Privacy
What we hold, and what we do not.
Last updated 12 August 2026.
The short version
Meraky is a reading tracker that keeps your library in a database on your own phone. It works with no account, no connection and nothing sent anywhere. If you make an account, we hold your email address and — only while backup is on — a copy of your library, so it can find its way onto your next phone. There is no advertising, no analytics, no tracking and no third party we sell anything to.
Who is responsible
Meraky is operated by the maker of the app, reachable at hello@meraky.club. For the purposes of the UK and EU GDPR, that is the data controller for everything described below.
What stays on your phone
Everything you put into the app: your books, how far into each one you are, your ratings, every note you write and every feeling you mark, your reading sessions, and the cover images — including any picture you choose from your own gallery. All of it is written to a local database and to the app's own storage. Nothing on that list leaves your phone unless you turn on backup or share a card yourself.
Your palette, whether covers are drawn as artwork or typeset, and how the shelf is laid out are stored on the device and never leave it — they describe the phone, not the books.
What an account stores
If you sign in, our server holds:
- Your email address, which is what an account is. It identifies you, it is where the six-digit sign-in code goes, and it is the only way to reach you.
- A nickname, if you choose one. It is optional, it signs the cards you share, and it is public in the sense that anyone you send a card to can read it.
- The date the account was made, and the date your backup runs until.
- A subscription reference, if you subscribe — an identifier from our payment processor, so we know the subscription is live. We never see or store your card.
There is no password, because sign-in is a six-digit code sent to your address. There is nothing to leak and nothing for you to reuse somewhere else.
The backup
While backup is on, the app uploads a compressed copy of your library — books, progress, ratings, journal entries and their timestamps — to private storage that only your account can reach. It is written when you put the app down and once when you pick it up, and only when something has actually changed.
It is a backup and not a sync: it goes one way, and it comes back only when you sign in on a phone that is missing something. A restore merges, so it never overwrites a book you have read since. We keep the current copy and the one before it, so a database that has gone wrong locally cannot destroy the only good copy by uploading over it.
Nobody but you can read it. The storage policy checks the folder against your own account id, in the database, on every request.
The iPhone waitlist
If you give us your address for the iPhone list, we store that address and the date, and we use it once: to tell you the iPhone app is out. It is not an account, it is not added to any other list, and you can have it removed at any time by writing to hello@meraky.club.
Looking books up
When you search for a book to add, the app queries Open Library, a free service run by the Internet Archive. Your search words and your device's IP address reach them as part of that request; your account does not, because the app does not send one. Once you add a book its cover is downloaded to your phone, so nothing on your shelf depends on that service afterwards.
Paying
Subscriptions are handled by our payment processor, who takes the payment and holds the card details. We receive a reference for the subscription and its status. We never see your card number. Their own privacy notice covers what they collect at checkout.
What we deliberately do not do
- No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
- No analytics or usage tracking. We do not know which screens you open.
- No crash reporting. If the app fails to start it shows you the error, because you are the only one who can pass it on.
- No cookies on this website beyond what signing in requires, and none for tracking.
- We do not sell, rent or share your data with anybody.
Where it is held, and for how long
Account data and backups are stored on infrastructure operated by Supabase Inc. on our behalf. Data may be processed outside your country; where that happens, it is covered by the standard contractual clauses in our agreement with them.
We keep your account and its backup for as long as the account exists. Delete the account and both go with it. The iPhone waitlist is deleted once the iPhone app has shipped and the one email has gone out.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of what we hold, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Deletion you can do yourself, immediately, from your account page — see deleting your account. For anything else, write to hello@meraky.club and we will answer within 30 days. If you are in the UK or EU and you are not satisfied, you may complain to your national data protection authority.
We rely on the contract between us to hold your address and run your backup, and on your consent for the waitlist — which you may withdraw at any time.
Children
Meraky is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly hold data about them. If you believe we have, write to us and it will be removed.
Changes
If this notice changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes and we will say so in the app or by email before it takes effect.