Privacy

Where your data lives

This page describes what the app actually does: what it keeps on your device, what it sends out, and when. It covers the iPhone, iPad and Android apps; where they differ, it says so.

Last updated: October 27, 2026

What stays on your device

Your notebooks, handwriting, text boxes, PDFs, lecture recordings, question cards and study history are first written to a local database and file storage on your device. The whole app works without an account. In that case no note content leaves your device.

When you create an account

When you sign in with Apple, Google or Microsoft, or with your school email, our server stores only your email address and a user ID that belongs to you. For provider sign-ins we read the address from the identity token signed by the provider; your password never reaches us and is never stored.

The session token is kept in the Keychain on iPhone and iPad, and on Android encrypted with an Android Keystore key that never leaves the device. The server stores only a digest (hash) of the token; sessions that go unused for 90 days end on their own.

Sync

Syncing across devices works only with a Pro subscription and after you link an account. When it is on, your note content and attached files are written to the server so they can be downloaded to your other device. On the free plan nothing is written to the cloud; content stays on the device and can be exported.

AI features

The first time you use an AI feature, the app asks for your permission. When you generate a summary, questions, question cards or a quiz, only the text of the source you selected (including PDF text, OCR text and audio transcripts) is sent over an encrypted connection to the StudyNotes server, and from there to an AI service provider outside Türkiye that generates the response. Only the text needed to generate the response is shared with this provider; your name and email address are not. If the provider changes, the app asks for your permission again before you use AI. Our server does not keep this text beyond generating the response; we only count how many AI runs you make, for the free trial runs and Pro's monthly allowance. We also keep daily totals (for example how many accounts were created and how many AI runs were made that day); these totals contain no person, email address or device. The provider's own retention rules apply. If you never use the AI features, your note text is never sent anywhere this way. You can withdraw your permission under Settings & plan > Privacy & data.

OCR and audio transcription

On iPhone and iPad, text recognition (OCR) for PDFs and handwriting is done on your device with Apple's Vision framework; images do not leave the device.

On Android, handwriting is read on your device by Google's ML Kit Digital Ink recognizer, and PDF text is extracted on the device by Android's own PDF reader. The recognition model is downloaded from Google once, on first use. ML Kit may contact Google for bug fixes and model updates and sends metrics about the recognizer's performance and use; your handwriting and pages are not sent.

Lecture recording asks for microphone permission; audio is written only to your device, does not sync and never goes to the server. On Android, recording runs with a notification so it keeps going with the screen off; the Android app does not transcribe recordings.

On iPhone and iPad, audio transcription uses Apple's speech recognition service and is configured to allow off-device recognition: your audio recording may be sent to Apple for processing. How Apple handles this data is governed by Apple's own privacy policy.

Purchases

Subscriptions go through the App Store on iPhone and iPad and through Google Play on Android. We do not see or store your payment details. So that the subscription can be linked to your account, on the App Store we store the product name, transaction ID and expiry date from the transaction record signed by Apple. On Google Play the app adds your user ID to the purchase; our server has Google verify the purchase token and stores the product name, the token and the expiry date. Google tells our server when the subscription renews or is cancelled.

Deletion

You can delete your cloud account in the app under Settings & plan > Privacy & data > Delete account. Your notes, files, sync history, subscription record and AI usage counter on the server are deleted immediately; your email address is removed from the account. Server backups are taken every day, also copied to an object store outside the server's disk, and deleted from both the local disk and the object store after 14 days. Deleted data therefore also drops out of the backups within 14 days at most. Because your subscription runs on Apple's side (App Store) or Google's side (Google Play), it must be cancelled separately in your App Store account settings or under Subscriptions in Google Play. You can remove the local data on your device under Settings & plan > Privacy & data or by deleting the app. You can make an encrypted full backup before deleting.

Android home screen widget

If you add the widget, the name and page count of your last notebook and the number of cards due today appear on your home screen. This information does not leave your device.

Retention periods

Sign-in codes are valid for 15 minutes and are deleted within a day. Export archives you download from the server are deleted after 24 hours. Unfinished file uploads are cleaned up after 24 hours.

Contact

For privacy questions and deletion requests, write to [email protected]. For more help, see the Support page.