Last updated 6 September 2026
The short version. Balm has no account and no sign-up. Onboarding asks you some genuinely personal questions, and every one of your answers is written to your iPhone and stays there. We have no server to send them to. The only information that leaves your device is what Apple and our payments provider need to process a purchase, and that only happens if you subscribe.
What stays on your device
All of the following is stored on your iPhone and stays there. It is not uploaded, backed up to us, or shared with anyone:
- Your name, as you typed it, and everything else you answer during onboarding
- The situation you chose, and any you switch to later
- The topics you follow, the lines you have saved, and the canvas you read on
- Your reminder settings: how many lines a day, and the hours you want them between
- Which days you have opened the app, which Balm uses to decide when it is reasonable to ask you for an App Store rating, and to avoid asking twice
- A random identifier for this installation, so that if you write to us about a problem you have something to quote. It is not an account, it is not tied to you, and it is never sent anywhere unless you choose to include it in an email
Deleting the app removes all of it at once. Because none of it is on a server, deleting the app is also the only copy. A new phone or a reinstall starts Balm over.
If you use iCloud Backup, your iPhone's backup may include Balm's data, in the same way it includes other apps'. That backup is between you and Apple; we have no access to it.
The personal answers, specifically
Balm exists because it asks what you are actually carrying, and some of those questions are ones you would not want loose in the world. Depending on which you answer and which you skip, that can include:
- Health. An illness, a bereavement, a pregnancy or the first months with a baby, caring for someone who is unwell, and anything you tell Balm about how you have been coping
- Beliefs. Whether you want faith in the words, and which tradition
- Your circumstances. Age, gender identity, relationship status, and work
Under the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulation some of this is special category data, which carries the strictest handling requirements there are. Balm's answer to those requirements is structural rather than procedural: the data never reaches us. There is no database, no analytics pipeline and no third party with a copy. It is written to your phone by the app on your phone, and it is read by the app on your phone to decide which lines to show you.
Every question except your name and your situation can be skipped, and a skipped question is stored as absent rather than guessed at. You can change or clear any answer afterwards in Settings.
What leaves your device
Purchases
If you subscribe, the purchase is handled by Apple and by RevenueCat, which manages subscriptions on our behalf. RevenueCat receives a randomly generated identifier for your installation, the purchase and receipt information Apple provides, and basic device and operating-system details.
We do not send RevenueCat your name, your email address, your situation, your answers or your saved lines. We do not link the purchase to your identity, because we never have it. RevenueCat's own privacy policy is at revenuecat.com/privacy.
If you never subscribe, no purchase information is created and nothing is sent.
Apple
Apple handles the payment itself and applies its own privacy policy. Separately, if you have chosen to share analytics and crash reports with developers in your iPhone's settings, Apple may send us crash reports. Those contain technical diagnostic information about a crash, not your answers.
Your Apple Watch
If you have Balm on an Apple Watch, your iPhone sends it the few values it needs to show you the same line your phone would: your situation, your topics, and how you have set the words to speak to you. That transfer is between your own two devices, over Apple's connection between them. It does not pass through us, and there is no version of it on the internet.
Permissions Balm asks for
Each one is requested only when it is first needed, and refusing it disables that feature rather than the app.
- Notifications — to deliver a line to your lock screen. The notification contains the affirmation and nothing else: no name, no framing, and nothing about how long it has been since you opened the app. You can turn them off in Balm, or in iOS Settings.
- Adding to your photo library — only if you save a wallpaper you have made. Balm asks for add-only access, which is a permission that cannot see a single photo you already have. It writes the image you made and nothing else.
- Background App Refresh — iOS holds a limited number of scheduled notifications, so Balm occasionally wakes in the background to top that queue up while the app is closed. It reads your own settings and writes the next few days of lines. Nothing is transmitted.
You can change or withdraw any of these at any time in iOS Settings.
What Balm does not do
- There is no account, sign-up, login or email address.
- There is no advertising and no advertising identifier.
- There is no analytics, telemetry or attribution SDK of any kind in the app.
- Balm does not track you across other apps or websites, and does not ask for permission to.
- Balm never asks for your location, your camera, your microphone, your contacts, your calendar or your Health data.
- Balm does not have a mailing list and will not email you.
- We do not sell, rent or share personal information. We do not hold any to sell.
Onboarding asks how you heard about Balm. That answer is stored on your phone with the rest and is not reported to anyone.
Children
Balm is written for adults going through adult circumstances and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone, of any age.
Your rights
Because everything is on your device and we hold nothing, the usual rights of access, correction, deletion and portability are things you exercise directly: the data is yours, on your phone, and you can read it, change it and delete it from within the app or by deleting the app. There is no request for us to fulfil, because there is nothing on our side to fulfil it against.
If you believe we hold information about you and want it removed, write to hello@madebydayo.co and we will tell you honestly what we have — which we expect to be nothing beyond an anonymous purchase record, if you have subscribed.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what Balm does with your information, the date at the top of this page changes and the updated policy is published here before the change ships in the app.
Contact
Questions about this policy: hello@madebydayo.co.