Privacy policy

Last updated: November 12, 2026. This policy covers the Thought Vault app for iPhone and Android, the web page your family uses to open the stories you send them, and this website.

The short version

• Your stories are yours. We keep them so they can reach the people you choose, when you choose, including after you're gone.
• We never sell your information, and we never use your stories for advertising.
• We delete your stories and your account when you ask. Nobody else can ask us to.
• Stories you mark "Keep private forever" stay private forever. We keep them, we don't share them, and your family helpers can't see them.
• We don't use your stories to train AI.

Who we are

Thought Vault is made by Appvanta Labs LLC ("we", "us" or "our"). For questions about your privacy, write to legal@appvantalabs.com. For help with the app, write to support@appvantalabs.com.

What we collect, and why

What you put in the app. Your recordings (voice and video), photos, written answers, the songs you pick, and the titles you give your stories. Transcripts of your recordings, and any changes you make to them. The people you add: their name, how they're related to you, their email address and, if you add it, their birthday (month and day). What you schedule for them. If you make a book, its settings, the PDF we make of it, and its Code PIN if you set one. We keep these to run Thought Vault: to store your stories, back them up and deliver them as you set up.

Your account. Your name, email address and how you sign in (Apple, Google or a code we email you). If you give it, your birth year, which we use only to choose questions that fit the times you lived through. The time of day you'd like your question, and your time zone.

Your phone's permissions. Thought Vault asks before it uses your microphone, camera, photos or contacts, and uses them only when you're recording, adding a photo or choosing a person to add. When you pick someone from your contacts, we save only the details of the person you picked, never your whole address book. Daily question reminders are set on your phone.

Family helpers. If you invite a family helper, we keep who they are, what you've allowed them to do, and a history of what they did in your vault, which you can see.

People you share stories with. They don't need an account. When someone opens a story you sent, we record that it was opened, played or downloaded, so you can see it arrived. We keep the internet address a link was first opened from, to help spot misuse. We remember their device with a cookie for up to about 13 months so they don't need a password each time, and we email them a code if they open their stories on a new device. If they send you a note or a voice note back, we keep it in your vault. We don't track them across other websites.

Subscription. The App Store or Google Play takes payment. We receive the subscription's status (for example active or ended, and which plan) from them through RevenueCat. We never see card numbers or bank details.

How the app is used. Simple counts of how features are used, for example that a story was saved or shared. These never include what your stories say, their titles, or anyone's name or contact details. We keep them in our own database and don't share them with analytics or advertising companies.

Song search. When you search for a song, your search words go to Apple Music to find matches. We don't keep your searches. We store the song's name, artist and a link to it, never the music itself.

This website. It doesn't use cookies, ads or tracking. Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, such as internet address and browser type, to keep the site running and secure.

How we use AI

We turn your recordings into words so you can read and search them. When your phone is online, this runs on Cloudflare Workers AI using a speech model called Whisper. When your phone is offline, your phone does it on the device. It happens once per recording, and you can fix any word.

We also use AI language models on Cloudflare Workers AI for a few small jobs, always working from your own words and never changing them: adding punctuation once to words your phone wrote out, suggesting a title for a story you didn't name, suggesting follow-up questions after you answer, tidying the words for your book only if you ask (it may only take words out, and you check every change), and putting together a draft chapter from your stories that only you see until you choose to share it. The short hints shown under each daily question are written by AI from the question alone, never from your stories.

Cloudflare processes your recordings and words only to do these jobs, doesn't keep them once the job is done, and doesn't use them to train AI models. We don't use your stories to train any AI.

Who we share it with

• The people you choose. Stories go to the people you schedule them for, at the time you choose. Family helpers see only what you allow, never a story kept private forever.
• Your printed book. Its codes open the recordings printed in it, for anyone holding the book (and the Code PIN, if you set one), until you turn the codes off.
• After you're gone. Stories you scheduled keep going out as you set them up. Stories kept private forever are never sent to anyone.
• Service providers who run parts of Thought Vault for us and may use your information only to provide their service:
  • Supabase, for our database and sign-in
  • Cloudflare, for file storage, our servers, turning recordings into words, and emailing stories and sign-in codes
  • Resend, as a backup for sending those emails
  • RevenueCat, Apple and Google, for subscriptions
  • Apple, for song search, and Apple and Google if you sign in with them
  • Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud, for an encrypted backup copy that only we can unlock
• When the law requires it. We share information if we're legally required to, after checking that the request is valid. Where we're allowed to, we tell you first.
• If the company changes hands. Your information would move with Thought Vault under this policy, and we'd tell you first.

