Inchgrove

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 15 October 2026

The short version

Inchgrove is local-first. Your trees, pots, species, care guides, diary entries, jobs and photos are stored on your own device. There is no account, and the developer has no access to your collection and no copy of it.

Three optional features can send data off your device, and each is off until you turn it on: crash reporting, cloud backup, and frost warnings. Leaving a tip in the Google Play version, once it's out, contacts its payment service. They are described below.

Who is responsible

Inchgrove is made by Reuben Roberts, an individual developer based in the United Kingdom, who is the data controller for the limited processing described here. You can get in touch at info@inchgrove.co.uk.

Data you create in the app

Everything you enter is written to a database on your device. It is not transmitted anywhere unless you deliberately export it or connect cloud backup. Uninstalling the app removes it, so keep your own backups with the app's export function.

Crash reporting (optional, off by default)

The mobile app can send crash diagnostics to Sentry. It is disabled until you switch it on under Settings → App → Anonymous crash reports, and it is not present in the desktop version at all.

Nothing is sent unless something goes wrong. Sessions where no error occurs are not recorded at all. When a crash does happen, the report contains:

  • the stack trace and error details;
  • your device model, operating system version and app version;
  • a replay of the interface in the moments before it. This is a reconstruction of the screen layout, the navigation between screens and where you tapped, not a video of your display. Text and images are masked, so the words in your diary entries and the content of your photos do not appear in it.

A small share of sessions additionally reports timing measurements. Those carry no recording and no content of any kind.

Your IP address reaches Sentry in the course of sending a report, as it would when contacting any server. The app does not attach it to the report, and Sentry is configured not to store it. Each report carries a random installation ID that Sentry's software generates, so crashes from the same installation can be grouped. It is not derived from your device or any account, and reinstalling the app replaces it.

Your diary entries, tree records and photos are never sent. You can withdraw consent at any time with the same toggle; it takes effect the next time the app starts. Sentry's own privacy policy governs what it does with reports it receives.

Cloud backup (optional, off by default)

You can connect the app to your own Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive account to back up and sync your collection between your devices. If you do, your records and photos are uploaded to a folder in your account, not to the developer, who has no access to them. You sign in through the provider's own page, and the access it grants is kept in your device's secure credential store. The provider's own privacy policy applies to what it stores on your behalf: Dropbox's or Microsoft's. You can disconnect at any time from the backup screen, and deleting the cloud backup is a separate action the app also offers.

Frost warnings (optional, off by default)

The app can check the coming night's forecast for a town you choose and warn you about trees the cold would harm. It is off until you turn it on under Settings → Notifications → Frost warnings. The app never reads your device's location: the town is one you type and choose yourself. While the feature is on, the app makes two kinds of request:

  • when you search for your town, the text you type and the app's language go to GeoNames to find it;
  • to read the forecast, the town's position, rounded to about a kilometre, goes to the Norwegian Meteorological Institute's MET Norway weather service.

No tree, species or identifier of you is sent. The chosen town and the forecast stay on the device you chose them on, and are never synced or included in a backup. Your IP address reaches each service as it would when contacting any server. Turning the warnings off stops both.

Tips (Google Play only)

Every version is free, with nothing to buy or unlock. You can choose to leave a tip, and a tip buys nothing. The Google Play version, once it's out, takes a tip through Google Play's billing, with RevenueCat presenting the amounts on offer. It contacts RevenueCat only when you open the tip options, and does not collect device identifiers for it. Your name, address and payment details stay with Google; the developer never receives them.

The Android package and desktop builds downloaded from this site carry no billing code at all. They link to the developer's page on Ko-fi instead, and a tip given there is made on Ko-fi's website under Ko-fi's own privacy policy. The app takes no part in it and receives nothing from it.

App updates

The mobile app checks for updates through Expo's update service. That request necessarily discloses your IP address and the app and device version to Expo, along with a random installation ID that Expo uses to count how many installations receive an update. It is not derived from your device or any account, and reinstalling the app replaces it. No content from your collection is involved.

