Nightcap Privacy Policy
Last updated 10 October 2026
Nightcap is an evening check-in for two people. One half of it — what you want tonight — is the most private thing the app holds, and the app is built so that it stays that way. This policy says plainly what is collected, what leaves your phone, and what your partner can and cannot see.
The short version
- Your nightly picks are never readable by your partner, and never readable by us. Only an overlap is ever revealed, and only when you have both sealed.
- Gratitude you write is private unless you tick the box to share it.
- Your calendar and photos are read on your phone only. Neither the photos, nor their contents, nor your calendar entries are ever uploaded.
- There is no analytics, no advertising, no tracking, and nothing is sold or shared with anyone.
What the app stores
Your account. When you sign in with Apple, we store the user identifier Apple gives us and the name you choose to show your partner. If you use Apple's Hide My Email, we never see your real address.
Your gratitude notes. Stored in your own archive. A note is sent to your partner only if you asked for it to be, and only once you have both sealed the evening. A note you have sent stays with them if you later unpair or delete your account — it is their copy of something you gave them.
Tonight's picks. Stored in a document only you can read. The security rules give your partner no read path to it at all. When you have both sealed, the server computes only the overlap between your two sets and writes that single result where you can both see it. Neither of you can see what the other chose outside the overlap, and the picks are deleted when the evening closes.
Your shared settings. The time you and your partner agree to check in by, and the list of vibes you choose between.
What the app reads from your phone
Nightcap asks for a small number of permissions to suggest things you might be grateful for. All of the processing below happens on your device.
Calendar. Today's entries are read to find things worth being glad about. Entries are never uploaded or stored by us.
Photos. Today's photos are examined on your device, using Apple's Vision framework, to work out roughly what they show (“outdoor”, “park”, “food”). The photos themselves never leave your phone and are never uploaded.
Location attached to your photos. This is the one thing people are most often surprised by, so it is stated plainly: a photo carries the coordinates of where it was taken, and permission to read your photos is enough to read those coordinates. Nightcap does not ask for location permission and does not track you, but it does read the location attached to today's photos.
Those coordinates are sent to Apple's geocoding service to turn them into the name of a place, so a suggestion can say “Saint Edward State Park” instead of nothing. This is the only thing in the whole app that leaves your device for this purpose. The coordinates are used once, for that lookup, and then discarded. They are not stored by us and never reach your partner.
Nightcap only uses the name of a genuine public place — a park, a shop, a landmark. If there is no such place, which is what happens at a home, no place is used at all. Your home address is deliberately never used as a suggestion.
A reference photo of your partner, if you choose to add one. Used to prefer photos they appear in. Only a numeric fingerprint is kept, on your phone, in this app. The photos themselves are not stored, and the fingerprint is never uploaded.
Notifications. At most two an evening: a reminder two hours before your agreed time if you have not checked in, and a word once the evening is decided. Neither says what either of you chose.
Writing the suggestions
The suggested lines are written by Apple's on-device model, which runs entirely on your iPhone. Nothing about your day is sent to us or to any other company to produce them. The intimacy side of the app is never sent to any model at all.
Who else is involved
Nightcap uses Google Firebase for accounts, storage and notifications, and Apple for sign-in, notification delivery, and turning coordinates into a place name. They process this data on our behalf. Nothing is sold, and there is no advertising or analytics in the app.
Deleting your account
You can delete your account at any time from Settings, inside the app. This deletes your account, your whole gratitude archive, and any picks, and ends your pairing. It cannot be undone. Gratitude you had already sent to a partner stays with them.
Either partner can unpair at any time, immediately, without the other's agreement.
Children
Nightcap is for adults and is not directed at children.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what is collected or who can see it, the app will say so before the change takes effect.
Contact
Questions about privacy: twillscott@hotmail.com