Privacy Policy

Rootsie is a home-maintenance app that helps you keep track of chores, repairs, and seasonal tasks across the properties you own. This Privacy Policy explains what information the app handles, how it’s handled, and what choices you have. It applies to the Rootsie iOS app and the rootsie-app website.

How your data is handled depends on a single choice you make: whether you turn on household sharing.

• Device-only (the default). Until and unless you enable household sharing, Rootsie is a local-first app. Everything you create stays on your device and never reaches our servers. We collect nothing.
• Household sharing (optional). If you turn on household sharing, your Rootsie data is uploaded to and stored on our servers so it can be synced across devices and shared with the family members you invite. This is described in detail below.

Household sharing is off until you deliberately turn it on. If you never enable it, the rest of this policy that deals with our servers simply doesn’t apply to you.

No traditional accounts. Rootsie has no traditional user accounts, and we never require your real name, email address, phone number, mailing address, or any other contact or identity information to use the app. We run no analytics, no advertising identifiers, no third-party tracking SDKs, and no telemetry. We do not track you across other apps or websites.

Information you may choose to enter. Because Rootsie helps you manage real homes, the app does let you optionally enter details that can include personal information. For example, you might record your home’s address, notes about yourself or your household, or contact details — such as names, phone numbers, and email addresses — for the contractors and service providers you work with. None of this is required: the app works fully without it, and you’re free to keep things anonymous or use nicknames. Anything you do enter is treated like the rest of your data — it stays on your device unless you turn on household sharing (see below), and we never sell it or share it with advertisers or data brokers. If you enter contact details for someone else, such as a contractor, you’re responsible for handling their information appropriately.

To use household sharing, you sign in with Sign in with Apple. When you do, Apple gives us an anonymized account identifier — an opaque string that lets us recognize you as the same person across your devices and connect you to the homes you share. We do not receive or store your name or email through Sign in with Apple, including Apple’s private-relay email. Apple’s handling of your Apple Account is governed by Apple’s Privacy Policy.

Household sharing lets you invite other people — typically members of your household — into a shared home so you can keep track of its maintenance together. Making it work means your data can no longer live only on your device, so please read this section before you turn it on.

When you enable household sharing, your Rootsie data is uploaded to and stored on our servers. That includes the information you’ve created in the app — your properties, tasks, contractors, costs, completion history, notes, and any photos you’ve attached. This data is hosted for us by Supabase, a third-party cloud hosting provider, and is transmitted over encrypted connections and stored by Supabase in encrypted form.

The family members you invite into a shared home can see and edit the information in that home. Only invite people you trust with that information. Invitations are sent through a link that you share; anyone you give that link to may be able to join the shared home, so treat invite links as you would any other private link.

Household sharing is a one-way switch. Once you turn it on, the app keeps your data synced to our servers, and there is currently no in-app way to turn it back off or return to device-only storage. Please be sure before you enable it. If you want your data removed from our servers, see “Your rights and choices” below.

Because shared data leaves your device, you should understand that we, our hosting provider, and the family members you invite each become able to access the data you share, and that no method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure. We take reasonable measures to protect data stored on our servers, but we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Whether your data is on your device or on our servers, we do not sell it, rent it, or share it with advertisers, data brokers, or other third parties for their own purposes. We use the data you sync only to operate household sharing — to store it, sync it across your devices, and make it available to the family members you invite. The only third parties involved are Apple (which distributes the app and handles sign-in and purchases) and Supabase (which hosts shared data on our behalf).

For Apple’s App Store privacy labels: if you never enable household sharing, the app collects no data from you. If you do enable household sharing, the data you create in the app — and the anonymized Apple identifier used to sign you in — is stored on our servers and is linked to that identifier so the feature can work. We still do not use any of it to track you across other companies’ apps or websites.

Rootsie is free to download. The app offers paid features, including Rootsie Pro, which is what makes household sharing available to the person who sets up a shared home. All payments are processed by Apple through the App Store. We never see, receive, or store your payment card, billing address, Apple ID credentials, or any other financial information.

When you make a purchase, your device receives a receipt from Apple that we use to confirm the purchase and unlock the corresponding features. The purchase itself, including refunds and Apple Household Sharing of the purchase, is handled by Apple under Apple’s Privacy Policy. If you need to restore a previous purchase on a new device, the app will ask Apple to verify it; that exchange happens between your device and Apple, not us.

Rootsie may ask for permission to:

• Send notifications — so we can remind you about upcoming or overdue tasks. Notifications are scheduled and delivered on your device.
• Access your photo library or camera — only if you choose to attach a photo to a task or property. Photos you attach stay on your device unless you turn on household sharing, in which case they are synced to our servers along with the rest of your data.

Each of these permissions is optional. You can grant or revoke them at any time from iOS Settings, and the app will continue to work without them (minus the specific feature each permission enables).

Rootsie integrates no third-party analytics, advertising, attribution, or tracking services. The third parties involved in your use of the app are:

• Apple, which distributes the app through the App Store, provides Sign in with Apple, and handles in-app purchases.
• Supabase, which hosts your data on our behalf if — and only if — you turn on household sharing.

Each of these providers handles information under its own privacy policy.

If you have not enabled household sharing, we hold no data about you, so there is nothing for us to access, export, correct, or delete — you control everything directly inside the app and can edit or delete any of it on your device at any time.

If you have enabled household sharing, you can still edit or delete your data inside the app. Because there is currently no in-app way to remove your data from our servers, you can ask us to do it: email us at rootsie.app@gmail.com and we will work with you to remove the data we hold for you, subject to any shared homes you belong to with others.

If you live somewhere with privacy laws that grant you specific rights (the EU/UK’s GDPR, California’s CCPA/CPRA, and similar regimes), those rights apply. For device-only data they require no action on our part because we hold nothing; for data you’ve synced through household sharing, contact us at the address above to exercise them.

Rootsie is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect or store information from children. Sign in with Apple and household sharing are intended for adults managing their own homes.

If we change how Rootsie handles your data, we’ll update this page and revise the “last updated” date at the top. If a change is material, we’ll do our best to tell you in plain language inside the app before it takes effect.

Questions about privacy or anything else? rootsie.app@gmail.com.