PulseNote Privacy Policy
Effective date: August 16, 2026
PulseNote is a study-notes app with spaced-repetition reminders, operated by Thomas Verdier ("PulseNote", "we", "us"). This policy explains what data the app handles, why, and the choices you have. It describes what the app actually does today — nothing more.
The short version
- Your notes live on your device. You can use PulseNote without an account, and in that case your notes, ratings, and settings never leave your phone.
- An account is optional and exists for one reason: syncing your notes across devices and sharing notes by link.
- Reminders are scheduled locally on your device. We do not use push notification servers and cannot see your reminders.
- No ads, no analytics or tracking SDKs, and we never sell your data.
- Help & feedback is optional. If you contact us in the app, we receive only what you submit plus limited app/device diagnostics.
- You can delete your account inside the app. Deletion is permanent and removes your notes, images, linked in-app help requests, and account data from our servers.
1. Data you give us
Account data (only if you create an account)
- Email address, and whether it has been verified.
- Password — stored only as a salted bcrypt hash. We never store or see your password in plain text.
- Username (optional, chosen by you).
- Google or Apple sign-in: if you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive and store your email address and the numeric account identifier the provider gives us. We receive nothing else from your Google or Apple account. With Apple you may choose to hide your email, in which case we receive Apple's private relay address.
- Session data: refresh tokens (stored hashed) together with a random device identifier generated by the app, so you can sign out of a device. This is not an advertising identifier.
- Security metadata: failed sign-in counters and temporary lockout timestamps; short-lived email verification and password-reset codes (stored hashed, expire after 15 minutes).
Content you sync (only while signed in)
When you are signed in, the app syncs your study content to our servers so your devices stay consistent:
- Notes: title, text, topics, and their dates.
- Images you attach to notes. They are stored in a private storage bucket, namespaced to your account, and are only reachable through short-lived signed URLs.
- Recall history: your recall ratings (1–5) with timestamps, and the review-scheduling data derived from them (intervals, next review date).
- Preferences: your reminder settings (daily time window, weekdays, daily cap, topic filters, pause state) and app preferences (theme, sort order).
Help and feedback (whether or not you are signed in)
If you choose Help & feedback, we receive the category and message you submit, any screenshots you select, and your app version, build number, device platform, operating-system version, and app language. If you are signed in, we associate the request with your account and use your verified account email for replies. If you are signed out, you may provide a reply email, but it is optional. We do not collect a device identifier for anonymous support requests.
2. Data collected automatically
- Request metadata: like almost every online service, our servers see your IP address and standard request metadata when the app talks to them. We use this for rate limiting and abuse prevention, and it appears in routine infrastructure logs kept for a short period. We do not build profiles from it.
- Error reports: if the app crashes, or our server hits an error, a report may be sent to Sentry (our error-monitoring service). A report contains the error and a stack trace, plus basic technical context — app version, operating-system version, device model. It does not include your IP address or account identifiers, and it is configured to exclude passwords, codes, tokens, help-request messages, contact emails, and screenshots. We do not send your note content, and diagnostic log lines — which can quote note text — are discarded before a report leaves your device.
The app contains no analytics, advertising, or tracking SDKs, and nothing that records what you read or how you use it. Apart from the crash reports described above, an install with no account makes no network requests on its own — only when you open or create a shared-note link, or deliberately submit a help request.
3. Data that stays on your device
- Notes and study data are stored in a local database on your device (and synced only if you sign in).
- Reminders are scheduled through your phone's local notification system. There is no push-notification service involved; the contents and timing of your notifications never reach our servers. Notification permission is requested for this.
- Photos and camera: only used when you choose to attach an image to a note or select a screenshot for a help request. We access only what you pick; we never scan your photo library.
- Face ID / Touch ID / biometrics: if used to protect your credentials, biometric checks happen entirely inside your phone's operating system. We never receive biometric data.
- Sign-in tokens are kept in your device's secure storage (iOS Keychain / Android Keystore).
We do not collect your location, contacts, calendar, or any data from other apps.
4. How we use data
| Purpose | Data used | Legal basis (GDPR) |
|---|---|---|
| Provide the service: accounts, sync, sharing | Account data, synced content | Contract |
| Transactional email: verification codes, password resets, security notices (e.g. a new sign-in method linked) | Email address | Contract |
| Respond to help requests and improve PulseNote | Help-request content, optional reply email, screenshots, limited diagnostics | Contract or legitimate interest |
| Security: rate limiting, abuse and account-takeover prevention | IP address, request metadata, security metadata | Legitimate interest |
| Reliability: fixing errors | Error reports (credentials stripped) | Legitimate interest |
| Legal compliance | Whatever the obligation requires | Legal obligation |
We send no marketing emails — automated mail is triggered by an account or help action, and human mail is a reply to a request you sent us. We do not sell or rent personal data, and we do not share it with anyone for advertising.
