Who we are
The Newsletter App (the app and the website thenewsletterapp.com) is made and operated by TCG Tech, LLC, a company based in the United States. If you have any question about this policy or your data, email hello@thenewsletterapp.com — a real person reads it.
What we collect
Your account. Your email address (used to sign you in and to deliver newsletters), your display name, and — only if you choose to add them — a profile photo and your birthday. Birthdays are stored as the month and day only, never the year.
What you share. The stories, photos, and photo captions you add to your family's newsletter, and the newsletter itself: its name, who its members are, and each member's role.
Housekeeping records. To run the service reliably we keep simple operational records: which email addresses each issue was delivered to, invitations that were sent, your in-app notifications, and — so we can tell when an old version of the app needs fixing — which version of the app and which kind of phone (Android or iPhone) you last opened it on. That is the only thing we record about your device.
Emails about your account. Besides newsletter issues, story reminders, and invitations, we send only a few account emails, and we keep a record of each one so it is never sent twice: up to two short getting-started notes if you create an account but haven't joined a newsletter; one reminder if you start a newsletter and nobody else has joined a week before its first issue; and the warning before an unused account is removed (see below). Every one has an unsubscribe link, and we stop emailing any address that unsubscribes or bounces.
What we deliberately do not collect:
- No location data. Photos taken on a phone often carry hidden location information. We automatically strip it from every photo before it is stored, and again before an issue is published — a picture can never quietly reveal where it was taken.
- No ads, no trackers. The app contains no advertising and no third-party analytics or tracking.
- No contact uploads. We never read or upload your phone's contacts. You invite family members yourself, one at a time.
- We never sell your information. To anyone, for any reason.
How we use your information
Only to run the service: assembling and delivering your family's newsletter issues, sending contribution reminders and invitations, showing in-app notifications, listing upcoming birthdays in each issue, and answering you when you contact support. That's the whole list.
Who can see your stories and photos
Members of your newsletter — and no one else. Newsletters are invite-only, and our systems enforce that separation at the storage level, not just in the app.
One detail worth knowing: every delivered issue also gets a web edition at a long, unguessable link, so relatives can read it in a browser without installing anything. Anyone who has that exact link can open the page — it is only ever shared in your family's own email, but like any link, a family member could forward it. If your family prefers, simply don't forward issue links outside the family.
Where your data lives
We use a small number of well-established service providers to run the app, and each one receives only what it needs to do its job:
- Supabase — hosts the app's database and photo storage.
- SMTP2GO — delivers the emails (newsletter issues, sign-in links, reminders, invitations).
- Cloudflare — serves this website, the web editions, and invite links.
- RevenueCat — manages Premium subscriptions (see the next section). Only involved if someone in your family subscribes.
We do not share your information with anyone else, except if the law requires it.
Payments and subscriptions
The app offers an optional Premium plan. If you subscribe:
- Payment happens entirely inside Google Play or the Apple App Store. We never see or store your card number, bank details, or billing address — the stores don't share them with us.
- We use RevenueCat, a subscription-management service, to know whether a subscription is active. RevenueCat receives your account's internal ID (a random-looking code, not your name or email) and your purchase history for this app — which plan, when it started, when it renews. That's what lets your Premium features follow you to a new phone.
- We store your plan (free or premium) and the date you first subscribed alongside your account.
- RevenueCat is a service provider working only for us — it doesn't use your information for advertising and doesn't sell it. Our "no ads, no tracking" promise above is unchanged.
If you never subscribe, none of this applies to you.
Children
The Newsletter App is a tool for families, and children naturally appear in the stories and photos that adult family members share — always within the family's private newsletter. Holding an account of your own, however, requires being at least 13 years old. The service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, email us and we will delete it.
How long we keep it, and how to delete it
- We keep your information for as long as your account exists — that's the product: a family archive. There are two narrow exceptions, so that we aren't holding on to details nobody is using:
- A sign-in link you never used. If someone types an address by mistake, or asks for a link and never opens it, that unconfirmed account is removed after 30 days. Nothing is lost — signing in later simply starts fresh.
- An account that was never used. If you sign in but never join a newsletter and never write anything, we remove that empty account after 12 months without activity. We'll email you before we do, so you can keep it simply by signing in.
- Accounts that belong to a newsletter, or that have any stories or comments, are never removed on a timer — your writing is part of your family's archive. Only you can delete those, in the app.
- While an issue is still collecting stories, you can edit or withdraw your own stories and photos at any time, right in the app.
- You can delete your account at any time (Edit Profile → Delete Account). This permanently removes your account, profile, stories, and photos — including the actual photo files, not just the records. It cannot be undone.
- If you own a newsletter that still has other members, you'll be asked to transfer ownership first, so your family's newsletter isn't destroyed with your account.
- Issues that were already delivered are like mailed letters: the copies in family members' inboxes, and the issue's web edition, aren't retroactively changed by later deletions.
How we protect it
- Photos and stories live in private storage with per-family access rules enforced by the database itself — a member of one family cannot read another family's content, even with a direct link.
- Sign-in uses email magic links, so there is no password to steal or reuse.
- Hidden photo location data is stripped automatically, twice (see above).
Your choices
- Every newsletter email includes an unsubscribe link if you want to stop receiving issues by email.
- You can edit your profile, withdraw stories from an upcoming issue, or delete your account entirely — all in the app, no email required.
- For anything else — a copy of your data, a correction, a question — email hello@thenewsletterapp.com.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we'll update this page and the date at the top. For meaningful changes — anything that affects what we collect or who can see it — we'll also tell you in the app or by email.
Contact
TCG Tech, LLC · hello@thenewsletterapp.com