The fast version
If you just want the steps:
- Open the App Store (iPhone) or Play Store (Android)
- Search "Citizen" — the icon is a yellow shield
- Tap Get / Install
- Sign up with email and verify a phone number
- Allow Notifications, Allow Location While Using App (not Always — see below)
- Skip the Protect upsell
- Open the in-app Settings → Notifications and turn off everything except Fires Near Me, High-Severity Incidents, and Missing Persons
That last step is the one nobody does. It's the difference between a useful app and a doom-scroll firehose.
iPhone install
The signup gate is the most common friction point. Citizen requires both email and a verified phone number — there's no anonymous mode. If you're privacy-sensitive, this is the moment to decide whether to continue.
After signup, the app presents a Protect upsell ($19.99/month). The skip button is a small "X" in the top-right corner. Tap it. You can subscribe later if you want; you can't easily undo a subscription you don't want.
Android install
Android adds one extra step that iOS doesn't have: on Samsung, OnePlus, and Xiaomi devices, you need to manually whitelist Citizen from the OEM's battery-optimization rules. Otherwise the OS will silently kill the app after a few hours and you'll stop receiving alerts. On Samsung, that's Settings → Battery → Background Usage Limits → Never Sleeping Apps. On other OEMs the menu names differ but the concept is the same.
First five minutes
The five minutes after install are where most people accidentally set up a worse version of Citizen than necessary. Here's what to do.
What to allow
| Permission | Why | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Notifications | Core feature | Required |
| Location: While Using | Map centers on you | Recommended |
| Cellular data | Real-time updates | Required |
What to deny
| Permission | Why deny | Catch |
|---|---|---|
| Location: Always | Massive battery drain | You miss alerts when app is closed |
| Microphone | Only used to broadcast | You can't be a Citizen broadcaster |
| Camera | Only used to broadcast | You can't submit incident video |
| Contacts | Friend-finding feature | Pure social spam |
| Motion data | Activity recognition | Unclear benefit |
The single most important decision here is Location: While Using versus Location: Always. Citizen will guilt-trip you into Always — the in-app copy even says "you may miss critical alerts." This is mostly true. The trade-off:
- Always: alerts arrive whether the app is open or closed. ~30% daily battery drain.
- While Using: alerts only arrive when the app is open (and briefly after). ~8% daily drain.
For most users, "While Using" is the right answer. You're not going to act on a Citizen alert at 3 AM when you're asleep. The cases where Always genuinely matters are rare — primarily if you're a journalist or first responder who needs immediate awareness 24/7. Everyone else loses more in battery than they gain in alerts.
Stop the alert firehose
This is the single most-impactful change you can make to Citizen, and almost nobody does it.
Default Citizen sends roughly 30 notifications per day in a major US city. Most are low-severity, low-relevance, or pure engagement bait. The cumulative emotional effect is well-documented and corrosive.
Open Settings → Notifications inside the app. You'll see 14 categories. Turn off everything except:
14-day average, LA metro area
After tuning, you'll receive 3–5 alerts a day instead of 30+. Almost all of them will be things you actually want to know. The "person on roof" / "knife sighting" / "loud noise reported" garbage disappears.
Should you pay for Protect?
We dedicated a whole section in our pillar Citizen guide to Protect. The short answer:
- Pay for it if: you have a college-aged child walking home late, you walk alone in unfamiliar areas often, or you're a delivery worker
- Skip it if: you live in a low-risk area, you have a partner you can call, or you already use Apple's Emergency SOS / Google's Personal Safety app
At $240/year per user, Protect is roughly the same price as a basic gym membership. It's defensible if you'd use it. It's a waste if you wouldn't.
The no-install alternative
If you're reading this because you live in LA and you want to know what's happening locally, you don't actually need to install anything.
Crime Tab is a Progressive Web App. Open it in Safari or Chrome, then add to home screen. You get:
- Six LA agency feeds (Citizen gives you two)
- Zero install footprint
- Zero account, zero email, zero SMS verification
- Zero battery drain when not open
- Zero subscription
The trade-off: no push alerts unless you've opened the page recently in your session. For most LA residents that's a fair trade — you don't need a 24/7 firehose, you need a tool to check during a specific event ("is the freeway open?" "is there a fire near my house?").
Citizen is fine if you live in a city we don't cover, or if you specifically want live broadcast video. For LA residents who just want incident awareness, the tab in your browser is the smarter setup in 2026. It costs less, drains nothing, and won't put a yellow shield notification on your lock screen at 2 AM about a "suspicious vehicle" three blocks away.