5. Shared notes
Sharing is per-note and opt-in. When you create a share link:
- Anyone with the link can view that note's title, text, topics, and attached images, along with your username. Treat a share link like the note itself.
- Share links expire automatically (currently after 30 days). You can revoke one at any time under Settings → Shared links, which shows every link you currently have live. Revoking stops the link working immediately, though images someone already opened may stay viewable to them for a few more minutes.
- Deleting a note also revokes its share link.
- Messaging apps you paste a link into may fetch and cache a preview of the page.
- If another user imports your shared note, they receive their own copy under their account. Revoking the link or deleting your account does not delete copies others imported — just like a file you emailed to someone.
6. Service providers
We use a small number of infrastructure providers to run PulseNote. They process data only to provide their service to us:
| Provider | What they do for us | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Render | Hosts our API and database (notes, accounts, help requests) | United States (Virginia) |
| Cloudflare | Network security/proxy, and private R2 object storage for note images and support screenshots | United States / global network |
| Resend | Sends transactional mail and notifications to our support inbox | United States |
| Sentry | Error monitoring (credential-scrubbed) | United States |
Sign-in with Google (only if you use it), and the Google Workspace mailbox that receives and answers support@pulsenoteapp.com |
Per Google's policy | |
| Apple | Sign in with Apple (only if you use it) | Per Apple's policy |
7. International transfers
Our servers are located in the United States. If you use PulseNote from the EEA, UK, or elsewhere, your data is transferred to and processed in the US. Our providers rely on recognized safeguards for such transfers (such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and/or Standard Contractual Clauses).
8. Retention
- Account and synced content: kept until you delete your account.
- Email verification / password-reset codes: expire after 15 minutes.
- Sign-in sessions (refresh tokens): expire after 30 days, or immediately when you log out or delete your account.
- Share links: expire after 30 days, or immediately when you revoke the link, delete the note, or delete your account.
- Sync bookkeeping records: minutes.
- In-app help requests and screenshots: 365 days after submission, unless you delete a linked account sooner or request earlier deletion.
- Support email correspondence: resolved threads in the support mailbox are deleted after their newest message is more than 12 months old. Direct emails to support and copies already delivered to the mailbox follow this mailbox schedule.
- Infrastructure logs: kept by our hosting providers for a short period.
- Error reports: retained by Sentry for a limited period (typically 90 days).
- Database backups: automated encrypted backups are kept for a short rolling window and then overwritten; deleted data ages out of backups within that window.
9. Deleting your account
You can delete your account directly in the app (Account → Delete account). Deletion is immediate and permanent: your notes, images, recall history, settings, share links, linked in-app help requests and screenshots, sessions, and account record are removed from our servers. Support correspondence already delivered to our mailbox follows the support-email retention period above. Copies of notes that other users imported from your share links remain with those users. Residual traces in encrypted backups age out automatically within the backup window.
If you can't use the app, email us (contact below) from your account's email address and we will delete the account for you.
10. Your rights
Depending on where you live (e.g. GDPR in the EEA/UK, CCPA in California), you have the right to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal data, to object to or restrict certain processing, and to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent. Most of this you can do directly in the app — your notes are editable and exportable by you, and deletion is built in. For anything else, email us and we will respond within 30 days. We verify requests via your account email. We never discriminate against you for exercising your rights, and we do not "sell" or "share" personal information as defined by the CCPA.
If you are in the EEA or UK, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.
11. Security
All traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted with TLS. Passwords are bcrypt-hashed; session tokens and reset codes are stored only as hashes; note images and support screenshots live in private storage; and the API enforces rate limits and sign-in lockouts. On your device, credentials are kept in the operating system's secure storage. No system is perfectly secure, but we design so that a single failure exposes as little as possible.
12. Children
PulseNote is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.
13. Changes to this policy
When we change this policy, we will update the effective date above and post the new version at the same address. For material changes, we will notify you in the app or by email before they take effect.
14. Contact
PulseNote — operated by Thomas Verdier Email: support@pulsenoteapp.com
For data-protection requests about an account, write from the account's email address so we can verify it's you. For an anonymous help request, include the request details and any reply address you supplied so we can locate it.