Privacy Policy

Effective November 2, 2026

ContactDeck shows your contacts one card at a time so you can review, star and tidy them up. It never collects or uploads your contacts, and it shares them only when you ask it to, such as when you export a copy. No account, no servers, no tracking.

This policy explains what ContactDeck reads, what it keeps on your iPhone, and the few things that leave your iPhone, always because you chose them.

Contact us

ContactDeck is developed by Daniel Tomasch. If you have a question about this policy or your privacy, email daniel@eightpointdesign.com. If you write to us, we use your email address and message only to reply.

What ContactDeck reads

ContactDeck asks iOS for permission to use your contacts. It reads the details a card shows: names (including nicknames and phonetic names), companies, departments and job titles, phone numbers, email and postal addresses, birthdays, websites, social profiles, instant-message addresses, related names, dates and pictures. It doesn't read contact notes.

You decide how much it sees. iOS lets you give ContactDeck all your contacts, only the ones you pick, or none. ContactDeck uses your contacts to show them and help you tidy them on your iPhone, and to do what you ask with them, as described below.

ContactDeck also looks at each contact's picture to decide how to show it, for example whether it's a photo, a Memoji or initials, and whether it should fill the card. This uses Apple's Vision framework and happens entirely on your iPhone.

Apple's Contacts doesn't tell apps when a contact was created or last changed. If you run the ContactDeck date-sorting shortcut, Apple's Shortcuts app reads those dates and passes them to ContactDeck on your iPhone, so the deck can sort by them.

What ContactDeck changes in Contacts

Moving a contact to ContactDeck's Trash doesn't change Contacts. The contact stays in Contacts, and on your other devices, until you empty the Trash. You can restore it at any time before then.

ContactDeck changes Contacts only when you ask it to:

• Empty Trash permanently deletes the contacts in ContactDeck's Trash. ContactDeck asks first and offers to export a copy. Because Contacts syncs, they're also removed from your other devices and from iCloud or any other account that holds them. This can't be undone.
• Edit opens Apple's own contact card. iOS saves any changes you make there to Contacts, including deleting the contact, and handles the card's own actions, such as Share Contact.

What stays on your iPhone

ContactDeck keeps a little information of its own, in its own storage on your iPhone:

• Which contacts are in its Trash and which are starred. These are saved as references to your contacts, not copies of them.
• Your settings, such as sort order, filters, name order, card back and your place in the deck.
• A cache of contact pictures, sized for the cards so they appear quickly. It's limited in size, iOS can clear it when space runs low, and pictures of contacts you delete with Empty Trash are removed from it. Pictures of contacts deleted outside ContactDeck, or cached before you turned off its access, can stay until iOS clears the cache or you delete the app.
• Created and modified dates, if you run the date-sorting shortcut.
• The names of the shortcuts on card fields (ContactDeck starts the list with Search Messages and Search Mail, which you can delete).
• The last value you sent to a shortcut from a card, with its label and the contact's name. Any shortcut on your iPhone that uses the Get ContactDeck Value action can read it for 24 hours. After that, ContactDeck stops handing it out and deletes it the next time it's asked for. It's kept in a protected file that isn't backed up, and it's replaced the next time you run a shortcut from a card.
• Which tips you've seen and whether you've finished the welcome guide.

ContactDeck doesn't sync this information anywhere. Like other app data on your iPhone, it may be included in your iPhone's backups, which you and Apple manage.

What leaves your iPhone, only when you choose it

Some actions pass information to another app or service. Each one happens only when you choose it:

• Search Web opens a Google search for the value you held. Google receives that search.
• Call, Message, FaceTime, Mail, Maps, Directions and Open Link pass the value to the app that handles it, such as Phone, Messages, Mail, Apple Maps or your browser.
• Running a shortcut from a card passes the value you held to Apple's Shortcuts app as the input of the shortcut with that name. What happens next is up to that shortcut, so check what a shortcut does before you add it.
• Copy puts the value on your clipboard, where apps you paste into can read it. With Universal Clipboard, iOS can also make it available on your other nearby Apple devices.
• Export, in the Trash, makes a vCard file of the contacts in the Trash and opens the share sheet, where you choose where it goes. ContactDeck deletes its temporary copy when the share sheet closes. If the app quits first, iOS clears it with other temporary files, or the next export replaces it.
• Links in the app, such as the starter shortcuts and the artwork credit, open in Shortcuts or your browser. The starter shortcuts are ordinary shortcuts: once added, they're in your Shortcuts app, where you can open each one to see what it does.

Once information reaches another app or service, that app's or service's own privacy policy applies.

Your contacts and iCloud

Syncing your contacts, through iCloud, Google, Exchange or another account, is done by iOS and your account provider, not by ContactDeck. ContactDeck reads and changes Contacts on your iPhone, and iOS syncs any change as usual.

What ContactDeck doesn't do

• No account or sign-in.
• No servers of our own. ContactDeck never sends your contacts, or what you do in the app, to us. It sends nothing to anyone else itself.
• No analytics, advertising or tracking. ContactDeck is built only with Apple's own frameworks and contains no third-party code.
• No selling or sharing of personal information. We don't collect it, so there's nothing to sell or share.

If you've chosen in iOS Settings to share analytics with app developers, Apple may share crash reports and app usage statistics with us. Apple controls that, and you can turn it off in Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvements.

Removing your information

• To stop ContactDeck reading your contacts, go to Settings > Apps > ContactDeck > Contacts and choose None. Pictures it has already cached stay until iOS clears its cache or you delete the app.
• To remove everything ContactDeck keeps, delete the app. That removes its Trash list, stars, settings and picture cache. It doesn't delete anything from Contacts, so contacts in ContactDeck's Trash stay in Contacts.
• Emptying ContactDeck's Trash permanently deletes those contacts from Contacts and can't be undone. Export them first if you want a copy.

ContactDeck doesn't send us your information. Apart from emails you send us, we hold no personal information about you, so there's nothing else we could delete or send you. To have your emails to us deleted, or for any other question, email daniel@eightpointdesign.com.

Children

ContactDeck isn't directed at children under 13. It collects no personal information from anyone, children included.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll publish the new version with a new effective date at the top.