Privacy & Terms

How this policy applies

This Privacy Policy explains how Abide ("Abide," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, shares, stores, and deletes information when you use the Abide apps, Share Extension, website, and related services (collectively, the "Service").

Abide is a local-first capture inbox for personal scripture study. It lets you save passages and impressions, optionally synchronize them across your devices, and export Markdown into a vault you choose. You can use the core capture features without creating an account.

Information we collect

Account information

If you create an optional sync account, we collect your email address and authentication information needed to sign you in. We use this information to secure your account and associate synchronized captures with the correct user. Password authentication is handled by Supabase; we do not store your password in the app's capture data.

Content you choose to submit

Depending on the features you use, this can include:

• Passages, impressions, titles, references, and notes you enter;
• Text and web addresses you share to Abide;
• Source-app names and capture dates;
• Tags, language, importance, and completion or vault status; and
• Text produced through dictation when you choose to dictate.

Abide does not intentionally retain audio recordings from dictation. Speech is converted to editable text using Apple platform services where available.

Only submit content that you have the right to use. Avoid submitting highly sensitive personal information, confidential information belonging to another person, health information, financial account credentials, or other content you do not want stored on your device or synchronized through the Service.

App activity and settings

We store settings and state needed to operate the app, such as whether a capture has been handled or exported, local sync state, and display preferences.

Technical and service information

We may collect product-interaction, performance, and diagnostic information needed to operate and protect optional synchronization. This can include request status, retry state, timestamps, and security or abuse-prevention records maintained by our provider.

Abide does not include a third-party advertising or cross-app tracking SDK. We do not use your information for targeted advertising and do not track you across other companies' apps or websites.

Information stored on your devices

Abide stores captures locally so they remain available without an internet connection. The main app and Share Extension may share a local queue through an Apple App Group. Authentication sessions and preferences are also stored on your devices.

On macOS, if you choose an Obsidian vault, Abide stores a security-scoped bookmark so it can write the Markdown exports you request. The exported files are controlled by you and remain in the location you selected.

How we use information

We use information to:

• Authenticate you and maintain your account;
• Save, organize, search, export, and synchronize your captures;
• Deliver the Share Extension, dictation, app shortcuts, and Mac vault features you invoke;
• Preserve pending input and retry interrupted processing without creating duplicate jobs;
• Diagnose failures, maintain security, and prevent abuse;
• Respond to support, privacy, and legal requests; and
• Comply with applicable law and enforce our Terms of Use.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Service providers and disclosures

We disclose information only as needed for the purposes described in this Policy, including to:

• Apple, for App Store distribution, device services, system permissions, dictation or speech recognition, App Groups, and related platform functionality;
• Supabase, for optional hosted authentication, database synchronization, logs, and security infrastructure; and
• Professional advisers, infrastructure providers, or authorities when reasonably necessary to protect the Service, establish or defend legal claims, comply with law, address fraud or security incidents, or complete a business reorganization subject to appropriate protections.

We require service providers that process user information on our behalf to protect it consistently with their contractual obligations and applicable law. Their own terms and privacy notices also apply to their services.

Retention and deletion

Captures remain on your devices until you delete them or remove the app's data. If you use optional synchronization, account information and synchronized captures remain in our hosted systems while your account is active and as needed to provide the Service.

Deletions are synchronized as tombstones so that an offline device does not restore deleted captures. Limited records may remain for a reasonable period in backups, security logs, or where required by law. Markdown already exported to your vault is not deleted when you delete a capture in Abide; you control those files separately.

To request deletion of your optional sync account and its hosted content, contact us at the address below. Removing the app does not automatically delete a hosted account.

Your choices and rights

Depending on your location, you may have rights to access, correct, export, delete, restrict, or object to processing of your personal information, or to withdraw consent. Abide provides controls to:

• View, edit, copy, export, or delete captures in the app;
• Use Abide without signing in;
• Sign out and stop optional synchronization; and
• Request deletion of your hosted account data.

You can also change microphone and speech-recognition permissions in Apple system settings. Withdrawing a permission can prevent the related feature from working but does not affect unrelated features.

