Hide the Word in your heart — read it, listen to it, and truly memorize it.
Vachanam is a Bible app built to instill the Word of God in the heart through small daily habits. It is free forever: no ads, no subscriptions, no accounts, nothing to unlock. It works offline, on any phone or computer with a browser.
Creating a verse list, the daily study, and installing Vachanam on your phone — watch it happen:
The Bible in a Year — see how
Starting the plan, the day's podcast playing right inside the app (Fr. Mike in English, Fr. Daniel in Malayalam), and marking your reading done:
Following Fr. Mike on YouTube? Pick up here
If you've been listening to The Bible in a Year on YouTube and fallen behind, this walkthrough shows how to continue in Vachanam from the exact day you stopped — create a profile, start the Catholic plan, jump to your day, listen, and mark it read:
Prefer written instructions? Read the step-by-step guide — every tap, from installing the app to marking your first day read.
What it does
Memorize, honestly. Every verse climbs a visible eight-rung ladder — from a first reading, through first-letter recall and rebuilding the verse word by word, to reciting it whole. Every exercise grades itself; spaced repetition brings each verse back right before you'd forget it.
Listen, hands free. Press Play all on any verse list and it is read aloud verse after verse — while you cook, drive, or rest. Recite along adds a silent gap after each verse for you to say it back, then reads it again so you can check yourself.
Read the whole Bible in a year. Two ready-made plans — a classic three-stream plan (Old Testament, New Testament, and a Psalm or Proverb each day) and a complete Catholic plan following The Bible in a Year podcast through all 73 books. One tap sets up the year; each day is a short reading page with audio, notes, and a mark-as-read that always remembers where you left off. Teachers can also paste in any plan of their own as plain text and share it the same way.
The whole family — one device or many. Profiles keep everyone's verses, points, and streaks separate on a shared phone. And a Family & Friends group joins everyone's scoreboards across phones: create a group on the Progress tab, share its code, and one leaderboard follows the whole family — no accounts needed. Children get illustrated Bible-scene celebrations as they climb.
Your language. English (World English Bible, Berean Standard Bible, KJV, ASV, Bible in Basic English, Douay-Rheims, Catholic Public Domain Version), Malayalam (സത്യവേദപുസ്തകം O.V., or the Indian Revised Version with its narration), Tamil (O.V. or IRV, likewise), Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Odia, Gujarati, Punjabi and Assamese (Indian Revised Version) — and Scripture in Urdu, readable under any interface. More as permissions allow.
Highlight and take notes. Mark the words that strike you — they stay highlighted in that list — and pin your thoughts to them, or add a study note to any verse.
All 73 books. The Douay-Rheims includes the deuterocanon — Tobit through Maccabees, and the Catholic chapters of Esther and Daniel (Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the prayer of the three young men). To our knowledge, Vachanam is the only free memorization app that carries the full Catholic canon.
Questions people ask
Is it really free? What's the catch?
Really free, forever, for everyone. No ads, no data selling, no premium tier. It was built for our own family's daily use and is shared in the hope it serves yours. "Freely you have received; freely give."
Where does my data live?
On your device, and nowhere else — unless you choose to join a Family & Friends group board, which shares exactly what its board shows: your profile's name, avatar, points, streak, verses-mastered count, and armor-crest badge. There are no accounts. You can export a backup file any time and carry it to a new device. See the privacy page — it is short, because there is little to say.
Can my family compete across different phones?
Yes. On the Progress tab, create a Family & Friends group and share its join code — everyone who enters the code appears on one shared leaderboard with their streaks, verses mastered, and points, whichever phone they study on. No accounts: the code is the whole membership, groups are never listed anywhere, and only the scoreboard's own fields are shared — never verses, notes, or reading history. Leave any time and your row leaves with you.
How do I type in Malayalam, Tamil or Hindi?
Your phone or computer can already do it — the keyboard just needs switching on once, and you keep your usual one alongside. On Android: Settings → System → Languages & input → On-screen keyboard → Gboard → Languages → Add keyboard. On iPhone: Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard. On Windows: Settings → Time & language → Language & region → Add a language. On Mac: System Settings → Keyboard → Text Input → Input Sources → Edit → +. Choose the transliteration layout if it is offered: you then type the sounds on the ordinary keys — “yeshu” — and യേശു appears, with no new key layout to learn. The app also shows these steps beside every typing exercise, and “Speak it” lets you say a verse aloud instead of typing it at all.
How do I install it?
Open vachanam.pages.dev in your browser. On Android, tap Chrome's ⋮ menu and choose "Install and create shortcut"; on iPhone, tap Safari's Share button and choose "Add to Home Screen". It then opens like any app and works offline — the video above shows both.
How does the memorization actually work?
A few honest minutes a day. Each day the Memorize tab shows which verses are due. New verses are simply read; as a verse sticks, the exercises grow harder — recognizing its opening line, naming its reference, ordering its phrases, building it from a word bank, typing it from first letters, and finally reciting it. Two clean recitals on different days make it Mastered; after that it returns at growing intervals so it stays yours.
Can I use it only for listening?
Yes. Any list can be switched out of the daily review and kept purely for listening — many people keep Matthew 5–7 or a psalms list this way.
How do the reading plans work?
On the Readings tab, tap "Start this plan" and all 365 days appear as day-lists inside one plan. Open a day and every reading is laid out as one continuous page — read it, or press play and listen. Marking a portion read moves the bookmark forward, so the plan always opens where you left off; and if a verse strikes you along the way, select a few of its words and add it straight to a memorization list.
Whose Bible text is it?
Public-domain translations, served from open sources (bible-api.com, bolls.life, ebible.org), plus translations used by permission via API.Bible with each publisher's notice shown beside the text. We never store licensed scripture in your saved data. The Verses by Topic shelf was seeded from the verse index at DailyVerses.net, then reviewed and reordered here.
Who makes this?
It is built and maintained independently — no company, no funding, no agenda. Questions, corrections, or a kind word: vachanam.bible@gmail.com.