Privacy Policy

The short version

UNDER A MINUTE

We collect what Anser needs to run your calendar. Nothing you write or plan in Anser is used for advertising.
Your moods, gratitude notes, and reflections are private to you.
We never sell your data.
Our own analytics uses no cookies. Google and Pinterest count visits to our public pages, and whether our ads brought them, only if you say yes. None of it ever includes what you write.
Payments go through Stripe, or through Apple if you buy a plan in Anser for Mac. We never see your card number.
You can download your data, or delete your account, yourself at any time.

The fine detail of each feature is on How Anser handles your data, which is part of this policy.

What we collect

Your account: When you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile photo. When you use Sign in with Apple in Anser for Mac, we receive your email address (or the private relay address Apple makes, if you choose to hide yours) and, the first time only, the name you choose to share. Apple also gives us a token for that sign-in, which stays on our servers and is used for one thing: telling Apple to end it when you delete your account. When you sign in with your email instead, we keep your email address and use it to send you sign-in codes (each one works once, for 10 minutes). You can also upload your own photo; profile photos are stored so they can be shown in Anser and can be viewed by anyone who has the image link.
Your Google Calendar: If you connect it, and with your permission, Anser reads and updates events in your Google Calendar so it can show your week, protect your time, and keep both calendars in step. From the calendars you show in Anser, we keep each event’s title, times, whether it makes you busy, how it repeats, its place or meeting link, and the names of its guests and organiser, not their email addresses. From calendars you use only for free time, we keep just when each event happens and whether it makes you busy: no titles, places or guests. An event you made in Anser is yours: it keeps what you wrote and stays on your Anser calendar, whichever Google calendar it’s saved to. Event descriptions aren’t copied, except one you write in Anser for an event’s guests, and notes you add to an event in Anser are never sent to Google. Nobody is emailed unless you choose “Email guests”. We store a Google access token so syncing keeps working after you sign in.Guests, turning a calendar off and disconnecting
What you write in Anser: Events, notes, checklists and to-dos, goals, routines, the trackers you set up and what you log in them, working hours and boundaries, your daily Top 3, your evening reviews (mood, gratitude, and reflection), your Today’s page, the notes of your own you write in Notes and the tags you put on either, including any photos and files you attach. Your Scratchpad is kept as one page of plain text; an address you paste there is shown as a link, and Anser never opens it. Photos and files are kept in private storage that only your account can open. Handwriting you write with Apple Pencil in Anser for iPad is saved to your account like the rest of your writing, kept for your own use, and never used for advertising or tracking; when you erase or rewrite it, the earlier version is kept for up to 30 days. A photo you take with your camera, for a page, your vision board or a sticker, is kept just like a photo you choose. Your badges are counted from what is already in Anser, and only you can see them.Badges, challenges and the focus timer
Shared Life: If you share with someone, we keep who you share with and what you’ve chosen to let them see. When you’re both free is worked out from busy times only; your event details stay private unless you share a calendar with them. If you send a decline, the person who invited you receives an email from you via Anser.Copies of shared plans in your Google Calendar
Inviting friends: Your account has an invite code for your link. When someone signs up from it, we keep who invited whom, their first name (shown only to you), whether their first payment has gone through, and the free months you’ve earned. The person you invite sees only your first name, on the page your link opens. To stop people inviting themselves, we compare a few account and payment details; none of that is shown to either of you.What is compared, and what stays if a friend deletes their account
