Privacy Policy
Effective 6 October 2026
The short version: Glade has no server. Your groves live on your devices and in your own iCloud account. We cannot see them.
What we collect
Nothing, unless you publish or report a grove in Discover.
Glade has no analytics, no crash-reporting service that receives your content, no advertising, and no tracking of any kind. There is no Glade server for your data to be sent to.
The exceptions are a grove you deliberately publish to Discover, and a report you file about someone else's. Both are described under Groves you publish below. Nothing is published unless you turn it on for that grove.
What stays on your device
Everything you put into Glade:
- The links, notes, images, files and highlights you save
- The groves you organise them into, and their names and colours
- Your tags
- Your app settings — theme, sync preference, default grove
- Your profile name, handle, bio and chosen avatar
This is stored in Glade's own folder inside your device's application support directory, and in the media folder alongside it.
What syncs through iCloud
If you turn on iCloud sync in Settings, your groves, cards and their media are synced through your own iCloud account, using Apple's CloudKit in a private database.
This means:
- The data is stored under your Apple ID, in space that counts against your iCloud storage.
- It is governed by Apple's privacy policy.
- We have no access to it. There is no administrative view, no support tool, and no mechanism by which we could read it.
You can turn sync off at any time in Settings, and Glade will keep everything on the device only.
Sharing a grove
When you share a grove, Apple's CloudKit hosts the invitation link and enforces each person's permission. The people you invite can see everything in that grove, and anything you add to it later.
- Only people you invite can open the link.
- You choose, per person, whether they can edit or only look.
- You can remove someone, or stop sharing entirely, at any time. Their copy loses access.
- Nothing outside that grove is shared with them. Sharing a grove never publishes it to Discover.
We are not a party to the share. It runs between your iCloud account and theirs.
Signing in
Glade uses Sign in with Apple or Sign in with Google, or you can continue as a guest with no account at all. Glade never asks for, receives, or stores a password.
- The provider gives Glade an identifier that is unique to Glade — it cannot be used to identify you to anyone else.
- If you chose to hide your email with Apple, Glade only ever sees Apple's relay address.
- The identifier is stored in your device's Keychain, marked so that it is never included in a backup and never synced to another device.
- Only an Apple account can use iCloud sync and sharing, because those run on iCloud. A Google account works fully, but on that device only.
- As a guest, everything stays on that device: no sync, no sharing and no publishing. If you sign in later, your guest groves move to that account.
You can revoke Glade's access at any time in your Apple ID or Google account settings. Glade checks each time it opens and signs you out if you have.
Links you save
When you save a link, Glade requests that page directly from the site in order to read its title, description, picture and, for a wish, its price.
- The request goes to that website, not to us.
- The website will see it, as it would any visit.
- Nothing about the request is recorded or transmitted anywhere else.
Searching for films, books and podcasts
When you search for something to put on your shelf, the words you type are sent to the service that knows about it: The Movie Database (TMDB) for films and series, Google Books or Open Library for books, and Apple Podcasts for podcasts. Each sees the search and your IP address, as it would for any visitor, under its own privacy policy. Nothing identifying you is sent with it, and none of it reaches us.
Files you add
Files and images you add are copied into Glade's own folder so they stay with your cards. Glade reads only the files you explicitly choose or drag in — it never browses your photo library or your disk on its own.
Purchases
Glade Pro is sold through the App Store. Apple is the merchant: Apple takes the payment, holds your payment method, and issues the receipt. Glade never sees your card details, and cannot issue its own invoice for an App Store purchase.
The app reads from the App Store only what you own, so it knows whether to lift the free-plan limits.
Crash reports
Glade uses Apple's MetricKit, which delivers crash and hang reports to the app on your device. They are kept locally and shown to you under Help → Report a Problem.
Nothing is transmitted unless you choose to send it. If you do, it opens an email you can read and edit first. The report contains app version, system version, and Glade's own recent log lines — never the content of your cards.
Deleting your data
Settings → Your data → Delete account erases, on that device:
- Every grove, card and trashed item
- Every file and image you added
- Every setting and preference
- Your stored sign-in
and deletes your Glade data from your iCloud account.
This is immediate and cannot be undone. Export first if you want a copy — Settings → Your data → Export your data writes everything to a file you choose.
Children
Glade is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect information from children.
Groves you publish
One thing leaves your own iCloud, and only if you send it: a grove you publish to Discover. Everything else stays exactly as described above.
Publishing is off for every grove until you turn it on for that grove, one at a time. When you do, a snapshot is copied to the public part of Glade's iCloud container, where anyone using Glade can read it. That snapshot holds:
- the grove's name, colour and the topic you filed it under
- the title, site and link of up to 60 of its saves
- the display name on your Glade profile
It does not hold your files, your images, your private notes on a card, your email address, or your Apple ID. Those never leave your own iCloud.
A published grove is a snapshot, not a window: editing the grove afterwards does not change what other people see until you choose to update it.
Turning publishing off deletes the public copy, along with any sunlight it was given. We keep no separate copy of it.
Sunlight is stored as one record per person per grove, holding an iCloud user identifier that is specific to Glade's container — it is not an Apple ID, not an email address, and cannot be used to identify anyone outside Glade.
If you report a grove, we receive what you reported, why, and an identifier for you so we can follow up. Blocking someone is stored only on your device.
Changes
If this policy changes, the effective date above changes with it, and the current version is always at tryglade.app/privacy.
Contact
Questions about privacy: [email protected]