Privacy Policy

Green Thumb is a plant care tracking app developed by Ryan Roark. This privacy policy explains how the app handles your information.

Information We Collect

Green Thumb is designed with privacy in mind. The app stores only what is necessary to provide its features. Most of your data lives entirely on your device; some AI features send limited plant information to our server to generate a response, as described below.

• Plant data — plant names, species, notes, purchase dates, care logs (watering, fertilizing, repotting history), and photos you add are stored locally on your device using Apple's SwiftData framework.
• App settings & preferences — accent color, default plant view, notification reminder time, auto-sync preference, dismissed banner IDs, and your free identification usage count are stored locally on your device.
• Plant identification photos — when you use the Identify Plant feature, the photo you select or capture is sent to Plant.id, a third-party plant identification service. These photos are processed according to Plant.id's own privacy policy. You can choose not to use this feature if you prefer not to share photos with Plant.id. The app tracks how many free identifications you have used locally on your device.
• Web page content — when you use the Scan from Web feature, the visible text content of the page you are viewing is processed on your device using Apple Intelligence to extract plant care information. This text is never transmitted to Green Thumb or any third party.
• AI plant insights — features such as the health analysis, care-pattern insights, collection banners, "Your Success Stories," and looking up a species care guide send limited information about the relevant plants to our server, which relays it to Anthropic's Claude API. What is sent is a plant's name and species plus coarse, summarized care measures (for example a plant's overall care rating as "good," "okay," or "needs improvement," a general trend, and how long you have had the plant) — never your photos, notes, exact care dates, or any name, email, or account. If the cloud service is unavailable, these are generated on-device using Apple Intelligence instead. See Third-Party Services and Apple Intelligence below.
• Plant Assistant — when you ask the Plant Assistant a question, your question and a text summary of the relevant plant data are sent to our server and on to Anthropic's Claude API to generate a response. If that cloud service is unavailable, the response is instead generated entirely on-device using Apple Intelligence. See Plant Assistant below for details.
• Request logs — when the app contacts our server for any of the AI features above, the server records a random per-install identifier, your IP address, which feature was called, and the time, to limit abuse of the service. See Device Identifier and Data Storage below.
• Notification preferences — your notification settings and care reminder schedule are stored locally on your device.

No Account Required

Green Thumb does not require you to create an account or provide any personal information such as your name, email address, or phone number. The app works entirely without registration.

Device Identifier

To keep the AI features usable and to prevent abuse, the app generates a random identifier the first time it contacts our server and stores it in your device's Keychain. It is sent with each request to our server. This identifier is a random value only — it is not a login, and it is not linked to your name, email, contacts, advertising ID, or any account or other app. It lets us limit how often a single installation can use the service (rather than limiting everyone sharing an office or school network together). Deleting the app removes it from your device.

Data Storage

All plant data, care history, photos, and preferences are stored locally on your device. We also operate a server that the AI features use. It stores two things:

• Cached AI content — generated species care guides and short insight text, keyed on a species name or a coarse category (for example "an established houseplant with a good care rating in summer"). This cache is shared across all users to avoid re-generating the same content, and contains no name, email, photos, notes, exact dates, or anything that identifies you.
• Request logs — for each request, the random per-install identifier described above, your IP address, which feature was called, and a timestamp. These are used only to rate-limit the service and to detect misuse; they are not used for analytics, profiling, or advertising.

The server also keeps short-lived counters (the per-install identifier or IP address and a request count, expiring within about an hour) in a hosted Redis cache, used only to enforce the rate limits.

iCloud Sync (Pro feature): If you are a Green Thumb Pro subscriber and are signed into iCloud, your plant data may be synced to Apple's iCloud servers via CloudKit. Green Thumb does not have direct access to data stored in iCloud — it is transmitted directly between your device and Apple's servers. You can disable iCloud sync at any time in the Green Thumb Settings screen or in your device's Settings app. iCloud data is subject to Apple's Privacy Policy.

