This is a starting point written in plain language, not legal advice. Have it checked by someone who knows GDPR and Google Play’s User Data policy. Fill in every [placeholder], check each grey review note against the finished app, then delete the notes and this box.
Privacy policy
Tide is a calm home-screen launcher for Android. It’s built to be private by default: no ads, no account, and what it knows about how you use your phone stays on your phone.
The short version
- Your setup, your notes, your mood journal and your pause history are stored on your device only. We never receive them.
- There are no ads, no advertising IDs, no analytics and no trackers in the app or on this website.
- You don’t need an account, and we never ask who you are.
- Tide Pro is sold through Google Play. Google handles the payment.
- We never sell or rent your data.
Who is responsible
Tide is made by [YOUR NAME OR COMPANY], [POSTAL ADDRESS]. For anything about privacy, write to feedback@tidelauncher.com.
What the app keeps on your phone
To work as your home screen and to offer the pause, Tide keeps the following in its private storage on your phone:
- Your home-screen setup: your home apps, the names you gave apps, which apps you hid, your “today” line, your notes, and your settings, such as theme, background, font and layout.
- Your pauses: which apps get a pause, and daily counts: how many pauses there were, how often you chose “Not now” or opened the app, and how many times each paused app was opened that day. The breath gets longer when you open the same app again on the same day, which is why Tide counts this per app. Counts older than 90 days are deleted automatically.
- Your list of installed apps: Tide reads it from Android so it can show and search your apps. It isn’t stored as a list and isn’t sent anywhere.
If you uninstall Tide or clear its storage, all of this is deleted.
Mood, breathing and focus
If you use them, Tide keeps your mood check-ins (how the day felt, the feelings and activities you picked, whether you were happy with yourself, and any short note), when you took a breathing break, and when a focus session ends. All of it stays in Tide’s private storage on your phone. It is not included in backups and never sent anywhere. You can export your mood history as a file, import one from another app, or delete it from the mood page at any time.
Screen time (Usage Access)
If you allow it, Tide uses Android’s Usage Access to read how long apps were in use and how often the phone was unlocked. It uses this on your phone only, for these things: to show your screen time and insights; to tell, when an app’s time is up, whether you are still in it or it still plays in the background; to notice when one of your breathe-first apps is opened another way, for example from a notification, so the breath can come first; and, if you set a daily target, to lengthen the pause as you get close to it. For this, while the screen is on, Tide looks about once a second at which app is in front. That look is not stored and never leaves your phone. Because Android only keeps about a week of this, Tide keeps a small summary of each finished day on your phone (total screen time, unlocks and your three most-used apps) for about two years, so you can look back further. This summary is not included in backups and never leaves your phone. You can switch Usage Access off at any time in Android’s settings; Tide keeps working without it.
Backups
If Android backup is on for your phone, your settings and notes can be included in your Google backup, so they come back when you reinstall or move to a new phone. Your pause counts and screen time are not included in backups.
Purchases
Tide Pro is sold through Google Play. Google processes the payment, and we never see your card details. Tide asks Google Play which purchases your Google account owns so it can unlock Pro, including after a reinstall, and to turn Pro off again if a purchase is refunded or a subscription ends. Tide receives a purchase confirmation from Google Play for this and nothing else. Google Play’s billing component inside the app may send technical and diagnostic information about the purchase process to Google. Google’s own privacy policy applies to the payment and to that information.
Weather (optional, off by default)
If you turn on the weather line, Tide sends the place name you type and your phone’s language to Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com) to find the place, and after that only that place’s coordinates to get its forecast, about once an hour at most while you use the home screen. It never uses your location, sends no account or device identifier, and keeps the place and the last forecast only on your phone. Like any website, Open-Meteo sees your IP address when it answers. Turn the weather line off and nothing more is sent.
Notifications
Check-in, breathing and mood reminders are created on your phone. Nothing about them is sent to us.
Feedback
You can send feedback from inside Tide. Nothing is sent until you press Send. Then Tide sends your message, the Tide and Android versions, your phone model and your language to tidelauncher.com, which passes it on to the developer. Tide does not store it, and the message is not kept on the server. If you want an answer, write your email address in the message.
No ads, no trackers
Tide contains no advertising, no advertising SDKs, no analytics and no crash-reporting service. We don’t sell, rent or share your data with advertisers or data brokers.
Review: if you later add crash reporting or any other service, make it opt-in and list it here by name.
This website
This website has no ads, no analytics and no tracking cookies. It is hosted by Vercel (vercel.com), which briefly processes technical data such as your IP address to deliver the page and keep it secure. Feedback sent from the app passes through the same host.
The fonts (Inter Tight and Inter) are served from this website. The scripts for smooth scrolling and the motion on the page come from cdnjs (Cloudflare) and jsDelivr, which see your IP address when your browser loads them.
Review: to avoid these two transfers, the scripts can also be served from this website.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to access, correct and delete your personal data, to restrict or object to its processing, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time. Because the app keeps your usage data on your own phone, you control most of it directly: change it in Tide, or clear it by uninstalling the app. For any question about your data, write to feedback@tidelauncher.com. You can also complain to a data-protection authority, for example the one where you live.
Children
Tide isn’t directed at children under [13 / 16], and we don’t knowingly collect their data.
Changes
If this policy changes, we’ll update the date at the top. If a change affects what leaves your phone, we’ll tell you in the app before it takes effect.
Contact
[YOUR NAME OR COMPANY] · [POSTAL ADDRESS] · feedback@tidelauncher.com