Privacy policy
Last updated 17 September 2026
The short version. Pottles has no accounts and no ads. The photo you take of a plant is sent to AI models so they can identify and draw it, and our server deletes its copy once the drawings are done. Your notes and reminders never leave your phone. We count which parts of the app get used — never what is in them — and you can delete everything from inside the app.
What leaves your phone
The photo of a plant. When you add a plant, the photo you take is sent to our server. There it is processed by AI models from OpenAI, which draw the plant, and from Google (Gemini), which work out its species, suggest a name and write its care notes. We reach those models through the infrastructure services that connect us to them. The same happens when you ask for a plant to be redrawn or restyled: the photo it is drawn from is sent the same way. Our server deletes its copy of the photo once the plant's drawings are finished, or when you delete the plant, whichever comes first.
The drawings. The drawings made of your plant, and the species, name suggestion and care notes worked out for it, are kept on our server so the app can download them. They stay there until you delete the plant.
A little context for the photo. Along with the photo, the app sends the names of the plants already on your windowsill, so a new plant isn't given one of them, and an approximate latitude worked out from your phone's time zone, so care advice can follow your seasons. Pottles never asks for, or uses, your location.
A random identifier. The app creates a random identifier on your phone. It isn't linked to your name, email or Apple Account. It is saved in your phone's keychain (and in iCloud Keychain, if you use it) so that it survives reinstalling the app. Our server uses it to count how many plants you have added, and to keep track of your purchases and points.
Purchases. Payments are handled by Apple. We use a purchase-management service that receives a record of what you bought, tied to that random identifier. We never see your payment details.
Checking the app is genuine. The app uses Apple's App Attest to prove to our server that it is a real copy of Pottles. Our server keeps a key that identifies this installation of the app, and nothing about you.
Which parts of the app get used. Pottles uses Google Analytics for Firebase to see which parts of the app get used and where people get stuck; Google receives that usage information together with standard technical details such as your device model, app version and an identifier for this installation. The content of your windowsill — names, species, photographs, notes — is never sent, and we don't track you across other apps or websites.
Technical logs. Like any online service, our server and our hosting and network providers record technical details of each request, such as its time and IP address, to keep the service running and secure.
What stays on your phone
Your notes, check-ins and reminders are stored only on your phone, and reminders are scheduled on the phone itself. So are the photos you add to a plant's timeline, unless you ask for the plant to be redrawn from one. Pottles doesn't copy any of this anywhere — the usage counting above records that a check-in happened and whether the plant was watered, and how many photos a Portrait Day took, but never which plant and never the photos themselves — and deleting the app deletes it.
What we don't do
- We don't show ads.
- We don't track you across other apps or websites, and we don't use advertising identifiers.
- We don't sell your information or share it with anyone for their own purposes.
Removing your data
When you remove a plant and choose Delete everything, its drawings and its record are deleted from our server. If you choose Keep the memories instead, the plant moves to your memory shelf and its drawings stay on our server so you can still see them.
To delete all of it at once, open Settings ▸ Delete everything in the app. Every plant, photo and drawing is removed from your phone and from our server. It cannot be undone.
Two things deliberately survive that, and we would rather say so than have you find out. Your purchases and points stay with you, because you paid for them — they are held against the random identifier, and losing it would lose them. And our server keeps a count of how many plants that identifier has ever added, a number and nothing else, because the free limit would otherwise reset every time somebody deleted.
Deleting the app removes everything stored on your phone, but on its own it does not delete the drawings on our server — use Delete everything first. If you would rather we did it, or you want anything else we hold removed, write to [email protected]. Tell us as much as you can about what to look for: we have no way to connect an email address to a windowsill, so the app is the reliable route.
Children
Pottles isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them.
Changes
If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Write to [email protected].