What you write stays on your phone.

No sign-up, no account. Nothing you write passes through a server of ours, so we can’t read a single word of it — even if we wanted to.

Where your things go

Your iPhone and iPad Entries, photos, to-dos, goals, people and dates live here. Works offline.
only if you turn on sync
Your own iCloud Syncs between your devices on your Apple ID, kept by Apple.
no way through
Us No accounts, no analytics, no ads. Your content can’t reach us.

No account: No phone number, no email. Open it and write. No profiles, friends or likes either.
No tracking: No analytics, ads, crash reporting or AI services. We don’t know how often you open it, and don’t want to.
Sync through your own iCloud: Off by default. When it’s on, your data sits in your private iCloud database, where we can’t read or keep it.
Period data stays in Apple Health: Off by default. When it’s on, dates are written only to Apple Health — never to Trace’s database, sync or backups.
Take it or clear it: Export a full backup from “Data & Privacy”, or wipe everything at once. The backup file isn’t separately encrypted, so keep it somewhere safe.
Lock it: Turn on “App Lock” to require Face ID or Touch ID, with a 6-digit backup code.

Each one is asked only when you use that feature. Say no and everything else still works; change your mind any time in Settings → Trace.

Photos: Adding photos, videos and Live Photos to entries, setting avatars, saving share cards and cut-outs. Entries keep a copy; your originals stay in Photos.
Camera: When you choose to take a photo or video for an entry or avatar.
Microphone and speech: Dictation turns speech into text and doesn’t keep the audio. Tap “Record” and that clip is saved to the entry.
Location (while using): Once, when you tap “Use current location” on an entry. Never in the background.
Notifications: Reminders for writing, to-dos, goals, dates and keeping in touch, all scheduled on your device.
Calendars and Reminders: After you turn on “System sync”: important dates go to Calendar, to-dos and goals sync with Reminders. Trace only changes items it created.
Face ID / Touch ID: Only with App Lock on. iOS does the check; Trace never touches your face or fingerprint data.
Apple Health: Only after you turn on period tracking, and only period dates. No other health data.

Never asked for: contacts, background location, background microphone.

Apple’s services: iCloud when sync is on, the App Store for Pro, Maps and place search, an update check — and Apple’s speech recognition when your phone can’t transcribe on its own.
Pages on this website, when you tap a link to them in the app.
This website, if you tap Restore Purchases and your phone can’t find what you bought: the app sends the App Store’s purchase credential for this device, and the site asks Apple once for your purchase history. Nothing is kept, and none of your writing is sent.
Nothing else. The only third-party code is ZIPFoundation, which packs backups on your phone, and Siren, which asks Apple about new versions without sending any of your content.