Terminus

Your flashcards on your Lock Screen.

Paste the list you already have. One card waits each time you pick up your phone, with no app to open. Be ready by test day.

For a new language, an exam, or any new topic.

Free. No account.

Or get the beta now on TestFlight.

How it works

  1. Terminus’s Paste a list screen: biology terms with their meanings, and 42 cards found.

    Paste your list.

    Paste the cards you already have. A Quizlet export works as it is.

  2. A calendar in Terminus with November 12 picked as the test date, 33 days away.

    Set your test date.

    Terminus fits every card’s reviews into the days you have left.

  3. A Lock Screen with a Terminus widget that shows the card mitochondria.

    A card waits on your Lock Screen.

    Each time you pick up your phone, answer it in your head. No app to open.

  4. The same widget after a tap: the answer, make energy for the cell, with the buttons Again and Knew it.

    Tap to check.

    Again brings it back within 10 minutes. Knew it saves it for just before you would forget it.

  5. Terminus’s Sets screen: Biology 101 on the Lock Screen, 72% ready for its test on Thursday, November 12, and three more sets, each with its own test date and readiness.

    Know how ready each set is.

    Each set has its own test date and readiness, and Terminus brings back the cards that slip in each one.

Why it works

Terminus is built on two study methods with strong evidence.

  • How useful each study method is
    High
    Practice testingIn TerminusSpaced practiceIn Terminus
    Moderate
    Explaining whySelf-explanationMixing topics
    Low
    SummarizingHighlightingKeyword mnemonicsPicturing the textRereading

    Testing yourself beats rereading.

    A review of 10 study methods rated practice testing and spaced practice the most useful, and rereading among the least. Terminus asks the question first, so you recall the answer before you check it.

    Dunlosky and others, 2013

  • One card, answered “Knew it” each time, with a test in 33 days

    Spaced reviews beat cramming.

    In a study of more than 1,350 people, a longer gap before the review, up to a point, kept facts for longer. Terminus uses the open FSRS scheduler to bring each card back just before you would forget it, and fits its reviews into the days before your test.

    Cepeda and others, 2008

Sources
  1. Dunlosky and others, 2013: Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques
  2. Cepeda and others, 2008: Spacing effects in learning

The sources were read on October 11 and 12, 2026.

No list yet? Ask an AI chat.

Any AI chat can write a list on any topic. Terminus runs no AI: you use the chat you already have.

  1. Copy the prompt, and put your topic in it.
  2. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or any AI chat.
  3. Copy the list it writes, and paste it into Terminus.
Make about 40 flashcards on [topic].
Put them in one code block, one card per line, like this:
term - definition
No numbers, no bullets, no bold, no empty lines.
Keep each definition under 15 words.

Use Claude or Grok? In Terminus 1.1 you can connect it once, with a code from the app, and it adds cards to your sets itself. Terminus asks you before any card is removed. The cards it can read are kept encrypted on Terminus’s server while you are connected, and deleted when you disconnect. Without it, Terminus needs no account.

Be one of the first testers. It’s free.

Free. No account.