FateLab

Privacy Policy

Last updated 27 September 2026. The same text as in the app: Settings → Privacy Policy.

FateLab is a private journal. It is built local-first: your writing lives on your device. What leaves it: the short excerpts an AI feature needs, once you have turned FateLab's AI on, and any letter or recap you choose to have emailed.

What stays on your device

Your entries, voice recordings, photos, moods, threads, worries, decisions, letters, and visions are stored on your device. If you are signed in to iCloud, they also sync to your own private iCloud database, encrypted by Apple — we cannot read it, and no FateLab server ever receives it.

Voice transcription, search, and the on-device search index all run entirely on your device. Your audio is never sent to FateLab or any third party; you can keep photos and recordings off iCloud entirely with the “Sync photos & voice” switch in Settings.

What is sent when you use AI features

AI features (Coach, the Mirror, Ask, the Daily Pulse, the reply to each entry, Look again, Think it through for decisions and worries, ManifestLab, thread summaries, and chapters) send short text excerpts of the relevant entries to the FateLab synthesis service, which relays them to our AI provider to generate a response.

When this happens, we send only:

• Short text excerpts of the entries the feature needs — never your full archive.
• Related context such as your active thread titles and the facts you have confirmed about yourself.
• For the Coach, a short summary made on your phone of what you keep in FateLab — how your worries and decisions turned out, what is coming up, your latest Mirror, your Feeling Score, your vision, and short excerpts of your letters to your future self, sealed ones included. The Coach is instructed never to reveal a sealed letter before it opens.
• What you type to the Coach, which the Life Model update also reads so it can suggest facts for you to confirm.

We never send your audio recordings or your photos. The synthesis service stores no content and logs no entries. Requests carry an anonymous Apple DeviceCheck token used only to prevent abuse — it does not identify you — and a random identifier the app creates on your phone, used only to apply fair-use limits to AI requests; it is not linked to your name, your email or your Apple account. If you subscribe, requests also carry Apple's signed record of your subscription, so the service can confirm it: it shows the plan and when it renews, not who you are. The free week is once per iPhone and once per Apple ID: the service asks Apple's DeviceCheck to remember that this iPhone has had it — a yes-or-no Apple keeps, with nothing about you — and, if you use iCloud, requests carry a scrambled code for your iCloud account in this app (the same on your devices; never your Apple ID or email). The week's start date is also kept in your iCloud Keychain, so your other devices know it. You can turn all of this off with Local-Only Mode in Settings, after which nothing leaves your device.

Letters you choose to email

The “letter to future you” feature is on-device by default — a sealed letter simply waits on your phone until its date. If you turn on “Also email it to me on the day” for a letter, two things change for that letter only:

• The letter's text and the email address you enter are sent to the FateLab delivery service and stored there until the delivery date, when the letter is emailed to you and its stored text is then deleted.
• The email is sent through Resend, our email delivery provider, which processes it solely to deliver your message to you.

This is off by default and chosen letter by letter — except that the letter you seal while setting up FateLab goes to the address you give on the next screen, if you give one. Letters you don't opt in to email are never sent to the delivery service or emailed; the Coach reads short excerpts of them as described above, which Local-Only Mode also turns off. You can cancel a scheduled email by deleting the letter while it is still sealed, and Local-Only Mode hides the option entirely.

The optional monthly recap email works the same way: once you add your email address (during onboarding or in Settings), a short summary of your month — assembled on your phone — is emailed to you once a month through Resend, plus any recent months you missed while you were away. Nothing is stored on any server; it is rendered, sent, and forgotten. It never sends without an email address on file, and turning the switch off in Settings stops it.

No tracking, no ads, no profiling

FateLab contains no third-party analytics or advertising SDKs and never inspects what you write to build a profile. We do not sell, rent, or share your personal data with anyone, and we do not use your content to train AI models.

Optional location

If you turn on place tagging, FateLab uses Apple's geocoder to attach a city name to an entry. Only the name is stored, on your device — never your coordinates. This is off until you enable it.

Subscriptions and payments

The FateLab subscription is sold through Apple. Payments, billing, and renewals are handled by the App Store; we never see your card details or payment information.

Keeping and deleting your data

Your data stays until you remove it. You can export your entire archive to open formats (JSON and Markdown) at any time from Settings. Deleting the app removes its on-device data; you can also delete the app's data from your iCloud storage in iOS Settings.

Children

FateLab is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age of digital consent in your region), and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, we will update it here and revise the date above. Continuing to use FateLab after an update means you accept the revised policy.

Contact

Questions about your privacy? Email support@fatelabapp.com.