Quillow — Privacy Policy

Effective October 26, 2026 · Applies to Quillow for iOS and macOS

The short version: Quillow is a private diary, and it behaves like one. Your entries, photos, videos, voice notes, drawings, moods and places stay on your device. We run no servers, show no ads and use no trackers. Quillow reads your location only when you ask it to, once. If — and only if — you say yes, Quillow sends an anonymous daily count of which features and themes are used, to help make it better. We — the developer — cannot read your diary. Ever.

What we collect

Nothing from your diary, ever. Quillow has no accounts, no sign-up, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. The only thing Quillow can send is anonymous usage statistics, and only if you agree. Nothing you write or add to your diary is ever transmitted to the developer or to any server we operate (we don’t operate any).

Where your diary lives

Everything you put into Quillow — text and its formatting, photos, videos, video notes, voice notes, songs of the day, drawings, moods, places, trips, time capsules, notebooks, to-dos, wishes and your cards of films, books and people — is stored locally on your device, inside the app’s private storage.

iCloud sync (optional, off by default)

If you turn on iCloud sync in Settings, your diary is synchronized between your own devices through your personal, private iCloud database (Apple CloudKit). This data is tied to your Apple Account, encrypted in transit and at rest by Apple, and accessible only to you. The developer has no access to it. Turning sync off stops synchronization; your data remains on your devices. iCloud storage is governed by Apple’s privacy terms.

The diary lock

You can lock Quillow with Face ID / Touch ID / your device passcode (handled entirely by the system — Quillow never sees your biometrics), or with a Quillow passcode of your own. The Quillow passcode, its recovery code and the optional secret question answer are stored only as salted cryptographic hashes in your device’s Keychain. They never leave your device, and there is no way for the developer to see or reset them.

Backups

Backups exist only where you put them. The daily automatic safety copy is written inside the app’s own storage on your device. Exported backup files are created only when you choose “Export”, and go only to the location you pick. Quillow never uploads backups anywhere.

An exported backup is an ordinary .zip archive: your writing in a readable diary.json, and your photos, voice notes, videos and drawings as plain files beside it. You can open it on any computer, with or without this app.

Places and the map

The world map is drawn from data built into the app — no map service is contacted to show it. Quillow reads your location only when you tap “I’m here” on a place’s card: once, with your permission, never in the background. Otherwise you choose each place yourself.

When you search for a city or a spot, the words you type are sent to Apple Maps (MapKit) to find it. When you choose a spot, its coordinates are sent once to Apple to name its town; when you pin a spot by hand, the map of that area comes from Apple Maps. If a cover photo carries the place it was taken, Quillow offers it — it never sets it by itself. Nothing else is sent — no diary content. Countries, and the places already on your map, are found on your device without any request.

Music features (optional)

Some optional features talk to music services, only when you use them:

None of these requests ever contain your diary content.

Anonymous statistics (optional, off unless you agree)

On iPhone, Quillow may ask once whether you’d like to help improve it. Only if you choose Yes, it sends one anonymous summary a day to TelemetryDeck (TelemetryDeck GmbH, Germany), a privacy-focused analytics service hosted in the EU.

What the summary contains:

What it never contains: your entries or any of their text, titles, names, people, places, photos, recordings, dates of entries, or anything else you write or add.

How it stays anonymous: each installation is identified only by a random number that is hashed twice — on your device with our own salt, then on TelemetryDeck’s server with theirs — so neither we nor TelemetryDeck can tell who you are. TelemetryDeck doesn’t store IP addresses.

Why: to see which parts of Quillow people actually use, so we can improve them. Never for advertising or tracking, and never combined with other data.

Legal basis: your consent. You can change your mind at any time in Settings → Anonymous statistics; switching it off stops all counting and sending immediately. Until you say yes, nothing is counted or sent.

How long: TelemetryDeck keeps the anonymous data for analysis; it can’t be linked back to you. See TelemetryDeck’s privacy policy.

Checking for updates

About once a day Quillow reads a single public notice from Apple’s CloudKit to learn whether an update is needed. It sends nothing about you or your diary, and needs no iCloud account.

The example diary

The example diary is built into the app: its words, photos and music ship with Quillow. Looking through it saves nothing and sends nothing. Its music is used under the Pixabay Content License.

Quillow Plus

Purchases and subscriptions are handled entirely by Apple through the App Store. Quillow learns only whether Plus is active on your Apple Account — never your name, your payment details or your Apple Account itself. Subscriptions are managed and cancelled in your Apple Account settings.

Writing to the developer

If you use “Write to me” in Settings, your own mail app opens a new message that contains only Quillow’s version and your system version. Nothing is sent unless you send it yourself, and what you write is up to you.

Device permissions Quillow may ask for

Every permission is optional and requested only when you use the corresponding feature.

Children

Quillow is not directed at children under 13 and collects no personal data from anyone, including children.

Your rights

Because your data never reaches us, it never leaves your control: to view it, open the app; to export it, use Backup; to delete it, delete entries or the app itself (and, if you used iCloud sync, remove the app’s iCloud data in your device’s settings). There is nothing for us to hand over, correct or erase — we hold nothing. Anonymous statistics, if you allowed them, can’t be linked to you, so there is nothing to look up for you; switching them off in Settings stops them at once.

Changes to this policy

If Quillow’s behavior ever changes in a way that affects privacy, this page will be updated first, with the effective date above, and noted in the app’s release notes.

Contact

Questions? Write to denell.dev@gmail.com.