Privacy

Last updated August 2026

Aside is built to keep your journal yours. Here's plainly what happens to your data, not a boilerplate policy.

What stays on your device

Everything you write or record — entries, photos, tags, and the raw transcripts of your recordings — is stored locally on your device. There's no account, no sign-in, and no server-side database of our own that any of it passes through.

What leaves your device

Two things currently involve a network request.

Reflections: when enabled, the text of your entries for a day or week is sent to a third-party AI service to generate a short reflection — only entry text, never photos, tags, or any identifying information, since Aside has no account to identify you by. You can turn Reflections off anytime in Settings, which stops this entirely.

Transcription: voice entries are transcribed using Apple's Speech framework. On supported devices and languages this can run entirely on-device; on older devices or less common languages, Apple may process it on their own servers instead, governed by Apple's privacy practices rather than Aside's.

What we don't do

No analytics, no tracking, no ad networks, no selling or sharing your data with anyone beyond what's described above.

Where this is headed

We're actively exploring options for generating reflections fully on-device, with no network request at all. That's not built yet — it's a real direction, not a promise about today's version.

Questions

Reach out any time through the support page.