Privacy Notes: What Leaves the Desk Folio

In short

InkBound is a free iPhone travel journal. You claim one Trip from a ticket or landmark, land on its Spread, and press a watercolor Stamp onto the open page before the thermal ink fades. Everything you make stays on your iPhone unless you tap Allow. After that, the parts of a page that need cloud help go to two AI services, DeepSeek and MiniMax, and nowhere else.

There is no InkBound account, no sign-in, no InkBound server, no advertising, no analytics, and no tracking.

The folio: what InkBound stores on your iPhone

InkBound keeps its work in the app's own storage on your device:

• Trips — a title, a place hint, the ticket or landmark still you attached, and the verso note on the opening page.
• Spreads — day index, verso notes, and the stamps pressed onto each open page.
• Stamps — the watercolor wash image, its kind, and the text prompt used to generate it.
• Learning records — short local notes about what you accepted or corrected, so later presses can follow your habits.
• Settings — your AI data-sharing choice and reminder toggles.

None of this is synced to iCloud or to any server we run, because we do not run one.

Camera, Photos, microphone, speech, reminders

InkBound asks for each permission only when you reach the feature that needs it:

• Camera — used to photograph tonight's ticket or landmark for the open Spread. If you decline, pick an image from Photos instead, or type and speak without a still.
• Photos, read — used when you choose one still from your library for this Spread. InkBound sees only the image you pick.
• Photos, add only — used to save an accepted stamp wash into Photos. If you decline, the wash stays inside InkBound. InkBound never browses your library beyond the image you choose.
• Microphone and Speech Recognition — used on the talk dock when you speak a trip or stamp note instead of typing it. If you decline, type the note; it works the same way.
• Notifications — two optional local reminders: one about eight hours after you leave an unfinished page, and a daily trip-day nudge at 9 p.m. local time. If you decline, there are no reminders and nothing else changes.

Speech is recognised in US English. Where your iPhone supports on-device recognition, recognition can stay on the phone. On devices without that support, Apple's speech service may process the audio under Apple's own privacy terms. InkBound itself never uploads audio; only the resulting text can be included in a request to DeepSeek.

Reminders are scheduled on the device. No push service is involved.

Cloud presses and the two AI services

Claiming a Trip with AI help and pressing a Stamp use outside AI services. Before the first one, InkBound shows a consent pass. Nothing is sent until you tap Allow. If you tap Don't Allow, the local folio keeps working: you can still claim trips by hand, write verso notes, and keep pages you already have.

DeepSeek (api.deepseek.com) reads the open page and drafts the next journal action. Depending on the step, a request can contain:

• the ticket or landmark still image (as a JPEG);
• the trip title, place hint, and verso sentence;
• the open Spread's day index and notes;
• skill and context text that describe the journal desk;
• the note you typed or spoke (as text);
• short summaries of past accepts and corrections, so the draft can follow them.

If DeepSeek refuses the image part, InkBound retries with words only and keeps the page moving.

MiniMax (api.minimax.cn) generates the stamp wash picture. It receives a text description only — the stamp kind and a short prompt derived from the page. InkBound does not upload your ticket or landmark photo to MiniMax.

InkBound does not send your name, contact details, location coordinates, device advertising identifier, or any account identifier to either service. InkBound is built for tickets, landmarks, and journal pages. Its prompts tell the models to draw no faces, but it does not inspect or blur images. Please do not photograph people as the still for a Spread.

DeepSeek and MiniMax process requests under their own terms and privacy policies, and they may keep request data as those policies describe. The DeepSeek service is operated from the People's Republic of China. MiniMax's endpoint used here is its mainland China service. Allowing a cloud press means your data may be processed there.

Turning cloud presses off

Open Settings > AI sharing and choose Don't Allow. The switch takes effect at once: InkBound stops building any further DeepSeek or MiniMax requests, cancels in-flight ones, and your local folio stays as it is. Turning it back on shows the consent pass again. Switching off cannot recall data that was already sent; for that, contact the provider.

No purchases, no ads, no tracking

InkBound is free and has no in-app purchases or subscriptions. It shows no ads. It contains no analytics, attribution, advertising, or crash-reporting SDK. It does not read the advertising identifier, does not ask for App Tracking Transparency permission, and does not link your data with data from other companies' apps or websites.

How long things are kept, and how to clear them

Your trips, spreads, stamps, and notes stay on your iPhone until you delete the app. InkBound has no single erase-everything button, so deleting the app is the way to remove all of its local data. Stamp washes you saved to Photos stay in Photos until you delete them there. Data already sent to DeepSeek or MiniMax is kept according to their policies.

On-device data is protected by iOS app sandboxing and your device passcode. Requests to the AI services use HTTPS.

If this page changes

When a new build of InkBound changes what it collects or sends, we will update this page and its effective date before or when that build ships.

Write to us

Privacy questions about InkBound: deskfolio@inkbound.app