Privacy policy
Dearly privacy policy
Dearly ("we", "the app") is a voice journaling app by Swapnil Tiwari (contact: swapniltiwari775@gmail.com). Your journal is deeply personal; this policy says plainly what we collect, where it goes, and how to erase it.
What we collect
- Account: your name, email, and photo, via Google Sign-In or Sign in with Apple (Firebase Authentication) — to create and secure your account. If you use Sign in with Apple you control what we receive: choosing Hide My Email gives us a private relay address instead of your real one, and Apple may withhold your name and photo. Dearly works exactly the same either way.
- Voice recordings: stored only on your device. We never upload or keep your audio on our servers. To transcribe an entry, the audio is sent over an encrypted connection to Google's Gemini API, transcribed, and not stored by us.
- Journal content: your transcripts, edits, moods, notes, and the AI-derived people/places/topics and feelings from your entries are stored in your private space in Google Cloud Firestore, so your journal syncs and restores.
- Subscription status: payments are processed by Google Play (on Android) or Apple's App Store (on iOS) — we never see your payment details. Your subscription status (active/expired, plan) is managed for us by RevenueCat, our subscription processor, using a pseudonymous app user id.
- App usage & crash data: lean, privacy-first analytics and crash reports (see below). We run no advertising and no ad tracking — the advertising ID is disabled.
- Your answer to one question: once, after you've journaled for a while, Dearly asks "What would you most want from Dearly?" You can skip it. If you answer, we save the option you picked, anything you chose to write with it (up to 500 characters; a few words are needed if you pick "Something else"), when you sent it, whether you use iOS or Android, and your app language. It is saved with your account and used only to decide what we build. It is never shared, never used for advertising or tracking, and never sent to Gemini or any other AI model. Your journal entries are never attached to it.
AI processing
Transcription and reflection features are powered by Google's Gemini API, where Google acts as our processor. Your audio is sent there to be transcribed, and entries you analyze are sent there as text.
Your content is not used to train anyone's AI models. We use the paid tier of the Gemini API, under which Google does not use content submitted through it to train or improve its models. We do not train models on your journal either, and we do not sell or share your content for anyone else to train on. Temporary server-side caches that make retries cheaper are removed when you delete your account.
Analytics and crash reporting
To learn which core features are used and to fix crashes, we use Firebase Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics (Google acts as our processor). These collect app-usage events (such as screens opened and features tapped), a pseudonymous app-instance identifier, and crash and diagnostic logs. We keep this deliberately lean: the advertising ID is turned off, ad-personalization signals are disabled, and this data is not linked to your account or identity. Your journal content — transcripts, audio, moods, and notes — is never included in any analytics event or crash report.
For the one-time question about what we should build, analytics counts when it is shown, answered, or closed, which option was picked, and whether anything was written with it. What you wrote is never included, and neither is its length.
This website
dearlyjournal.com uses Google Analytics 4 (Google acts as our processor) to count visits and learn which pages and guides are read and which store buttons are tapped. It records the pages you view, roughly how far you read a guide, which questions you open, your approximate region, device and browser, and a random identifier stored in a cookie. Google signals and ad personalization are turned off, and nothing on this site is used for advertising. If you visit from the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, no analytics cookie is set and Google receives only anonymous, cookieless counts. This website never sees your journal, and nothing you do here is linked to your Dearly account.
Sensitive content
A journal can contain anything — including health, beliefs, or relationships. We treat all journal content as sensitive: it is never sold, never shared with third parties beyond the processors named above (Google Firebase, Google Gemini API, RevenueCat for subscription status), and never used for advertising. Your journal content is never shared with RevenueCat — it only ever sees subscription state.
Security and access
Data in transit is encrypted (TLS). Your Firestore space is protected by per-user security rules — only your signed-in account can read it. You can additionally lock the app behind your device biometrics (Face ID or fingerprint).
Retention and deletion
Your data stays until you delete it. Settings → Delete account permanently removes your Firestore data, your account, and all local data (database and audio recordings) from the device. This includes your answer to the one-time question about what we should build. Individual entries can be deleted anytime. See how to delete your account (including if you've uninstalled the app). For common questions, visit dearly faq.
Legal bases (EEA/UK)
Performance of contract (providing the journal), consent (AI analysis of your entries; revocable by not using analysis or deleting your account), consent (your answer to the one-time question about what we should build, which is optional and deleted with your account), and legitimate interest (abuse-prevention rate limits).
Children
Dearly is not directed at children under 13 (or the applicable age in your country) and we do not knowingly collect their data.
Changes
We will update this page and the date above if our practices change.