Hobbyholic is built privacy-first. Here's exactly how your data is handled — in plain English.
Hobbyholic has no analytics and no third-party tracking SDKs. Your picks, your tracked hobbies, your mood entries and your answers stay on your device, and so do the journal entries you write — unless you choose to publish one.
Four things can leave your device, all optional and none on by default. A handle: signing in and choosing one publishes that handle and three summary numbers — sessions logged, current streak, achievements earned — so other people using the app can find and follow you. A photo: if you choose to share a picture of a session, it is checked by an automated service and then by a person if there is any doubt, and published — visible to anyone who knows your handle if your profile is public, and to your followers if it is private. A profile picture: if you set one, it is checked on your phone before it uploads and is public like your handle — it is not reviewed by a person. A journal entry: if you choose to publish one, the words you wrote are checked the same way and published next to your handle, following the same public-or-followers rule. Nothing else about you is published, and none of it happens unless you ask for it.
Hobbyholic stores only what it needs to work, and it stores it locally on your device:
All of this lives on your device and is removed if you delete the app. The things that can leave it are the optional profile, a photo you choose to share, and the words of a journal entry you choose to publish — all described below. Apart from the moderation service that checks what is shared or published, we run no server of our own.
The kid-hobby feature is designed for a parent or guardian, not the child. It never asks for a name, a photo, a birthday, or anything that identifies your child. It only records the category answers you tap — an age band (for example "6–7") and broad interest categories — and it keeps those answers on your device to build suggestions.
Hobbyholic has an optional account. You never need one: every other feature works signed out, and nothing here happens until you choose a handle.
Signing in with Apple. The app asks Apple for no personal information at all — not your name, not your email address, not even a private relay address. Apple returns an identifier that is meaningless outside this app. It is kept in your device's Keychain and is never uploaded.
Choosing a handle. This is the moment data starts leaving your device. It creates a profile record in a public database hosted by Apple's CloudKit, in a container we control. That record holds your handle and — if you choose to set one — your profile picture, and nothing else about you.
What becomes visible. Once you have a handle, the app publishes three numbers as you use it: how many sessions you have logged in total, your current daily streak, and how many achievements you have earned. That is the complete list of what a handle publishes on its own. If you set a profile picture, it is visible to anyone who can see your profile, exactly like the handle. Sharing a photo is a separate choice that publishes more, and Photos below says exactly what.
Your mood entries, your missions, your check-ins and your kid-mode answers never leave your device, handle or no handle. Two things this policy once listed alongside them are now exceptions. Both are choices you make one item at a time, and neither is on by default:
We would rather say plainly that this policy changed than quietly reword a promise we used to make.
Who can see it. The database is public. Anyone using Hobbyholic can search a handle and see that handle and its three numbers — this is not limited to people who follow you. Treat your handle as a public name, and don't choose one you wouldn't want attached to the app.
Who can find you. Settings → Account → Who can find you has two settings, and new profiles start on Private. Private means you are found by your exact handle or by a link you send. Public means your handle can also be listed to someone browsing part of a handle. Be clear about what this is: it controls what the app lists, not what the database allows. The records are in a public database and stay readable either way. It is a listing choice, not a lock.
Following, reporting and blocking. Following someone stores a public record saying you follow them. Reporting a handle stores your profile id, theirs, their handle and the reason you chose; a person reads these and nothing is automated. Blocking someone is kept only on your own device — nothing about it is published, the person blocked is not told, and it does not follow you to a new phone.
Deleting it. Settings → Account → Delete my profile removes your handle, your three numbers and every record of who you follow, and frees the handle for someone else. It cannot remove records other people created, so if somebody follows you their record of that stays — it stops resolving once your profile is gone, and shows them nothing. Signing out instead just forgets your handle on that device. Deleting the app does not on its own remove a published profile: delete the profile first, or email us and we will remove it within 30 days.
Attaching a photo to a session and sharing it are two separate actions, and the first one publishes nothing.
Attaching. A photo you attach to a session is stored inside the app on your device. We never see it, and deleting the app removes it.
What happens before it is sent. If you choose to share it, the app re-encodes the picture at a smaller size. That re-encoding is what removes the metadata: the file that leaves your phone is built from the pixels alone, so where the photo was taken, the device that took it and when do not travel with it. Without that, a photo of a hobby done at home would carry your address into a public database.
