The short version
We only collect what we need to run Mindknot for you. We do not sell your data. You can edit your profile, block anyone, and delete your account and its data at any time from Settings.
What we collect
A small amount of information, grouped by why we hold it.
- Account details. Your email address and sign in method, so you can log back in. If you use Google or Apple sign in, we receive the basic details they share to confirm it is you.
- Profile. The display name, short bio and avatar you choose. You decide what to put here.
- Your content. The spirals you map, the insights generated from them, anything you choose to share to the feed, and the messages you send in a connection.
- What the app works out from your content. The worry underneath a spiral in a few words, a numeric form of it used only to compare your own spirals with each other, whether a fear you went back to came true, and the groupings that come out of those.
- Basic usage and device information. The ordinary technical data needed to keep the app stable and secure.
- Advertising and purchase data. If we show ads or you buy an optional paid feature, this means a device advertising identifier and a record of your purchases. It only applies if those features are live, and is covered under Advertising and Payments below.
How we use it
We use your information to sign you in, save your spirals, generate insights, suggest people who are thinking about similar things, and keep the community safe. We do not sell your personal information. Mindknot is free to use, and to support that we may show ads and offer optional paid features, both explained below.
Spirals and artificial intelligence
When you map a spiral, the text you write is sent to a trusted AI provider that helps turn it into a branching map, a short emotional summary, and a few plain words naming the worry underneath it. They process it to give us a response and do not use your words to advertise to you.
Those few words and the core fear are also turned into a list of numbers. It is a form a computer can compare and a person cannot read back as a sentence. We keep it so the app can find your earlier spirals that were about the same thing, and tell you when a worry keeps coming back. It is only ever compared against your own spirals, never anyone else's, and no other account can read it.
Grouping your spirals this way happens automatically. It names a worry that recurs and counts how often it turned up. That is a description of what you wrote and never a diagnosis or an assessment of you, and you can tell the app it got a grouping wrong whenever it does.
Please avoid putting details you would not want processed this way, such as full names, addresses or passwords, into a spiral.
Reminders the app sends you
A week after a spiral, the app asks whether the thing you were afraid of happened. If several of your spirals turn out to be one worry, it says so once. Both are worked out from your own entries and sent only to you, and neither notification contains what the worry was, so nothing personal appears on your lock screen.
A thought you park for later is kept on your phone and brought back by your phone's own alarm. It is not sent to us.
Both reminders can be turned off under Settings, Notifications.
Voice input
If you tap the microphone to say a thought instead of typing it, your phone's own speech recognition turns your voice into text. Mindknot receives the text and never the audio: we do not record, store or send your voice anywhere. The microphone is only on while you are speaking, and the app works fully if you never use it.
Depending on your phone, that speech recognition may run on the device or through your phone maker's speech service, such as Google's, under their own terms.
Advertising
Mindknot is free to use, and we may show ads to help keep it that way. When we do, ads are delivered by trusted advertising partners such as Google AdMob.
To show and measure ads, these partners may use a device advertising identifier and basic technical information about your device. We never share the private things you write in Mindknot, your spirals, insights or messages, with advertisers, and ads are never targeted using the content of your thoughts.
Where the law requires it, we will ask for your consent before showing personalised ads, and you can reset or limit your advertising identifier at any time in your device settings.
Payments and subscriptions
Some features may be offered as part of an optional paid plan. Purchases are handled by the App Store or Google Play, not by us, so we never see your full payment card details.
We receive a record of what you bought and whether it is active, so we can unlock the right features for your account. You can manage or cancel a subscription at any time from your app store account.
Who can see what
Most of Mindknot is private to you by default.
- Your spirals and insights are private unless you choose to share them.
- Anything you post to the feed, and the display name and avatar on it, can be seen by other people in the app.
- When you connect with someone, the two of you can see each other profile and the messages you exchange.
How we store and protect it
Mindknot runs on Google Firebase. Your data is stored on their secure servers and protected in transit. No system is ever perfect, so we keep what we collect to a minimum and work to keep it safe.
Your choices and your rights
You are in control of your information.
- Edit or clear your profile at any time.
- Block someone so they can no longer reach or match with you.
- Delete your account from Settings. This permanently removes your profile, your spirals, your shared posts and your connections, and it cannot be undone.
- Contact us if you want a copy of your data or have a privacy question.
Children
Mindknot is meant for adults and is not intended for children under 13, or under the minimum age required in your country. If you believe a child has created an account, please contact us and we will remove it.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle your data, we will update this page and the date at the top. Significant changes will be made clear inside the app.
Contact us
If anything here is unclear, or you want to make a request about your data, email us at support@mindknot.me and a real person will get back to you.