Privacy Policy

Your chats stay on your phone. This page explains exactly what Chatini keeps, what it sends, and when. Last updated October 26, 2026.

Chatini is an iPhone app, with a companion Mac app called Chatini Sync, made by Joshua Carter ("Chatini", "we"). Questions about this policy: support@chatinisync.com.

What stays on your iPhone

• The chats you import, and everything Chatini works out from them, such as message scores, saved answers, Nudge dates and group Nudge lists.
• Backscroll: your choices, the awards, and the quotes a cloud Backscroll found, kept with each saved Backscroll. The videos are made on the phone and go to your Photos only when you save or share them.
• Names you type for people in a group chat, and the names and small photos Chatini takes from your contacts (see "Contacts on your iPhone").
• Photos you add for a person in a Backscroll, and the cut-outs made from them and from contact photos (see "Member photos in Backscroll").
• Your About you answers, and small settings such as music on or off and whether Chatini has asked how you're enjoying it.
• Answers written by Apple Intelligence. In that mode, Spill reads and answers entirely on your iPhone and nothing is sent anywhere.

Chats, contact photos and member photos are stored in the app's private storage and are not included in device backups. Names you type and contact names are small settings that are part of your phone's backup. You can erase every chat, and everything above that came from your chats, in Settings, under Your chats.

What is sent, and only when you ask

Some features need more than a phone can do: Spill in the cloud, Nudge, Deets, Read the stars, group Spill, group Nudge and cloud Backscroll. When you use one, and only after you agree on the sharing screen, the messages of the one chat you chose are sent to our server. That includes your messages and everyone else's in the chat. Our server passes them to two companies that do the reading:

• TypeSafe (its Jev model) scores each message and returns only numbers.
• Venice writes the answer, and checks it, from those scores and some of the messages. We only use Venice models that Venice marks private, and our server refuses to send messages to any other model.

With the messages go a few things that make the answer right: if you filled in About you, your name, your pronouns and an age range (never your birthday); your country, only so a crisis can point to the right local helpline; your time zone, so dates come out right; the voice you picked (kind, direct or funny); and the notes you wrote about the chat.

Our server does not store message text, names, questions or answers. Its logs record only the kind of request, its result and how long it took. TypeSafe says it does not train on your input, but it does not say how long input is kept, and it uses cloud providers (including AWS, Modal, CoreWeave, Nebius and Azure) to process requests. We don't know how long these companies keep data. Only use chats you'd be comfortable having processed by them.

Group chats

Group Spill and group Nudge work on group chats of 3 to 20 people. They are cloud only.

• What is sent: the chat's messages, who wrote each one and when, replies, reactions, and how many photos or attachments a message had (never the attachments themselves). For a question, the question too.
• Names: each person goes as a display name: the name you typed for them, their name from your contacts, or the name the chat shows. A person known only by a phone number or email goes as "Member 2", never as the number or email. Each person also has a one-way code made on your phone from the chat and the person. It can't be turned back into a number, and it doesn't match the same person in another chat. The chat's own name is not sent.
• What comes back: the answer, or the list of dates and drafts, is kept on your phone. Chatini never sends a message for you; a Nudge draft is only text for you to copy.
• What is kept on the server: nothing from the chat. When a group question gives its credits back, a small record without words is kept so the same question isn't refunded again and again (see "Refunded group questions").

The app counts the messages in a group chat on your phone and tells you when there are fewer than 1,000, because answers may be thin. That count is not sent.

Cloud Backscroll

The free Backscroll is counted and made entirely on your phone. A cloud Backscroll adds awards that need a closer read, picks real quotes, and writes the opening recap of the year.

• What is sent: the chat's messages for your Backscroll's period, who wrote each one and when, and reactions. Members are sent the same way as in a group chat (names, never phone numbers or emails). Messages your phone flags as very personal or serious are marked so the server leaves them out. Not photos, and not the chat's name.
• What comes back: the awards, their quotes, and the recap lines. Your phone checks every quote word for word against its own copy of the chat before it is used.
• What is kept: on your phone, with that Backscroll. Nothing on the server.
• The video is drawn and exported on your phone, as before. It is saved to Photos or shared only when you choose to.

Contacts on your iPhone

If you allow it, Chatini reads your contacts to show the names and photos of the people in your group chats. It asks first, with an explanation, when it would help (never at launch), and remembers "Not now".

• It reads names, phone numbers, emails and small contact photos, and matches the numbers and emails in your chats to them on your phone.
• It keeps only the matched names and small photos, on your phone, filed under one-way codes rather than numbers, emails or chat names.
• Phone numbers, emails and photos never leave your phone. A contact's name is used like a name you type: it goes with a chat only when you send that chat for a cloud answer or a cloud Backscroll, and our server doesn't keep it.
• Turning Contacts off in Settings clears every stored name and photo. Erasing all chats clears them too.

