Privacy Policy

Effective October 2, 2026

Tastebuds is a dining journal for iPhone, made by Jeremy Butler (“we”). This policy explains what the app does with your information. The short version: what you log stays on your iPhone and in your own iCloud. We don’t run servers that store your data, we don’t have accounts, and we don’t use advertising or tracking. The app sends anonymous usage counts, which you can turn off.

At a glance

No account, no sign-up, no email address required.
Your meals, photos, notes and people are stored on your iPhone and, if you use iCloud, in your private iCloud database.
We can’t see your data, and we don’t sell or share it with anyone.
No ads and no tracking across apps or websites.
Anonymous usage counts, like how many meals are started, help us improve the app. They never include your meals, places, people or location, and you can turn them off.
Menu reading and suggestions run on your iPhone.

Information you add

You log restaurants, meals, dishes, drinks, verdicts, notes, photos, plans, prices you choose to record, the people you ate with, and optional details about yourself and your friends such as allergies, diets and favorites. This information is stored in a database on your iPhone.

If iCloud is turned on for Tastebuds, it’s also kept in your private iCloud database so it syncs to your other devices. That storage is provided by Apple under Apple’s Privacy Policy, and we have no access to it.

Permissions the app asks for

Each of these is optional. You can change them at any time in the Settings app.

Camera — to photograph menus, dishes and drinks.
Photos — only if you turn on Find meals in photos. The app looks at about the last week of photos, on your iPhone, for meals you haven’t logged. Where a photo was taken is looked up on Apple Maps to name the restaurant. Only the photos you choose to log are copied into Tastebuds.
Location — while you use the app, to suggest the restaurant you’re at. Places are searched with Apple Maps.
Contacts — to fill in a friend’s name and photo when you add them. Contact details stay on your iPhone.
Calendar — to add a dinner plan to your calendar when you ask to.
Notifications — to remind you to start your meal when a planned dinner comes around. They’re scheduled on your iPhone.
Local Network and Nearby Interaction — to find friends with Tastebuds open nearby and link up when you bring your iPhones together.

Restaurant menus from the web

When you ask Tastebuds to find a restaurant’s menu, your iPhone fetches that restaurant’s public web pages directly, without cookies. Like any website visit, the restaurant’s website can see your IP address. Nothing about you or your meals is sent with the request.

On-device intelligence

Reading menus, Ask, and suggestions use Apple Intelligence on your iPhone where it’s available. Your meals aren’t sent to us or to any other service to answer.

Linking up with friends

Linking up is optional and happens only when you and a friend both agree.

Before you agree, a nearby phone sees only your first name and photo, sent over an encrypted connection.
After you link, your friend sees what you choose under Sharing in the app: your preferences (such as allergies and favorites), what you ordered at meals you ate together, your favorite dishes, and your want-to-try list. You can share as little as your name and photo.
Your spending, notes and photos are never shared.
To keep it current, what you share is stored in your iCloud and shared through Apple’s CloudKit only with the people you’ve linked. What you receive from friends is kept on your iPhone, separate from your own meals.
When you unlink, what you shared with that person is deleted, and you stop receiving theirs.

Invite links

If you invite someone by link, the link contains a random code and your first name, so the message preview can say who it’s from. Opening it loads a page on gettastebuds.app, which shows your first name and stores nothing. The invite itself is kept in your iCloud and expires after a week, or the day after the dinner for a plan.

Purchases

Tastebuds Pro is sold through the App Store. Apple handles payment, and we never see your payment details. To check whether your subscription is active, the app uses RevenueCat, which receives an anonymous ID created for the app and your App Store purchase records. It doesn’t receive your name, email or meals.

Anonymous usage analytics

To learn which features are used and where people get stuck, the app sends anonymous usage events to TelemetryDeck, an analytics service designed for privacy. An event is a fixed name with a few fixed details, for example “a meal was started from a plan” or “a menu was read, with 11 or more dishes”.

Events never include your name, your meals, dishes, notes or photos, the restaurants you visit, the people you eat with, what you ask, or your location.
They include basic app and device information, such as the app version, iPhone model, iOS version, language and region, and whether you have Tastebuds Pro.
To count how many people use the app without identifying anyone, your iPhone creates a random code from an ID Apple gives each app, and scrambles it before sending; TelemetryDeck scrambles it again. It can’t be used to identify you or to follow you across other apps.
This data isn’t linked to you, isn’t used for advertising, and isn’t shared with anyone else.
Turn off Share anonymous usage in Me and the app stops sending events.

Our website

gettastebuds.app is hosted by Cloudflare, which processes requests to deliver the site and protect it from abuse. We don’t use analytics, cookies or tracking on the site.

Siri, Shortcuts and Spotlight

If you use them, Tastebuds makes restaurants and meals available to Siri, Shortcuts and Spotlight. That indexing happens on your iPhone and is managed by iOS.

Keeping, exporting and deleting your data

You can export your meals from Me → Export my meals. (Tap your photo at the top of Tastebuds to open Me.)
You can delete any meal, place, plan or person in the app. With iCloud on, the deletion syncs to your iCloud and other devices.
Deleting the app removes its data from that iPhone. To remove your data from iCloud as well, delete it in the app first while iCloud is on.
Unlink a friend from Me → Sharing, or from their page, to stop sharing with them.

Because we don’t hold your data, we can’t view, export or delete it for you. If you have a question, we’re happy to help.

Children

Tastebuds isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them.

Changes to this policy

If the app’s handling of your information changes, we’ll update this page and the date above. Significant changes will also be noted in the app’s release notes.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Email tastebudssupport@icloud.com.