Notifications: Your reminder and email choices. If you turn on push notifications, your browser gives us an address to deliver them to, which we delete when you turn them off.
Your location or city, only for the weather: Weather is off until you turn it on in Settings. If you choose to use your location, your browser asks you first, then shares it so Anser can show local weather. It is rounded to about 1 km before it leaves your device, sent to our weather providers, and not stored on our servers.If you choose a city instead
How Anser is used (analytics): To learn which pages and features help people, we count a few things with PostHog, without cookies. We never send what you write or plan: no event titles, notes, day pages, moods, goals or photos, no calendar details, and not your name or email address. There are no session recordings. On our public pages we also ask whether Google Analytics may count your visit, and Google Ads and Pinterest tell us whether one of our ads brought you, with cookies. Nothing from Google or Pinterest loads until you choose Accept, and neither ever runs in the app itself or inside Anser for Mac, iPad or Chrome. If you chose Accept and then make an account, our server tells Google and Pinterest once, with a hashed copy of your email address, so they can count it as a sign-up from our ads. They never receive what you write, your name, or your email address as it is. We don’t use any of it for remarketing, and Google is told not to use it to personalise ads; Pinterest uses what it receives under its own privacy policy. If your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, Anser sends no analytics at all.Everything we count, and how visitors are counted What Google and Pinterest receive, and changing your mind
Where you first came from: If you first arrive by a link with a campaign tag (for example a Pinterest pin or a TikTok bio link), your browser keeps that tag and the page you landed on. When you create an account, they’re saved with it, once, so we know which pin or video helped. Only the tag and the page: nothing else about the visit.
Messages from the contact page: If you write to us from the contact page, we receive your email address, your name if you give it, and your message, so we can reply. It reaches us as an email; we don’t send anything back automatically.
Comments on the blog: If you leave a comment on our blog, we receive your name, your email address and your comment, and the IP address and browser you post from. They’re kept in our blog’s WordPress, hosted by Pressable, and used only to show and check comments. Every comment is checked by us before it appears; then your name, your comment and its date are shown under the post. Your email address is never shown on the blog, and never sent to analytics. To have a comment removed, write to us at hello@anserplanner.com.Spam checks, and reading the blog
Ideas board: If you suggest an idea or vote on our ideas board, we keep which ideas you suggested and which you voted for with your Anser account, so you can vote once and see your own ideas. What you write in an idea is kept in our blog’s WordPress, hosted by Pressable. We read each one before it appears, may take out anything personal, and show it on the board without your name. Your name, email address and account are never sent to WordPress or shown on the board. You can delete an idea of yours until it’s published. If you delete your account, your votes and the record of which ideas you suggested go with it, ideas we haven’t published are deleted (if our blog can’t be reached just then, they’re deleted within 90 days, like every idea we don’t publish), and published ones stay without your name. Ideas we don’t publish are deleted after 90 days.
Feedback you send us: If you send feedback from the app, we receive your message, the page you were on, and the app version. If you tick “you can reply to me”, we also receive your name and email address so we can answer.
Billing: If you choose a plan, Stripe handles your payment details. We keep only your Stripe customer ID, your plan, and your trial and renewal dates. If you buy a plan in Anser for Mac, Apple handles the payment instead: Apple tells us the plan, its dates, whether it renews, and the purchase’s ID at Apple, never your card or your Apple Account’s details.

