We don't store your answers. We can't.

Last updated 28 October 2026

This Year Was runs on your device. Your year is saved on your phone, or in your browser on your computer if you use the app on the web. It is never on a server of ours.

iCloud sync is coming. When it's on, your year will also be kept in your own iCloud account, in Apple's private database for your account, which Apple does not let us read, so your other devices can open it. Today, everything stays on the device.

What we have

• We have no database. There is nothing for us to look at.
• There are no accounts of ours. The app has no sign-in.
• We don't use analytics or tracking, in the app or on this website. Nothing counts what you do.

What the app reads, and what it keeps

• Photos are read on your device, and only if you allow it. They never upload to us. A smaller copy of the ones you pick is kept on your device; your originals stay where they were. The app never changes or deletes anything in your library. Photo locations are read on the phone to find places and trips; only the places found are kept.
• Health data (steps, miles, workout minutes) is read only if you turn it on and allow it. It is totalled on your phone, held only while the app is open, and never saved, put in your backup, put in iCloud, or sent anywhere else. Apple's rules require this and we'd do it anyway. The app never writes to Health.
• Calendar events are read on your phone, only if you turn it on and allow it, so they can sit under each month. Only the events you choose to keep are saved, on your device.
• Files you add on the Data screen, such as a Google Maps Timeline export or a calendar file, are read on your device. Nothing in them is uploaded.
• If you use the "ask your AI" step, you are giving your own data to your own assistant, under that assistant's terms, not to us. The app only reads the file it gives back to you, on your device. The app itself never talks to an AI service.

Where your year goes

• If you share or save your Wrap, it goes where you send it, through your phone's own share sheet. It doesn't pass through us.
• Your backup is a file you save and keep wherever you like. If you lose your device and your backup, we can't recover your year, because we never had it.
• You can erase everything from the app's settings at any time. Deleting the app removes it too.

This website

This website, and the app on the web, are plain files from our host, which sees the ordinary request logs any website produces (your IP address, the time, which files loaded). None of your answers are in those requests. The iPhone app's code is inside the app and doesn't load from our host.

If this changes

If we ever add sharing, only the finished page would be uploaded, never your answers or originals, it would expire on its own unless you keep it, and it would be encrypted so we could delete it but not read it. We'll say so plainly before you turn it on.

Anything new gets its own line on this page before it ships, and the date at the top changes with it.

Questions

Write to hello@thisyearwas.com.