the base — roughly three times the size, and never resting on the colour of a small pip |
The choice is one setting shared by every game and both devices. Change it under You or from a match's … menu.
Haptics
A toggle under You. Off means no taps for dealing, drawing or discarding.
Why house rules can't change mid-match
A saved match is stored as the shuffle it was dealt from plus the moves played since, and it is replayed from those rules when you come back to it. Changing a rule halfway through would rewrite a hand already dealt. So the This match section of the options sheet is a summary you can read, not a set of switches — and Resign and start a new match is how you get a table with different rules.
Saving & iCloud
Where your games live.
Deckla saves continuously — there is no save button, and quitting mid-hand loses nothing. Where those saves go depends only on whether you are signed in to iCloud.
Reading the iCloud row
The You tab shows exactly one of these:
| Syncing to your other devices | Signed in and mirroring. Saves, scores and settings travel to any device on the same Apple Account |
|---|---|
| Saving to this device | You are signed in, but Deckla could not open its iCloud database this time. Your games are safe locally and it retries next launch |
| Not signed in to iCloud | Everything works; it just stays on this device |
| iCloud is turned off for this device | A managed device or Screen Time restriction. Not yours to change from inside Deckla |
| Can't reach iCloud right now | Temporary. Saves stay here and catch up later |
Moving between iPhone and iPad
- Sign both devices in to the same Apple Account and turn iCloud Drive on.
- Open Deckla on the first device and check that You reads Syncing to your other devices.
- Play a turn, then leave the match. The Last saved time on the You tab updates.
- Open Deckla on the second device. Give it a few seconds on a live connection; the match appears under In progress with the same round and score.
Sync is not instant and it is not a live handoff — a hand in progress on one device syncs when you leave it, not turn by turn. Do not play the same match on two devices at once.
Accessibility
What Deckla supports.
Larger text
The app's chrome scales with Dynamic Type all the way to the largest accessibility sizes. Card faces do not scale with it — for those, switch to the Typographic deck, which is the large-index deck.
Colour is never the answer
The Typographic deck spells out rank and suit at size, so telling a heart from a spade never depends on the colour of a small pip.
Reduce Motion
With Reduce Motion on, cards cross-fade instead of travelling and nothing flips over. Cards are still dealt one at a time, just faster — a fade is easier to follow one card at a time than eleven at once.
VoiceOver
Cards, piles and melds are labelled, your hand is read with its deadwood total, and every card carries a Play action so nothing needs a drag.
Touch targets
Cards in a tight fan keep a full-size tap area even where the visible sliver is narrower than a fingertip.
Haptics off
One switch under You turns off every tap Deckla plays.
Troubleshooting
Things that come up.
Most of these are the rules doing their job rather than something being broken. Where that is the case, it says so.
Playing
The Knock button is missing or dimmed
Knocking needs your deadwood at 10 or less. Deadwood is every card not in a set or a run, added up — it is shown in green above your hand and it updates as you play. If the number is 11 or more there is no legal knock yet.
The button also disappears while you have a card selected, because at that point the primary action becomes discarding that specific card. Tap the card again to deselect it and the knock offer comes back.
It says “Not a meld” when I try to meld in 500 Rummy
The cards you have selected are not a legal meld. A meld is:
- a set — three or four cards of the same rank, all in different suits; or
- a run — three or more cards in sequence in a single suit.
The usual culprits: aces are low only, so Q-K-A is not a run; a set may not hold two cards of the same suit even with two decks in play; and three cards is the minimum for both.
It says “Meld what you took” and won't let me discard
You took a card from inside the discard pile, and in 500 Rummy that card has to be melded on the same turn. Select it together with the cards that make it a meld, or select it and tap an existing meld on the table to lay it off. Once it is down, the turn continues normally.
This is the one thing digging the pile costs you, and it is why the depth picker shows what you are picking up before you commit.
“Take the pile” only offers the top card
Deckla lists only the depths that are legal for you right now — a depth is offered when the card at it is one you could actually meld this turn. If none of the deeper cards can be melded, the top card is the only legal take, and the picker is skipped entirely.
The round ended and nobody went out
Two different things, depending on the game.
In 500 Rummy, the round ends when the stock runs out. Hands are scored where they stand — melded points for you, cards left in hand against you.
In Gin Rummy, if the stock gets down to two cards and nobody has knocked, the deal is dead. Nobody scores and the same hand is dealt again.
My score went down
500 Rummy allows negative scores. If you are caught with more points in your hand than you have melded on the table, the round is a net loss and your total drops. It is the reason the at risk number sits above your hand.
