Privacy

What Steady keeps, and where

Everything you write — tasks, notes, pictures, your plan for the day, your categories and rules, which critter and palette you picked — is stored in a single file on your device. That file is encrypted with a key held in your Keychain, so another program on the same computer cannot read it.

If you turn on Sync to iCloud, that file moves into Steady's own iCloud container. It is your iCloud account, not ours: we cannot see inside it, and Apple's terms govern it.

Sharing a list with someone

Inviting someone creates a shared area in iCloud through CloudKit, Apple's sharing system. Only you and the person you invite can open it, and the invitation link is what grants access — treat it like a key and send it to one person.

Inside that shared area:

• The words of a task, and the lines of your plan, are end-to-end encrypted. Apple's servers carry them without being able to read them. Only your devices and your partner's can.
• The bookkeeping around them is stored normally: the display name you chose, when something was made or ticked off, which critter and palette you are using, and which list you currently have open. This is what lets the app show who is where.

Tasks you keep private are never written to the shared area at all.

Your calendar

If you allow it, Steady reads today's events so it can show them alongside your plan. It is read-only — Steady never creates, edits or deletes an event — and the events are never copied anywhere. Decline, and the plan simply works without them.

The shared cursor

When two people are on the same wifi with the app open, each can see where the other's pointer is. That connection is made directly between the two devices over your local network, secured with a key only your household has. It carries nothing but a position and who you are, and it reaches no server — not ours, not Apple's. Off your wifi, it simply does not happen.

Pictures

You can attach a picture to a task. On iPhone this uses the system photo picker, which hands Steady the one image you chose and nothing else; Steady never gets access to your photo library. On Mac you pick a file directly. Either way the picture is scaled down, encrypted with the same key as your tasks, and stored alongside them.

Sorting tasks into categories

If you turn on auto-categorise, Steady guesses which category a task belongs to using Apple's on-device model. The text of your task stays on the machine — there is no API key and no request to anywhere. If Apple Intelligence is off or unavailable, Steady falls back to matching keywords, which is also entirely local.

Notifications

Reminders you set are scheduled locally by your device. Separately, when you share a list, Steady asks iCloud to send it a silent signal when your partner changes something, so their change appears promptly rather than on the next check. These are silent: they carry no content and never show a banner.

Paying

Membership is an auto-renewing subscription handled entirely by Apple through the App Store. Steady never sees your card, your address or your Apple Account — only whether this device currently has a valid membership.

What Steady does not do

• No analytics or telemetry of any kind.
• No tracking, no advertising identifier, no advertising.
• No third-party SDKs. The app talks to Apple's frameworks and nothing else.
• No accounts, no passwords, no email address collected.
• Nothing is ever sold or shared with anyone.

The statistics on the Insights screen are arithmetic done on your device over your own finished tasks. They are not reported anywhere, and they deliberately keep no scoreboard of who did more.

Children

Steady is a household to-do list and is not directed at children. It collects no personal information from anyone, of any age.

Removing your data

Because nothing is held by us, there is nothing for us to delete on your behalf, and nothing we could produce if you asked for a copy — we have none. What you can do yourself:

• Deleting the app removes the list stored on that device.
• Anything synced is in your own iCloud, under Settings → your name → iCloud → Manage Account Storage.
• Leaving a shared list stops any further sharing between you.

If you are in the UK, EU, California or anywhere with similar law, the rights those laws give you over personal data held by a company are not engaged here, because no such data is held.

Changes

If this ever stops being true — if Steady gains a server, or anything is collected — this page will say so before the version that does it ships, and the date at the top will change.

Getting in touch

Questions about any of this: [email protected]. There is more on the support page.