Your library stays on your devices
Stashtela keeps the links you save on your device, with their titles, descriptions, preview pictures, notes, likes, and tags, along with your projects and settings. The app and its Share extension store this in a space only they can reach. Tagging, themes, picture analysis, and finding related links all happen on your device. We don’t run any server, so none of this is ever sent to us.
iCloud and shared projects
If iCloud Sync is on (it is by default) and you’re signed in to iCloud, your library syncs through Apple’s CloudKit to your private iCloud database, which we can’t access. You can turn it off in Settings → iCloud Sync. If you share a project, it is shared through CloudKit: the people you invite see its links and the name shown next to the links each person adds, and Apple’s sharing screen shows who has joined. Apple provides iCloud under its own terms and privacy policy.
Previews, videos, and imports
To show a preview, Stashtela contacts the site a link points to (for example YouTube, Instagram, or X) and the services that site uses to deliver pictures and video. Playing a video or post inside the app loads that site’s own player. As with any website visit, these sites receive your IP address and the address requested, and their players may set cookies. Their own privacy policies apply.
Files you import, such as Instagram’s download of your saved posts or a list of links, are read on your device; you request Instagram’s file on Instagram’s own site. To import X bookmarks, you sign in on X’s own page inside Stashtela, so your password goes only to X. That sign-in is kept in separate browser storage used only for importing, and Sign Out of X on the import screen erases it. After an import, Stashtela fetches previews for the new links as described above.
The Table and cards
The Table stays off until you turn it on in Settings → Table, which asks for local network access. While it’s on and Stashtela is open, your phone lets nearby phones know that Stashtela is open, without your name or anything from your library. When you open the Table, nearby phones can see the name you show there, a random identifier, and how many links you have. When you bring your library or some projects, the titles, links, tags, similarity data, and small thumbnails of what you brought go to the others at the table over a direct, encrypted connection; a full-size picture is sent only when someone takes that link. Anyone at the table can keep a link or a card of what you brought, and you can’t take those copies back after you leave. If you use Share My Card, the file you send holds the same information for the links on it.
The feedback form
Settings → Feedback is the way to reach us, and nothing goes until you tap Send. What goes is the words you typed, which of the three kinds of message you picked, the app’s version, and the language it’s in. Nothing else: no name, no account, no identifier, and nothing about your links or your library.
It doesn’t go through Mail, which would send it from your own address and doesn’t work on a phone with no mail account. The app hands the message to Formspree, a form service that turns it into an email to us and keeps a copy in our Formspree account. If you’d like a reply, there’s a field for an email address, and it’s the only way we would have one; leave it empty and the message arrives with no way back to you.
Purchases
Apple handles all payments for Stashtela Unlimited. The app checks with Apple what you’ve bought and remembers your plan on your device. We never see your payment details. You can manage or cancel a subscription in your Apple Account settings; deleting the app doesn’t cancel it.
Tracking, diagnostics, and this website
Stashtela has no ads, analytics, or tracking, and we don’t sell or share your information. Like most apps, it writes technical messages to your device’s system log, which can include the addresses and titles of links you save; they stay on your device unless you choose to share diagnostics, for example with Apple. If you allow sharing with app developers in iOS Settings, Apple may share crash reports and usage statistics with us in a form that doesn’t identify you.
This website uses no cookies, analytics, or trackers, and stores nothing in your browser; the language you pick is part of the page address. It is hosted on GitHub Pages, and GitHub receives visitors’ IP addresses and browser details to deliver the site and keep it secure.
Keeping and deleting your data
Your library stays on your device until you delete it or delete the app. Delete links one at a time, or use Settings → Delete All Links to remove every link and project; with iCloud Sync on, deletions reach your other devices once they’re online. Turning sync off or deleting the app doesn’t remove what’s already in iCloud; to erase it, use Delete All Links while sync is on, or manage Stashtela’s storage in your iCloud settings. Your library also stays in your device backups until those are replaced.
Some copies live elsewhere: backup files you export, cards you keep (remove them from Kept Cards), shared projects, and anything other people keep from the Table. Delete exported files wherever you saved them; other people control their own copies. You can turn off the Table, iCloud Sync, and tagging (Settings → Intelligence) at any time, remove local network access in the iOS Settings app, and sign out of X on the import screen.
Your rights and contacting us
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or take a copy of your personal data, or to object to certain uses of it. Because your library lives on your devices and in your own iCloud, we don’t hold a copy of it; the app’s editing, deleting, and backup tools let you do these things yourself. To ask us anything, including about a message you sent, write to us from Settings → Feedback and leave an address for the reply. We use what you send only to answer it, and keep it only as long as that takes or the law requires.
Changes to this policy
If the way Stashtela handles information changes, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. Important changes will also be mentioned in the app when it makes sense.