the promise, kept

private isn’t a setting. it’s the design.

longbook promises to remember and remind you of your financial commitments — while staying free, open source and private. this page is how the private part is actually built, and a few habits that keep it that way.

open source, so you don’t have to trust our word

the entire codebase is public under GPL-3.0 — anyone can read exactly what the app does with your data, and any distributed fork must stay open under the same terms. a privacy claim you can audit beats one you have to believe. the repository →

your data is a folder on your device

your financial memory is plain files — readable in any text editor, backed up like anything else, deleted by dragging a folder to the bin. there is no server holding a copy, no account to breach, and no analytics watching how you use it.

no account. no email. nothing to sign up for

you download longbook and open it. we don’t know who you are, and the app is built so we never need to.

the app makes no internet connections

longbook itself never phones home — no update pings, no telemetry, no quiet requests. the only deliberate exits are the buttons that open a longbook.app page, and those open in your own browser, outside the app, so leaving the app always looks like leaving the app.

sync is your own iCloud, not our cloud

to use longbook on more than one device, you keep the vault folder in your own iCloud Drive — Apple carries it between your devices under Apple’s terms, and we’re not in that loop at all. there is no longbook cloud.

no bank secrets, by design

longbook never asks for a bank login, a card number, or an account number. a payment method in longbook is just a name you’d recognise — “HDFC Visa”, “Apple Pay” — enough to know where a renewal bills, and nothing a thief could use.

habits that keep it that way

name cards, never numbers. “ICICI Joint” is all longbook needs — never type a full card or account number anywhere in it.
keep the vault in iCloud Drive — you get sync and an off-device backup in one move (settings → sync does it for you).
export a backup now and then (settings → data → export) and keep it wherever you keep important files.
only point AIs you trust at your vault — agentic mode works with any tool, so choose one whose privacy you’re comfortable with, and review its work under changes.

the formal version, for the record: privacy policy →