Residents of jurisdictions such as the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, Switzerland, California, and other U.S. states may have additional statutory rights. Where required, we process information to perform our agreement with you, based on your consent, to comply with law, or for legitimate interests such as securing and improving the Service that are not overridden by your rights. We do not discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right.

To make a privacy request, use the monitored contact method published on the website where this Policy appears. We may need to verify that the request relates to your account before acting on it.

International processing

Abide and its providers may process information in countries other than the country where you live. Where required, we rely on contractual safeguards or other lawful transfer mechanisms. Privacy protections and government-access rules may differ between countries.

Security

We use safeguards designed to protect information, including encrypted network connections, private file storage, Apple secure credential storage, database row-level security, least-privilege service access, input validation, and credential separation between clients and servers. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, loss, or misuse will never occur.

Children

The Service is not directed to children who are below the age at which they can legally consent to the processing described in this Policy without permission from a parent or guardian. If you believe a child provided personal information without required authorization, contact us through the website where this Policy appears so we can investigate and delete it where appropriate.

Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy to reflect changes in the Service, providers, law, or security practices. We will post the revised Policy with a new effective date and provide additional notice when required by law. Your continued use after an update takes effect is subject to the revised Policy, except where separate consent is legally required.

Contact

For privacy questions or requests, email isaacjwilkins@gmail.com.

Agreement to these Terms

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your use of the Abide apps, website, and related services (collectively, the "Service"). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and the Abide Privacy Policy above. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Eligibility and accounts

You must be legally capable of agreeing to these Terms. If you are a minor, you may use the Service only with the permission and supervision required by the laws that apply to you.

You are responsible for maintaining control of your Apple Account and devices, for activity performed through your Abide account, and for promptly reporting suspected unauthorized access. You must provide accurate account information and may not impersonate another person or create an account for unlawful or abusive use.

2. The Service

Abide lets you capture passages and impressions, search and organize them, optionally synchronize them across supported Apple devices, and export Markdown to a vault you choose. Features can differ by device and operating-system version.

Abide is designed as a capture and export tool, not as your only backup. We may improve, add, remove, suspend, or discontinue features. Maintain separate copies of important source material and exported files.

3. Your content

You retain any rights you have in content you submit. If you use optional synchronization, you grant Abide a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide license to host, copy, transmit, and format that content solely as needed to provide, secure, and maintain the Service and to comply with law. This license ends when the content is deleted from active systems, subject to limited backup, security, and legal retention described in the Privacy Policy.

You represent that you have all rights and permissions needed to submit the content and allow this processing. Abide does not give you rights to books, articles, websites, images, recordings, trademarks, confidential information, or other material owned by someone else. You are responsible for complying with copyright, confidentiality, contractual, privacy, academic-integrity, and other obligations that apply to your source material.

4. Content and export accuracy

Abide attempts to preserve the content you enter or share, but source apps, webpage selections, dictation, formatting conversion, sync conflicts, and export behavior can produce incomplete or unexpected results. Review captures and exported Markdown before relying on them.

The Service is a personal study and productivity tool. It does not provide religious, medical, legal, financial, safety, or other professional advice, and it does not guarantee the accuracy of source material, scripture references, or user-entered content.

5. Acceptable use

You may not use the Service to:

• Violate law or another person's rights;
• Upload content you do not have the right to process;
• Infringe intellectual property, privacy, publicity, confidentiality, or contractual rights;
• Generate or facilitate malware, fraud, abuse, harassment, exploitation, unlawful surveillance, or dangerous activity;
• Submit credentials, authentication secrets, payment-card data, highly sensitive regulated data, or material for which the Service is not designed;
• Circumvent limits, interfere with security, probe another account, overload infrastructure, automate abusive traffic, or reverse engineer the Service except where applicable law expressly permits it;
• Use the Service in a way that violates applicable Apple, Supabase, source-app, or source-website terms.

We may limit or suspend processing that threatens security, availability, other users, third-party rights, or compliance with law.