Gin Rummy does not do this — scores there only go up.
The opponent takes a while to move
That pause is deliberate, and it gets slightly longer at higher difficulty — roughly half a second on Casual, up to about a second and a half on Sharp. It is a pace, not a computation: nothing is being loaded and nothing is stuck. Set the opponent to Casual under You for a faster game.
Is the opponent cheating?
No, and it structurally cannot. The opponent is only ever handed a view of the public table — the discard pile, the melds that are face up, the number of cards in each hand. There is no parameter through which your cards or the order of the stock could reach it, at any difficulty.
What changes between Casual, Steady and Sharp is how much of that public information it bothers to use: whether it remembers the discards, how deep into the pile it looks, and whether it draws conclusions from what you have been taking.
Settings and the app
I can't change the house rules for a match in progress
By design. A save is the shuffle plus the moves played since, and it is replayed from the rules it was dealt under — changing one mid-match would rewrite a hand that has already been played. The This match section is there to be read.
To play under different rules, use Resign and start a new match at the bottom of the … sheet. That forfeits the match in progress.
The cards are hard to read
- Switch the deck to Typographic under You. The rank is set about three times larger and the suit gets its own oversized mark.
- Raise the system text size in Settings → Display & Brightness → Text Size. Deckla's chrome follows it to the largest accessibility sizes.
- On iPad, giving Deckla a wider column changes the card layout — it fans tightly only when it is genuinely narrow.
Too much movement on screen
Turn on Settings → Accessibility → Motion → Reduce Motion. Deckla swaps every card animation for a cross-fade: cards no longer travel across the table and nothing flips over, but a card that moved is still legible as having moved.
Haptics aren't working
- Check the Haptics switch under You.
- Check Settings → Sounds & Haptics → System Haptics on iPhone.
- iPads do not have a Taptic Engine. There are no haptics to feel there, and the switch does nothing.
iCloud and saved games
A match I started on one device isn't on the other
- Check both devices say “Syncing to your other devices” under You. If either says anything else, that is the answer — see the rows above.
- Check both are on the same Apple Account with iCloud Drive on. Different accounts never see each other's saves.
- Leave the match on the first device. A hand in progress syncs when you back out of it, not turn by turn.
- Compare the “Last saved” times. They are shown to the second while recent, which is what makes this checkable rather than guesswork.
- Give it a minute on a live connection, then quit and reopen Deckla on the second device.
It says “Not signed in to iCloud”
Nothing is broken and no play is blocked — your saves, scores and settings simply stay on this device. Sign in at Settings → [your name] and turn on iCloud Drive to carry them to your other devices.
It says “Saving to this device” but I am signed in
Deckla could not open its iCloud database this launch — usually a transient network or CloudKit problem. Your games are safe locally and Deckla tries again the next time it starts. Quitting Deckla fully and reopening it is enough to retry.
It says “iCloud is turned off for this device”
A device management profile or a Screen Time restriction is preventing iCloud use. Whoever manages the device's settings controls that; Deckla cannot override it. The app is fully playable in this state.
Where did my stats go?
Stats are kept per game and travel with your iCloud account, not with the app install. If your record looks empty under You on a device you have played on before, check that you are signed in to the same Apple Account and that You reports syncing.
Signed out of iCloud, stats are local to that device and a reinstall clears them.
What exactly is Deckla storing?
Saved matches, per-game statistics, and your settings. The Your data section under You shows the live count of both. All of it lives in your own private iCloud database — nothing is sent anywhere else, and there is no analytics SDK, advertising identifier or third-party network call in the app.
Starting up
Deckla won't launch, or quits on opening
- Force quit and reopen. Swipe up from the bottom, hold, then flick Deckla away.
- Restart the device. Fixes more than it has any right to.
- Check for an update to Deckla and to iOS. Deckla needs iOS 26 or iPadOS 26.
- Reinstall as a last resort. If you are signed in to iCloud your saves and stats come back; if you are not, deleting the app deletes them. Check You before you delete.
A deckla:// link says the game isn't in the catalog
Deckla links look like deckla://game/gin-rummy and deckla://game/rummy-500. Any other game name — a typo, or a link made for a later version — cannot be opened, and Deckla says so rather than guessing. Open the game from the Games tab instead.
Still stuck
Get in touch.
If something here didn't cover it — or a hand scored in a way you don't think is right — write in. A screenshot of the table or the round result makes it far easier to look into.
Useful to include: your device and iOS version, which game and difficulty, and what the You tab says about iCloud.