Local-First Privacy

Privacy that stays quiet.

Tally is built to track habits without turning your routine into an account system, an ad surface, or a data pipeline.

Last updated March 19, 2026 Platforms iPhone and iPad Storage On-device by default
01

Overview

Tally is a habit tracker for iPhone and iPad. The app is designed to work without a sign-in, without advertising, and without third-party analytics SDKs.

This privacy policy applies to the native Tally app and explains how the app handles information entered by the person using it.

Core Principle Habit data is meant to stay useful, local, and low-friction.
Not Included No social feed, no public profiles, no ad targeting.
02

What Tally stores on the device

Tally stores the information needed to show habits, calculate progress, and keep the app state consistent on the current device.

  • Habit names, emoji, colors, categories, frequencies, targets, and reminder times
  • Habit entries, notes, streak history, completion history, charts, and statistics derived from that history
  • App preferences such as onboarding status and accent color

Tally does not ask for name, phone number, photo library access, contacts, location, microphone, or camera access to run the core app.

03

How that data is used

The information stored by Tally is used only to provide the app experience on the device.

  • Display habits, categories, entries, and notes
  • Calculate streaks, heatmaps, charts, and completion summaries
  • Remember appearance settings and onboarding state
  • Schedule local habit reminders when someone turns them on

Tally is not designed to build advertising profiles, sell lists of users, or infer cross-app behavior.

04

Notifications and reminders

Notifications are optional. Tally only asks for notification permission if someone enables reminders for a habit.

  • Reminder schedules are stored with the habit so the app can create local notifications
  • Reminder content is generated on-device and delivered through Apple's local notification system
  • Permission can be turned off at any time in iOS Settings

If reminders are disabled, the rest of the app remains usable.

05

Sharing, analytics, and tracking

Tally does not sell personal information, does not use third-party ad networks, and does not track someone across other companies' apps or websites.

  • No third-party advertising SDKs
  • No cross-app tracking
  • No analytics or profiling code for habit content entered into the app
  • No server-side account database required for core functionality
06

Retention and deletion

Data remains on the device until the person using the app removes it.

  • Individual habits and entries can be deleted from within the app
  • Reminder requests tied to deleted habits are removed when that habit is deleted
  • Settings > Reset App Data clears habits, entries, reminders, custom categories, onboarding state, and appearance settings stored by the app on the current device

After local deletion, the app no longer uses that deleted information for charts, streaks, or reminders on the device.

07

Backups and Apple platform behavior

Tally is local-first, but Apple platform services may still include app data in encrypted or device-level backups depending on the person's system settings.

If someone restores a device from a backup, restored app data may return with that backup. Tally itself does not operate a separate account-based restore system in the current version.

08

Changes to this policy

If Tally later adds features that materially change how information is collected, stored, shared, or synced, this policy should be updated before the feature is released publicly.

This document was prepared for the current local-first version of Tally on March 19, 2026.