Privacy Policy
Effective October 23, 2026
Ribbonmark is a reading tracker for iPhone. In short: your books stay on your phone, the app has no ads and no tracking, and an account is only needed to read with other people. This page says exactly what goes where.
What stays on your phone
Your shelf, your places in each book, your ratings, reviews, notes and highlights, your reading history and your settings are stored only on your iPhone. We don't receive them unless you choose to share them (see Reading with other people, below).
- Scanning and screenshots. The camera reads barcodes, and screenshots you share are read with the phone's own text recognition. The images and the text read from them never leave your phone.
- Backups. If iCloud backup is on, a copy of your books is saved to Ribbonmark's folder in your own iCloud Drive. Backups you save with Back up now go wherever you choose. We can't see either.
- Audiobookshelf. If you connect your own Audiobookshelf server, the app talks to that server directly. Its address and your sign-in are kept on your phone.
- Reminders are scheduled on the phone.
Looking books up
To find a book, its cover, its series, ratings, genres or similar books, the app sends only the book's ISBN, its title and author, or the words you searched for. It sends nothing about you or the rest of your shelf. These requests go to:
- our server, which asks Hardcover and keeps the public answers for everyone (book details, not who asked);
- Open Library, Google Books and Apple's iTunes Search, for covers and editions;
- The New York Times, for this week's bestseller lists (asked by our server);
- Libby (OverDrive), if you search for your library;
- Anthropic's Claude, which our server uses to sort public book details (genres, and why one book is like another). Only public details about books are sent, never anything about you.
These services see the request coming from your phone or our server, as any website does, and handle it under their own privacy policies.
Reading with other people (optional account)
Everything above works without an account. If you sign in, with Sign in with Apple or a link sent to your email, we store on our server (Supabase):
- your sign-in email address (with Sign in with Apple, this may be Apple's private relay address), used only to sign you in;
- your handle, icon and the line on your page;
- what you choose to share, at the level you choose in Settings: books you're reading or have finished, how far through, ratings, reviews, and your top books;
- what you post: asks and the books you hand over, reviews you make public, notes in the margin, posts in circles and clubs, lines in the reading hour, and your monthly swap;
- friends, friend requests, the people you block, and reports you make.
Who sees what is up to you: Settings lets you show each kind of thing to everyone, to friends, or to no one. Your handle is shown, never your name or email.
Purchases
Ribbonmark Plus and tips are bought through Apple. Apple handles the payment; we never see your payment details. The app checks with Apple which purchases your Apple Account owns.
What we don't do
- No advertising, no ad networks, no analytics or tracking tools.
- We don't sell or rent your information, or share it with anyone for marketing.
- We don't build a profile of you from your reading.
Deleting your information
Delete your account in the app under Settings › What people see › Delete my account. That removes your account and everything stored with it from our server straight away. Books on your phone are removed when you delete the app; backups in your iCloud Drive stay until you delete them. You can also ask us to delete your information by email.
Children
Ribbonmark is for people 13 and older. We don't knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has made an account, contact us and we'll remove it.
Security
Everything sent between the app and our server is encrypted (HTTPS). Account data is stored with Supabase, which encrypts it at rest, and access rules on the server let each person read only what others have chosen to show them.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. If a change affects what we collect, the app will say so before it happens.
Contact
Questions or requests: support@ribbonmark.app