Red Pilcrow is a calm reader for articles, passages and documents. It is built to keep your reading on your device. Red Pilcrow has no accounts, no ads, and no analytics, tracking or advertising SDKs. Your library, highlights, notes and reading history are stored only on your device, and we do not run a server that keeps them.
Some features do need the internet, for example opening a web link or looking up a word. This policy lists each of them, what is sent and to whom.
What stays on your device
Red Pilcrow saves these things on your iPhone or iPad only:
- Your library: readings you add, saved articles, files you import and their text.
- What you make while reading: highlights, notes, kept lines, saved words and phrases, and your reading journal.
- Your reading progress and reading statistics.
- Your name, if you choose to give it, used to personalise greetings.
- Your settings, such as text size, spacing, theme, voice and reading mode.
- Translations of passages, kept so they don’t need to be made again.
This data does not leave your device unless you choose to share it (see below). Deleting the app deletes all of it. If your device backs up to iCloud or a computer, that backup may include this data, as with any app; we never see it.
Help and translation on your device
Reading help, such as explanations, recaps, suggested words for your bookplate and comparisons between passages, runs on your device. Where available, Red Pilcrow uses Apple’s on-device language model; otherwise it uses simpler built-in logic. Your reading is not sent to any AI service.
Translating a passage uses Apple’s on-device Translation framework. The passage is not sent to a translation server for this.
When something leaves your device
These features only run when you use them.
Opening a web link
When it’s used: When you paste a link, use a link from your clipboard, or share a link into Red Pilcrow from another app.
What happens to the data: To turn the page into a clean reading, the app sends the link’s address at the same time to Red Pilcrow’s text-extraction service (hosted on Vercel) and to Jina AI’s Reader service (r.jina.ai). Each fetches the page and sends back its text, and the app uses whichever answers first. If both fail, the app loads the page directly from the website. Only the address is sent, not your library or anything else about you. The website itself also sees a normal request for the page.
PDFs from a link
When it’s used: When the link you open points to a PDF.
What happens to the data: The app downloads the PDF from the website, then sends the file (up to about 2.9 MB) to Red Pilcrow’s PDF text-extraction service, which sends back its text. If that fails, the app tries Jina AI’s Reader service with the link.
PDFs you choose from Files
When it’s used: When you import a PDF from your device.
What happens to the data: The PDF is first read on your device. Only if that fails, and the file is about 2.9 MB or smaller, is the file sent to Red Pilcrow’s PDF text-extraction service to get its text. Text files and Markdown files are always read on your device.
Looking up a word
When it’s used: When you look up a word while reading.
What happens to the data: For an English word, the word is sent to the Free Dictionary API (dictionaryapi.dev). For a word in another language, the word and its language are sent to the MyMemory translation service (api.mymemory.translated.net) to translate it into English. Only the word is sent, not the passage around it.
App updates
When it’s used: When the app starts, and when you return to it (at most once every 15 minutes).
What happens to the data: The app checks Expo’s update service (u.expo.dev) for small app updates. The check includes the app’s version, the platform and a random identifier that the update system creates for this installation. It does not include anything you read or write.
Links to original sources
When it’s used: When you choose to open a reading’s original web page.
What happens to the data: The page opens in an in-app browser. That website has its own privacy policy.
Like any website, every service above can see your device’s IP address when the app connects to it. They receive no account and no name.
Permissions Red Pilcrow may ask for
Red Pilcrow only asks when you use a feature that needs it. You can say no, and you can change your mind at any time in Settings › Red Pilcrow. Everything else in the app keeps working without these permissions.
Camera
When it’s used: Scan a passage from a printed book into your reading journal.
What happens to the data: Text is recognised live on your device. Only the text you tap is kept. The camera picture is not saved or sent anywhere.
Microphone and Speech Recognition
When it’s used: Read-along, where the page follows you as you read out loud.
What happens to the data: Speech is matched to the words on the page on your device only. If your device can’t do this on the device, read-along is not available; your voice is never sent to a server instead. Nothing is recorded or stored.
Files you choose
When it’s used: When you import a file.
What happens to the data: The system file picker gives Red Pilcrow only the file you select. See above for how PDFs are read.
Clipboard
When it’s used: When you add a reading, the app checks whether your clipboard holds text or a link so it can offer to paste it.
What happens to the data: The app only reads what’s on your clipboard when you tap to paste it.
Motion (optional, no permission needed)
When it’s used: Set-down sensing, which notices when you put your phone down. It is off unless you turn it on, and only runs while a reading is open.
What happens to the data: The phone’s accelerometer is read on your device only. Nothing is stored or sent.
Sharing
Red Pilcrow only shares when you ask it to:
- Share cards, images and reading exports (PDF or Markdown): you choose where they go, using the standard iOS share sheet.
- Your reading summary: if you share it from your profile, you choose what to include and where it goes.
- Sharing into Red Pilcrow: text or links you share from other apps are passed to Red Pilcrow on your device.
Children
We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children.
Third parties
Red Pilcrow contains no third-party SDKs for analytics, advertising or tracking. The outside services it contacts are listed above, and each has its own privacy policy.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted at this address with a new date.
Contact
Questions about this policy? Email [email protected].