Member photos in Backscroll

A Backscroll video can show a photo of each person, cut out on your phone with Apple's Vision. It uses either their contact photo or a photo you add with "Add a photo". Adding a photo opens the iOS photo picker, so Chatini can't see the rest of your library.

• Photos are shown in the video only when "Show contact photos in the video" is on for that Backscroll. It is off by default.
• Photos and cut-outs stay on your phone and are never sent to our server or anyone else's.
• A video you save or share includes any photos you turned on, so think about who will see it.
• You can remove a photo you added at any time. Erasing all chats removes every photo and cut-out.

Refunded group questions

When a group Spill question finds too little to say about anyone, or is declined, you get its credits back. To stop the same question being re-run for free again and again, our server keeps a small record linked to your anonymous account:

• a one-way code made from your account ID, a code for the chat and the question's wording, under a secret only our server has. It can't be turned back into the question, the chat or any names;
• whether it was "too little to go on" or "declined";
• how many messages the chat had, and when.

For 30 days, asking the same question on the same chat gets the same reply at once, at no charge, unless the chat has grown by 200 messages or more. The server also uses these records to limit refunds of thin answers to five a day. No question, name or message text is ever stored. Records are deleted after 31 days.

Usage numbers

To see what Chatini costs to run, our server records one row for each call it makes to TypeSafe or Venice: the feature, the model, how many tokens were used, how long it took and whether it worked, with a code derived from your account ID. The row holds no messages, names, questions or answers.

Feedback by email

Now and then, after a good answer or video, Chatini asks "Enjoying Chatini?". What you tapped is remembered on your phone, and nothing is sent.

• Love it shows Apple's own rating prompt. Apple handles the rating and decides whether the prompt appears.
• Not really can open your Mail app with a new email to support@chatinisync.com. Nothing is sent unless you send it. If you do, we get your email address and what you wrote, and use them only to reply and improve Chatini. Ask us to delete them at any time.

Your account and purchases

Chatini creates an anonymous account the first time you use a cloud feature: a random ID, with no name, email or phone number. Linked to that ID, we keep:

• Your plan, your credit balance and the history of credits added and spent, as amounts only.
• Passes you buy, how much of each is used, and a one-way code that tells passes apart by chat without revealing which chat it is.
• App Store purchase records: the product, transaction IDs and dates, so purchases and renewals are credited once.
• Records of refunded group questions, without any words (see "Refunded group questions").

Apple handles payment. We never see your card or Apple Account details. Chatini may use Apple's DeviceCheck to keep one-per-device offers to one per device; it stores two bits with Apple and nothing about you.

Chatini Sync, the Mac app

• It reads the Messages history on your Mac after you turn on Full Disk Access, and your contacts to show names instead of phone numbers. Both are read on the Mac only.
• It sends only the one chat you pick, directly to your iPhone over your local Wi-Fi, encrypted with a one-time key carried in the QR code. The code works for 10 minutes. Nothing goes to our servers.

Permissions the app asks for

• Calendar, to add a Nudge date when you tap Add to Calendar.
• Photos, to save a Backscroll video when you choose to.
• Camera, to scan the Chatini Sync code.
• Local network, to receive a chat from your Mac.
• Contacts, to show the names and photos of the people in your group chats. Read and matched on your phone (see "Contacts on your iPhone").
• Shortcuts, for the optional on-phone import helper. Apple's Messages search can't be limited to one chat, so the helper reads by date on your phone and keeps only the chat you choose; nothing else is saved or sent.

What we don't do

No ads, no tracking across apps or websites, no analytics or advertising SDKs, and no selling or sharing of personal data.

Who helps us run Chatini

• Apple, for the App Store, payments, ratings, Apple Intelligence, Apple Vision on your phone, and DeviceCheck.
• TypeSafe and Venice, for cloud answers and cloud Backscroll, as described above.
• Supabase, for the database that holds the anonymous account, credits, passes, purchase records, records of refunded group questions and usage numbers.
• Render, which hosts our server.
• Cloudflare, which hosts this website and the Chatini Sync download.

Like any website or server, our hosts receive the network address of devices that connect, to deliver what was requested.

Children

Chatini is not meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them.

Your choices

• Erase all chats from the phone in Settings, or remove one chat in Your chats.
• Use Apple Intelligence for Spill to keep everything on your iPhone.
• Turn Contacts off in Settings to stop reading contacts and clear the names and photos taken from them.
• Leave "Show contact photos in the video" off to keep photos out of a Backscroll.
• Withdraw the sharing agreement in Settings, under Privacy, to turn every cloud feature off. Nothing from your chats is sent until you agree again.
• Ask us to delete your anonymous account's records by writing to support@chatinisync.com.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top. If a change affects what is sent from your phone, the app will ask you again before sending anything.