Thoughtful · Effective July 4, 2026
Thoughtful is built so the people you care about stay your business. Everything you add to the app is stored on your device. The developer receives only two things, described below: anonymous crash reports, and the text you choose to send when you ask for an AI message idea. Neither is linked to you, sold, or used for advertising.
When you add someone, the details you enter — their name, date, occasion, relationship, phone number, and any message you write — are saved only on your device. This information never leaves your phone except through the actions you explicitly take, described below, and is never sent to the developer.
Reminders are scheduled and delivered locally by your device. Thoughtful does not use push servers and does not know when or whether a reminder fires.
When you tap a reminder or a send button, Thoughtful opens your device's built-in Messages app with a draft already filled in. You choose whether to send it, and it is sent through your own phone number and carrier or iMessage. Thoughtful never reads, stores, or transmits your messages.
Thoughtful reads your contacts only for features you invoke: "From Contacts" shows an in-app picker (names and phone numbers) so you can choose someone; "Import birthdays from Contacts" scans for contacts that already have a birthday saved, tells you how many it found, and adds them only after you confirm; the optional Auto-sync setting (off by default) repeats that import quietly when you open the People page. "Save to Contacts" opens the system new-contact sheet pre-filled with details you entered. In every case the data stays on your device and nothing is uploaded to the developer or anyone else.
If you add a photo to a person, the app opens the system photo picker; the picture you choose is resized and stored only on your device alongside that person. Deleting the person (or the app) deletes it.
When you tap Message ideas or a tone chip, Thoughtful sends the person's first name, the occasion, the tone you picked and your current draft to a small server run by the developer (a Cloudflare Worker), which forwards that text to Google's Gemini model and returns a suggestion. Nothing is sent unless you ask, no account or identifier travels with the request, the server keeps no copy of your text, and Google's processing is governed by Google's API terms. You can ignore the feature entirely and write every message yourself.
If the app crashes, it sends a short diagnostic report — the build number, the error text and a technical stack trace — to the same developer server so the bug can be fixed. Reports contain no names, dates, phone numbers or messages, and are not linked to you.
"Add to Calendar" creates a small calendar file (.ics) on your device and opens it so your own calendar app (such as Apple Calendar) can add the event — Thoughtful itself never reads or writes your calendar. "Post on Instagram / Facebook" copies a caption to your clipboard and opens that app so you can paste and post. These actions only happen when you tap them, and only share what you see on screen.
"Back up" copies your list to your device clipboard as text, and "Back up to a file" saves the same data (including photos) as a file and opens the iOS share sheet so you can AirDrop it or save it to Files — you choose where it goes. "Restore" reads a backup back from your clipboard. Nothing is sent to the developer.
Because all data lives on your device, you are always in control. Delete a person inside the app to remove their information, or delete the app to remove everything at once.
Thoughtful is rated 4+ and the developer collects no personal information from anyone, including children; crash reports and AI requests are anonymous.
If the app ever changes how it handles information, this policy and the App Store privacy details will be updated before that change ships.
Questions about your privacy? Email maguirepecci@gmail.com.