The Android package and the desktop builds downloaded from this site are not updated by an app store, so once a day they read a small version file hosted on GitHub to see whether a newer release exists. That request discloses your IP address and the ordinary details any web request carries to GitHub. It sends no identifier and nothing from your collection. If a newer version exists, the app tells you and links to its release page; it never downloads or installs anything itself. The check is on by default, and you can turn it off under Settings → App → Check for updates.

Device permissions

The app asks only for what a feature needs: the camera and photo library for photographs and video of your trees and for scanning printed QR labels, the microphone for video audio and for dictating entries, notifications for job reminders and backup prompts, and, on Android, exact alarms so a reminder arrives at the time you set. Reminders are scheduled on your own device. There is no push server, and nothing is sent to you remotely. You can refuse or revoke any permission in your device settings; the feature that needs it stops working and the rest of the app carries on.

Calendar access is requested only if you export a job to your calendar, one job at a time. The app creates its own calendar, named "Inchgrove", and touches only the entries it created there; it does not read, list or alter events in any other calendar, and nothing from your calendar is transmitted anywhere. Your operating system may present this as a single broad calendar permission, because the platforms offer nothing narrower to an app that maintains a calendar of its own, so the limit described here is the developer's commitment rather than one your device enforces. An exported entry holds the job's text and the tree or collection it belongs to. On Android the calendar is local and does not synchronise. Elsewhere, if the calendar belongs to an account you have set to sync, such as iCloud, your operating system may copy the entry to that provider's servers under its terms; the developer neither performs nor receives that transfer.

Scanning a label is entirely local. The QR code on a printed label holds nothing but an identifier for the record it names, with no web address and no link to any service, so scanning one looks the tree or pot up in the database on your device and contacts nothing.

Voice input

Dictation is handled by your device's operating system, or by the embedded browser engine in the desktop version. Depending on your platform and settings, the audio may be transcribed on the device or sent to Apple's or Google's speech services to be transcribed. Either way it is handled by the platform, not by the developer, who never receives or stores it. If you would rather no audio left your device, do not use voice input. Every field it fills can be typed.

This website

This site sets no cookies and runs no analytics or tracking scripts. If you use the light/dark toggle, your choice is saved in your browser's local storage on your own device so the site remembers it; nothing is sent anywhere. As with any website, the hosting provider processes IP addresses and request details in order to deliver pages and to protect against abuse.

Downloads for Windows and Linux are hosted on GitHub, so following a download link discloses your request to GitHub under its own policy.

Deleting your data

Inchgrove has no accounts, so there is no account to delete. Everything it stores can be deleted in the app, and you can ask Reuben Roberts to delete the crash reports the app has sent.

  • Your collection on this device: Settings → Backup & Sync → Clear All Records permanently deletes every tree, pot, diary entry, job, custom species and photo. Uninstalling the app deletes them too.
  • Your cloud backup: Settings → Backup & Sync → Delete cloud backup removes the backup file and photos from your Dropbox or OneDrive. The provider keeps deleted files in its own bin for 30 days.
  • Crash reports: switch off Settings → App → Anonymous crash reports so no more are sent. To have reports already sent deleted, email info@inchgrove.co.uk with the subject "Delete my data", your device model, and roughly when the app crashed. Reports carry no name, email or account, so these details are how they are found. Matching reports are deleted within 30 days of your request. Reports are deleted automatically no later than 90 days after they are received.
  • Frost warnings: the developer keeps nothing. The town you chose stays on your device and goes when you clear it or uninstall.

Your rights

Under UK and EU data protection law you have the right to access, correct, erase and object to the processing of personal data held about you, and to complain to a supervisory authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office). In practice almost nothing about you is held: the collection itself never leaves your device, so these rights bear mainly on crash reports, which are the only data reaching the developer. Write to info@inchgrove.co.uk and it will be dealt with.

Children

Inchgrove is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect data from them.

Changes

If this policy changes, the revised version will be posted here with a new date at the top.