Checking. The photo goes to a holding area only you and we can read, and is checked before anyone else can see it. Your phone may run Apple's own on-device check first — a courtesy that often does not run at all. The image is then sent to Sightengine, an automated moderation service, which classifies it. If that is clear, the photo is published; if it is uncertain, a person looks at it; if it is not clear, it is refused and never published.
The hobby tag. When you share a photo, the app offers to show it to anyone browsing the hobby you logged it against — "Also show this photo to anyone browsing Bread baking" — and the toggle starts on. If you leave it on, that hobby name is published with the photo and your handle appears in a "What others shared" list on that hobby's page. Turn it off and no hobby name is sent. There is no caption, title or free text of any kind on a photo — the tag is a hobby from the app's own list and nothing else.
As many photos as you like. Each session can have one shared photo, and you can share from as many sessions as you want to — sharing again from a different session adds a photo rather than replacing anything. Each photo is its own post, with its own take-down and its own hobby tag.
If a photo is refused, we store a small record: a reference to your profile, the word describing the outcome, and the time. Not the image, and not your handle. You are told in the app and can write to us if you think it was wrong.
Where a published photo can be seen. In the same public database as your handle. Who the app shows it to follows your Who can find you setting: on a public profile, anyone who has your profile link or knows your handle can see it — it is not limited to your followers. On a private one, only the people who follow you are shown it: your photo stays out of the Shared feed, and anybody else who opens your profile sees that it exists but not the photo itself. Be clear about what this is, as with the listing setting above: it describes what the app shows. The records sit in a public database either way, so this is a promise about Hobbyholic's own screens rather than a technical lock on the database. To make a photo unreadable, take it down.
Taking a photo down is under the session you shared it from. It is a request rather than an instant delete: a service of ours removes the published copy, usually within a few minutes. Deleting the photo, the session, or your profile does the same.
Writing an entry and publishing one are two separate actions, and the first one publishes nothing.
Writing. Everything you write in a hobby's journal is stored inside the app on your device. We never see it, and deleting the app removes it.
Nothing you wrote before this existed has been published. Publishing is per entry and off by default. Entries written before the option existed are private and stay private, with nothing for you to switch off.
Publishing one. If you choose to publish an entry, the words go to a holding area only you and we can read, and are checked before anyone else can see them. The text is sent to Sightengine, an automated moderation service, which classifies it. If that is clear, the entry is published; if it is uncertain, a person reads it; if it is not clear, it is refused and never published. We send the words and the hobby name the entry was written under — not your handle, not your profile id, nothing else identifying you.
A person may read what you wrote. This is worth saying plainly rather than leaving you to work it out: when the automated check is not confident, somebody at Pera Research reads the entry in order to decide. That is the same arrangement as for photos. Entries you never publish are never read by anyone.
Your photo does not go. A journal entry can have a photo attached. Publishing an entry publishes the words only — the photo stays on your phone, and there is no way to publish it.
Up to 1,000 characters. A published entry is capped at a thousand characters. What you write locally can be as long as you like; the cap is on what we carry, not on what you may write.
Editing or deleting. Editing a published entry takes the published copy down and returns the entry to private. We cannot update what other people are already reading, so we remove it rather than leave your old words up; publish again if you want the new version out there. Deleting an entry also takes the published copy down.
Where a published entry can be seen. In the same public database as your handle, next to that handle. Who the app shows it to follows the same rule as photos: on a public profile, anyone who has your profile link or knows your handle can read it — it is not limited to your followers. On a private one, only the people who follow you are shown it, and it stays out of the Shared feed.
Taking an entry down is on the entry itself. It is a request rather than an instant delete: a service of ours removes the published copy, usually within a few minutes. Deleting your profile takes down everything you have published.
The app has a tab showing photos other people have shared. This section says what puts you in it and what a row about you carries, because being listed and ranked by default is a different thing from being findable by someone who already knows your handle.
Only Public profiles appear. If Who can find you is set to Private — which is where every profile starts, and where every profile created before that setting existed remains — you are not in this tab at all, however many photos you have shared. Setting yourself Public is what puts you there.