We don't sell or rent personal information, and we don't share it for advertising.

How we protect it

Everything is sent and stored encrypted. Recordings and photos are kept in private storage that can only be reached through short-lived links we make for you, your family helpers or the people you chose. Backups are encrypted with a key our backup systems can't read. Only the people who support you can reach your information, and only as far as they need to. No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a breach that affects you, we'll tell you as the law requires.

Sharing is the part we can't fully protect. A story you share, or a code printed in your book, works like a key: anyone who has it can open what it leads to, and the Code PIN, if you set one, is the only other lock. Once someone you shared with downloads, prints or passes on a story, we can't control where it goes. Share with people you trust, and set a Code PIN in Me if your stories or book might reach people you didn't choose.

How long we keep it

• Your stories and account stay until you delete them. We don't delete stories because a subscription ended, because you stopped using the app, or because time passed. Keeping them is the point of Thought Vault. Older recordings may move to slower, cheaper storage, but they're still kept.
• Stories kept private forever stay private, including after your death. They're deleted only if you delete them or your account.
• Deleted stories wait in Recently deleted for 30 days, so a mistake can be undone, and are then deleted for good. You can also delete one for good straight away.
• Download files you create with "Download my stories" are removed after 7 days.
• Story links in an email stop working after 60 days. The stories themselves stay, and the person can get back to them with a code sent to their email.
• Backups hold a copy of the database and of recordings. When you delete a recording, we delete its backup copy too. Daily database backups expire after 35 days and monthly ones after a year. If we ever restore from a backup, we apply your deletions again before anything is used.
• Usage counts are deleted with your account.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account in the app (Me, then Delete my account), or by writing to support@appvantalabs.com from your account's email address. Nothing is deleted for 30 days, and you can change your mind until then. We then delete your sign-in, every vault you own (stories, recordings, photos, people and schedules) and your usage counts. Scheduled stories that haven't gone out yet won't be sent. In a vault where you're a family helper, the stories stay; only your access ends. A vault you set up for someone and never handed over is deleted with your account.

Only you can ask us to delete your data. We don't delete it at the request of a family member, a family helper or the person who pays.

Deleting the app doesn't delete your account or cancel your subscription.

Your choices and rights

Most of this you can do in the app: edit or delete any story, download everything (Me, then Download my stories), change what a family helper can do, stop sharing with someone, or delete your account.

Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to ask what information we hold about you, to get a copy, to correct it, to delete it, or to object to or limit how we use it. This includes residents of California and other US states with privacy laws, and people in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom. Write to legal@appvantalabs.com. We'll check it's really you, answer within 30 days (or sooner where the law requires), and won't treat you differently for asking. You can let someone you trust ask for you. If we turn down your request, you can ask us to look at it again, and you can complain to your local data protection authority.

California. We don't sell or "share" personal information as California law defines those words, and we don't use sensitive information to infer things about you. The categories we collect are listed above under "What we collect".

Europe and the UK. We use your information to provide the service you signed up for (contract), to keep Thought Vault secure and to improve it (legitimate interests), to meet legal duties, and with your consent where we ask for it, such as for your phone's permissions. Our providers may handle information in the United States and other countries, under safeguards such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.

Children

Thought Vault is for adults. We don't knowingly collect information from children under 13 (or the age required where you live). Stories may be about children or sent to a child through an adult's email address. If you think a child has given us information, write to legal@appvantalabs.com and we'll delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you in the app or by email before the change takes effect, and update the date at the top.

Contact us

Appvanta Labs LLC. Privacy and legal questions: legal@appvantalabs.com. Help with the app: support@appvantalabs.com.