ThroughlinePrivacy Policy
Effective date: June 11, 2026
Throughline (“Throughline”, “we”, “us”) is operated by Forked Software. This policy explains what we collect, why, who else touches it, and the choices you have.
- Your notes live on your device. By default, everything you capture stays in the app on your phone. We can’t see it.
- Voice is transcribed on your device. When you talk, the speech-to-text happens on your iPhone. The audio recording is never uploaded.
- Cloud features are opt-in and clearly labelled. A few features (emailed digests, smart resurfacing, and cloud capture) send some data off your device. Each is off by default, asks for your consent first, and names exactly where the data goes.
- We don’t track you, run ads, or sell your data. There are no advertising or analytics SDKs in the app, and we don’t use the Advertising Identifier (IDFA).
What we collect, and why
1. Account information (when you sign in). We use Sign in with Apple. When you sign in we receive and store, on our backend:
- a Sign-in-with-Apple identifier for you (Apple’s “user identifier”);
- your email address (this may be an Apple “Hide My Email” private-relay address), used to send digests you’ve turned on and for account-related messages;
- your timezone and digest preferences (so a digest arrives at the right local time);
- a record that you consented to a cloud feature, and when.
2. Your content (notes / “threads”). Captured notes are stored on your device. They only leave the device if you turn on one of the opt-in cloud features below — and then only the specific data that feature needs.
3. Opt-in cloud features.
- Emailed digests — when enabled, your phone renders the digest email and sends the finished message to our backend, which delivers it to your email via Amazon SES. The server stores the latest rendered digest so it can be sent.
- Smart resurfacing — when enabled, a minimal summary of your open notes (their titles only — never the original words) is sent to our backend, which asks Anthropic’s Claude to pick what to surface.
- Cloud capture — used only on devices that can’t run on-device AI, and only if you turn it on. When enabled, the text you captured is sent to our backend, which uses Anthropic’s Claude to organize it into notes. We log only the size of the request, never its contents.
4. Calendar (optional, on-device only). If you turn on calendar features, Throughline uses your device’s calendar to add appointments you capture and to show upcoming events. This happens entirely on your device through Apple’s Calendar (including any Google or other account you’ve added there). Your calendar data is never sent to our servers. You can revoke calendar access anytime in iOS Settings → Privacy → Calendars.
What we do not do
- No advertising, no ad SDKs, no IDFA / cross-app tracking.
- No third-party analytics or crash-reporting SDKs.
- We do not sell or rent your personal information.
Who else processes your data (subprocessors)
We use a small number of service providers that process data on our behalf, not for their own purposes:
| Provider | What they do | Data involved |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic (Claude API) | Organizes captures / picks what to resurface | Note titles; full transcript only for cloud capture |
| Amazon Web Services (SES) | Delivers digest emails (region us-east-2) | Your email address + the rendered digest |
| Cloudflare | Network routing / DNS / site hosting | Standard request metadata (e.g. IP) |
| Akamai (Linode) | Hosts our backend server | Account + cloud-feature data above |
How long we keep it (retention)
- On-device notes stay until you delete them or remove the app.
- Backend data (account + cloud-feature data) is kept while your account is active. When you delete your account we delete it from our database immediately; backups are purged within 30 days.
Your choices and rights
- Delete your account anytime in the app: You tab → Delete account. This removes your account and associated data from our backend (sign-in, email, stored digests, tokens). Your on-device notes stay on your device until you remove them.
- Turn cloud features off anytime in the You tab — capture then stays fully on-device.
- Depending on where you live (e.g. EU/UK under GDPR, California under CCPA/CPRA), you may have rights to access, correct, export, or delete your personal data, and to object to certain processing. To exercise these, email hello@throughlineproductivity.com. We do not “sell” or “share” personal information as those terms are defined under CCPA/CPRA.
Security
Notes are stored on your device. Backend data is transmitted over HTTPS and stored on access-controlled infrastructure. Passwords are not used (we rely on Sign in with Apple); session tokens are stored in the iOS Keychain on your device and as one-way hashes on our server. No method is perfectly secure, but we keep the data we hold minimal by design.
Children
Throughline is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age in your country), and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has provided us data, email hello@throughlineproductivity.com and we’ll delete it.
Changes
We may update this policy; we’ll change the effective date above and, for material changes, note it in the app or by email.
Governing law
This policy is governed by the laws of the State of Missouri, United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules.
Contact
Questions or requests: hello@throughlineproductivity.com.