6. Third-party services

The Service relies on Apple, optional Supabase synchronization, and apps, websites, or files from which you choose to share content. Third-party services may change, fail, block access, or apply their own terms and privacy notices. We are not responsible for third-party content, availability, or conduct, although we remain responsible for our own legal and contractual obligations concerning providers we select.

Links and shared material do not imply that Abide endorses or is affiliated with the source. Obsidian is a third-party product, and Abide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Obsidian unless expressly stated.

7. Fees

The current version may be offered without charge. We may offer paid features in the future, but we will present applicable price and purchase terms before you are charged. Purchases made through Apple are also governed by Apple's payment, refund, and store terms. Nothing in these Terms creates a recurring charge unless you separately authorize one through an offered purchase flow.

8. Intellectual property

Except for your content and third-party material, the Service—including its software, design, branding, documentation, and original content—is owned by or licensed to Abide and is protected by intellectual-property law. Subject to these Terms, Abide grants you a personal, limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the apps and Service for their intended purpose. You may not sell, sublicense, copy, distribute, or create derivative works from the Service except as allowed by law or an applicable open-source license.

Feedback is voluntary. If you provide suggestions, you permit us to use them without restriction or compensation, provided we do not publicly identify you as the source without permission.

9. Account deletion and termination

You may stop using Abide at any time, sign out of optional sync, and delete local captures using the controls provided. Contact us to request permanent deletion of a hosted account and associated synchronized content. Review the Privacy Policy before deletion.

We may suspend or terminate access if you materially or repeatedly violate these Terms, create security or legal risk, fail to pay an authorized charge, or if continuing the Service becomes unlawful. Where appropriate, we will use reasonable efforts to provide notice and an opportunity to export content, unless immediate action is needed for security, safety, legal compliance, or abuse prevention.

Sections that by their nature should survive termination—including ownership, disclaimers, limitations, and dispute provisions—will survive.

10. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available." Abide disclaims implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, and uninterrupted availability. We do not warrant that the Service will always be secure, error-free, available, compatible with every device, or that lost data can be recovered.

Some jurisdictions do not permit certain warranty exclusions, so some of this section may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms excludes a non-waivable consumer right.

11. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Abide and its operators, affiliates, and providers will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profit, revenue, opportunity, goodwill, or business interruption arising from the Service.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the total aggregate liability arising from the Service will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid Abide for the Service during the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim or US $25. These limitations do not apply where prohibited, including liability that cannot legally be limited.

12. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Abide and its operators from third-party claims and reasonable costs arising from your unlawful use of the Service, your content, or your material violation of these Terms. This section does not require a consumer to indemnify Abide for Abide's own unlawful conduct and does not apply where prohibited.

13. Apple-specific terms

If you obtained Abide through an Apple marketplace, your use is also subject to the applicable Apple Media Services terms and Apple's standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement unless App Store Connect presents a valid custom agreement. Apple is not responsible for providing Abide support. To the extent required by Apple's terms, Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of the end-user license and may enforce it.

The current Apple standard agreement is available at apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms to reflect changes in the Service, law, security, or providers. We will post the updated Terms with a new effective date and provide additional notice when required. If a material change requires consent, we will request it. If you do not agree to revised Terms, stop using the Service and delete your account.

15. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws applicable where Abide's operator is established, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except that mandatory consumer protections in your place of residence continue to apply. Before starting formal proceedings, you and Abide agree to try in good faith to resolve the dispute through the monitored support contact on the website, unless urgent relief or applicable law makes that inappropriate.

Nothing in these Terms prevents you from contacting a consumer-protection or data-protection authority or using a court or dispute process that applicable law guarantees.

16. General

These Terms and the Privacy Policy form the agreement concerning the Service, along with any purchase-specific terms presented to you. If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary and the remaining provisions will continue. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not transfer these Terms without our consent; Abide may transfer them as part of a lawful merger, acquisition, reorganization, or asset transfer subject to applicable privacy obligations.

17. Contact

For legal, support, or Terms questions, email isaacjwilkins@gmail.com.