What a row carries: a photo row carries your handle, the photo you shared, when you shared it, the hobby tag if you left one on, and a count of how many people have liked it. A journal row carries your handle, the words you published, when you published them, and the hobby the entry was written under — no photo and no like count, by design. A person can appear in any number of rows. There is no caption and no free text on a photo.
Like counts are public; who liked is not. The number next to a photo is published. The record of which person cast a like is not readable by anybody — not by other users, and not by the person who was liked. We keep it only so that one account counts once.
Going private removes you. Switching Who can find you back to Private takes your row out, usually within a few minutes. So does taking the photo down, and so does deleting your profile.
Journal entries appear in this tab too. Published entries are listed in the same feed as photos, newest first, interleaved with them. An entry row carries the words and the hobby name, and never a photo or a like count — see Journal Entries above for what publishing one means.
Before anything you make can be seen by people who don't already follow you, the app asks for your date of birth once. You need it to share a photo, to publish a journal entry, or to set Who can find you to Public.
It stays in your device's Keychain and is never uploaded. We do not receive it, cannot see it, and it is not written to the public database or anywhere else. It is stored as a date rather than a yes-or-no answer so the app can work it out again as you get older. Signing out removes it.
On iOS 26 and later the app may also ask Apple whether you are above or below 13, using Apple's own age-range feature. Apple answers with a range and nothing more precise; you can decline, and declining is treated as no answer rather than a pass. Nothing about that reaches us either.
If the answer is that you are under 13, sharing photos, publishing journal entries and being listed publicly are switched off, and anything already shared is taken down. Everything else carries on exactly as before.
A note on the App Store privacy label. We have declared your date of birth as not collected. We think that is the honest answer, because it never leaves your device and we have no way to see it. We state the reasoning here rather than leave it to be inferred, so that if you disagree you can see how it was reached.
Hobbyholic uses a small number of outside services. We don't share your saved data with them, but using these features does involve a request from your device to that provider:
Weather and nearby-places features are optional and only run when you use them. Their location handling is governed by Apple's privacy policy.
Your handle, your three numbers, your follow records, a published photo and a published journal entry stay until you remove them or delete your profile. The moderation service keeps a little more, all keyed to a profile id rather than a name:
We don't collect crash reports ourselves. If you opt in to sharing crash and diagnostic data with app developers through iOS Settings, Apple may pass along anonymised crash information — that flows through Apple under its terms, not through any Pera server, and you can turn it off in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements.
Apart from an optional handle and its three numbers, Hobbyholic keeps your information on your device and asks for no identifying details, so we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone, including children. Kid mode is a parent-facing tool and stores only non-identifying category answers on the device. The profile, following, photo and journal-publishing features are for the account holder, not for children: they need an Apple Account, a handle is public, and a shared photo or a published entry is readable by anyone who knows that handle if the profile is public, and by its followers if it is private. Please don't create one on a child's behalf.
Under the GDPR you have rights of access, correction, erasure and portability over the personal data we hold about you.
If you have never chosen a handle, we hold nothing, and there is nothing for us to give you or erase. The data on your phone is yours and deleting the app removes it.
If you have chosen a handle, we hold your handle, your three summary numbers, your follow records and your listing choice, plus any report you have sent, any photo you have shared, any journal entry you have published, and any record of a photo or an entry of yours being refused. You can change your handle in the app at any time, take a shared photo down from the session you shared it from, take a published entry down from the entry itself, and delete your profile outright in Settings → Account → Delete my profile.
Removing a published photo or entry is a request that a service of ours carries out, usually within a few minutes rather than instantly. That is a consequence of only that service being able to delete a published copy, which is the same arrangement that stops anybody publishing one without it being checked.
Email peraresearch1@gmail.com to see a copy of what we hold, or for anything the in-app deletion cannot reach, and we will act within 30 days. Deleting the app does not on its own remove a published profile — delete the profile first, or ask us.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The "Last Updated" date below changes when we do.
Questions about your privacy? We're here to help.
Hobbyholic is developed by Erdi Taspunar, an individual developer based in Finland.
Email us at: peraresearch1@gmail.com
Last updated: September 12, 2026 · © 2026 Pera. All rights reserved.