The Last Bites

Candle Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 11, 2026

The short version: Candle collects no data. None. Everything stays on your devices and in your own iCloud.

What the app stores, and where

  • Your people and their birthdays. Names, birthdays, photos, phone numbers, and addresses live on your iPhone. If you're signed in to iCloud, they sync through your own private iCloud database (Apple's CloudKit), which only you can access. We never see any of it, and there is no Candle account to create.
  • Contacts and calendars. If you choose to import, Candle reads your contacts and calendars on your device to find birthdays. It copies over only the people who have one. Nothing is uploaded anywhere, and Candle never changes your contacts or calendars.
  • Gift ideas. Photos, links, notes, and voice memos you capture are stored on your device (and in your own iCloud, as above). Voice memos are transcribed by Apple's speech recognition; on-device transcription is used whenever your iPhone supports it.
  • Link previews. When you save a link, your iPhone fetches that page's title and picture directly from the website you chose, the same way Messages builds a link preview. That request goes from your device to that site. Nothing about you is sent to us, because there is no us to send it to.

What we don't do

  • No accounts, sign-ups, or logins.
  • No analytics, tracking, or advertising SDKs.
  • No servers. The app has nothing to send data to.
  • No selling, sharing, or transferring of data to anyone, because we never have it.

Notifications

Birthday reminders are local notifications, scheduled and delivered entirely on your device. At most two per person per year, and never a red badge.

Deleting your data

Removing a person or a gift idea in the app deletes it. Deleting the app removes everything on that device, and you can clear the synced copy from iCloud at any time in Settings > Apple Account > iCloud.

Children

Candle is not directed at children under 13 and collects no data from anyone, of any age.

Changes

If this policy ever changes, the new version will be posted at this address with a new date at the top.

Contact

Questions? Email chris@insearchofacity.com.