Owlish

Privacy Policy

Effective 19 October 2026 · Contact: [email protected]

Summary. Owlish is a study app for Mac, iPhone and iPad. It has no user accounts, and the developer does not collect, receive or sell your personal data. Your library stays on your devices, except when you choose to send something to a third-party service you set up.

What stays on your devices

The media, papers, articles and lectures you add; everything Owlish makes from them (transcripts, summaries, notes, flashcards, quizzes, mind maps, whiteboards, podcasts, slides); your study progress; and your settings. On the Mac this lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Owlish. API keys you enter are stored in the Keychain, never in plain files or logs, and sent only to the provider they belong to.

AI providers (only the one you choose)

With Apple Intelligence, answers and study material are made on your device. If you choose a cloud provider with your own API key, the text you ask about, including excerpts of your material, is sent to that provider using your key, under their privacy policy. On iPhone and iPad, Owlish names the provider and asks for your permission before the first time it sends anything. The developer receives no copy.

Other services you use from the app

Owlish contacts other services only because of something you do:

  • Imports. Adding a link downloads it from its website or video service.
  • Discover. Paper searches send your search words to the scholarly services you have enabled (for example arXiv, Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Europe PMC, bioRxiv, Hugging Face, GitHub). Studying a paper downloads its PDF from its publisher.
  • Optional web research (Mac). When enabled in Settings, making study material may send short topic keywords, never your document text, to DuckDuckGo to find related reading.
  • Voices and media. If you pick a cloud voice for podcasts or a cloud image or video model, the text or prompt goes to that service with your key.
  • Publishing (Mac). If you publish a website, its files go to the host you connect (your Cloudflare or GitHub account, or your own server).
  • Updates (Mac). The app checks this website for new versions; the request carries no personal data.

Camera, microphone and speech

Camera and microphone are used only for recordings you start (lectures and voice notes) and, on iPhone, to scan the pairing code your Mac shows. Recordings stay on your device unless you send them to your own Mac. Voice notes are turned into text on the device.

Between your devices

Pairing your iPhone or iPad with your Mac is optional. Links, lectures and study packs travel directly between your devices over your network, or through a relay you set up, and are encrypted end to end, so a relay can't read them. The Mac's optional server for AI tools (MCP) listens only on that Mac.

This website and purchases

  • Hosting. This site is served by Cloudflare, which processes standard request logs (such as IP address and browser) to deliver it. There are no analytics or advertising trackers.
  • Purchases (Mac). Payments are processed by Stripe; the developer never sees your card details. To issue your license key, give support and meet tax and accounting rules, the developer receives and keeps your name, email address and purchase record. Your key is tied to that email. Records are kept as long as the law requires.
  • Earlier beta list. If you joined the beta list, your email is stored with Cloudflare and used only to tell you about availability. Email us to be removed.

Analytics and tracking

None. Owlish contains no analytics, advertising or tracking.

Your control and rights

Delete anything in the app, remove API keys in Settings, or delete the app to remove its data. For the purchase data the developer holds, you can ask for access, correction, deletion or a copy (GDPR/CCPA) by emailing [email protected]. We don't sell personal information. EU and UK residents may also complain to their supervisory authority.