How we use it

We use your information to run Anser: to sign you in (including emailing your sign-in codes), to show and sync your calendar, remember your routines and reviews, send the reminders you’ve asked for, run your free trial and plan, fix things that break, and answer you when you write to us. We also use analytics to understand which pages and features help people: our own, which uses no cookies, and on our public pages Google Analytics, only if you say yes. We don’t sell your information. If you say yes on our public pages, Google and Pinterest tell us whether our ads brought you and led to an account; we don’t use that to show you ads (no remarketing).

Your Google data

Anser’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We use your calendar data only to provide Anser’s features to you. You can remove Anser’s access at any time from your Google Account permissions.

Cookies and browser storage

We use cookies to keep you signed in. Your browser also stores a few preferences, like your theme and prompts you’ve dismissed. The only analytics and advertising cookies are Google’s and Pinterest’s, on our public pages, and only after you choose Accept: Google Analytics’, to count visits, and Google Ads’ and Pinterest’s, to tell us whether our ads brought you. A cookie of ours keeps your answer, Accept or Reject, and tells our server at sign-up whether it’s Accept. Our own analytics stores nothing in your browser. The blog sets no cookies of its own, and leaving a comment stores nothing in your browser.

What your browser stores, and for how long

Anser for Chrome

If you add Anser for Chrome, our browser extension, clicking its icon shows your day from Anser: what’s next, your Top 3, routines and trackers. It reads them from anserplanner.com with your usual sign-in, and what you tick or add is saved to your account, just as it would be in the app. So it opens instantly, it keeps one copy of today in Chrome on your computer: what the popup shows, and today’s events with their times, so it knows what’s next. It reads that copy from anserplanner.com each time you open it. While you’re signed in to Anser, it also reads it when Chrome starts and once just after midnight, without you clicking anything, so today is there before your first click. It’s deleted as soon as it finds you’ve signed out of Anser. It doesn’t read the pages you visit, your tabs or your browsing, and it doesn’t change your new tab.

How it knows you’ve signed out, focus sessions and offline ticks

Anser for Mac

If you use Anser for Mac, its window is anserplanner.com with your usual sign-in. So that its menu bar opens at once, and still shows your day when your Mac is offline, the app keeps a copy of today’s day on your Mac, in its own storage: what’s next, your Top 3 and routines, and your look. It only ever shows today’s, and it’s removed when you sign out. If you buy a plan in the app, it goes through Apple, and Apple keeps your Anser account’s ID with the purchase, so the plan is yours on every device you sign in on.

Its window and notifications

Keeping and deleting

We keep your data while you have an account. If your trial or plan ends, your planner closes and your data stays put, so it’s there if you come back. We still empty Recently deleted on its usual schedule. You can take a copy of all of it at any time: Settings › Profile & account › Download my data.

When you delete a note, a day’s page or an event, it goes to Recently deleted for 30 days so you can bring it back. After 30 days it’s deleted for good, with its photos and files. You can delete it for good sooner, any time. When you erase or rewrite handwriting on a page, the earlier version is kept for up to 30 days so it can be recovered, then deleted for good. Our database backups keep a copy for up to 9 days after that, then it’s gone too.

To delete your account, use Settings › Profile & account › Delete account, or email hello@anserplanner.com and we’ll do it within 30 days. Then:

Your Anser data and files are deleted right away, including anything in Recently deleted.
Our database backups keep a copy for up to 9 days, then it’s gone too.
Stripe keeps billing records for as long as the law requires.
Events Anser added to your Google Calendar stay there, because it’s your calendar. You can delete them in Google.
If you used Sign in with Apple, we tell Apple that Anser no longer has that sign-in, so Anser leaves your Apple Account’s Sign in with Apple list.
The browser you deleted from forgets you: you’re signed out and what Anser kept in it is cleared.

Security

Your data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and each account can only read its own data. No system is perfectly secure, so if something goes wrong we’ll tell you promptly.

Anser’s support can look up an account by its exact email address. That shows when it was made and last signed in, its plan, and how many events, notes, day pages, files and handwritten pages it has, never what any of them say. Support can also give a longer trial or a free month. Each look is recorded, and each change with its reason, and you’ll find them in Download my data.

Your choices and rights

You can turn off weather in Settings or location in your browser, disconnect Google, or cancel your plan at any time. You can download your data or delete your account yourself, in Settings › Profile & account. To turn off all analytics, turn on Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control in your browser; for Google and Pinterest alone, use Cookie choices at the foot of our public pages. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to see, correct, export, or delete your data, or to object to how it’s used. Email us and we’ll help.

Children

Anser isn’t meant for anyone under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you think a child has signed up, email hello@anserplanner.com and we’ll delete the account.

Changes and contact

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we’ll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. Questions? Email hello@anserplanner.com, or write to Anser, 6713 Austin Street, New York, NY.