Camera & Photo Library

Green Thumb requests access to your camera and photo library for two purposes:

• Plant photos — you can take a photo or choose one from your library to attach to a plant in your collection. These photos are stored only on your device (and in iCloud if sync is enabled).
• Plant identification — you can take or select a photo to identify a plant species. The photo is temporarily processed on your device before being sent to Plant.id (see Third-Party Services). Temporary copies used during processing are discarded after the request completes.

Camera and photo library access is only used when you explicitly initiate one of these actions. Green Thumb does not access your camera or photo library in the background.

Notifications

Green Thumb may send local push notifications to remind you to water, fertilize, or repot your plants. These notifications are scheduled entirely on your device based on your care history and your configured reminder time. No notification data is transmitted to external servers. Green Thumb does not send marketing or promotional push notifications. You can disable notifications at any time in your device's Settings app.

In-App Purchases

Green Thumb offers a Green Thumb Pro subscription that unlocks additional features. All purchases are processed by Apple through StoreKit. Green Thumb does not collect or store your payment information — billing is handled entirely by Apple and is subject to Apple's Terms of Sale. Your subscription status is verified locally through StoreKit and is not transmitted to Green Thumb's servers.

Data Export & Sharing

Green Thumb allows you to export your plant collection and care history as a CSV file at any time from the Settings screen. You can also generate shareable collection cards as images. Exported files and share cards are created temporarily on your device and are only shared through the standard iOS share sheet — you choose where they go. Green Thumb does not transmit export data to any server.

Analytics & Advertising

Green Thumb does not use any third-party analytics SDKs, crash reporting services, or advertising networks. It does not build a profile of you, and it does not sell or share your data for marketing. The app contains no advertisements.

The one exception is the request logging described under Data Storage: when the app uses an AI feature, it sends a random per-install identifier, your IP address, the feature name, and a timestamp to our own server. This is used solely to limit how heavily the service can be used and to catch abuse — not for analytics or advertising.

Third-Party Services

Green Thumb uses the following third-party services:

Plant.id

Used for plant identification when you take or upload a photo in the Identify Plant feature. Photos are processed according to Plant.id's privacy policy. You can choose not to use the identification feature if you prefer not to share photos with Plant.id.

Apple iCloud / CloudKit

Used for optional cross-device sync for Green Thumb Pro subscribers. Data is transmitted directly between your device and Apple's servers. See Apple's Privacy Policy for details.

Apple StoreKit

Used to process and verify Green Thumb Pro subscription purchases. All payment information is handled by Apple. See Apple's Terms of Sale for details.

Anthropic Claude API

Used to generate responses in the Plant Assistant and the other AI features (health analysis, care-pattern insights, banners, Success Stories, and species care guides). See the "AI plant insights" and "Plant Assistant" sections for what is sent and when Apple Intelligence is used instead. By default, Anthropic does not use API data to train its models and deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days. See Anthropic's Privacy Policy.

Vercel

Our website and our server are hosted on Vercel, and the server's database and cache are provisioned through Vercel's marketplace. See Vercel's Privacy Policy.

Neon

The PostgreSQL database behind our server is hosted by Neon (provisioned through Vercel). It holds the cached AI content and request logs described under Data Storage. See Neon's privacy information.

Apple Intelligence

Green Thumb uses Apple Intelligence — Apple's on-device AI system — to generate personalized insights, care tips, and recommendations for your plants. This includes analysis of your care history, watering and fertilizing patterns, and plant health trends to surface suggestions and help you better care for your collection.

Some of these features (see "AI plant insights" and "Plant Assistant" above) now use our cloud service first and fall back to Apple Intelligence when it is unavailable; others still run on Apple Intelligence only. Whenever Apple Intelligence is what runs, the processing happens entirely on your device — your plant data, care logs, and activity history are not sent to Apple or any third party as part of it. Apple Intelligence is subject to Apple's Privacy Policy.

Plant Assistant

To generate responses in the Plant Assistant — including general plant care questions and questions about your own plant collection — Green Thumb sends your typed question and a text summary of the plant data needed to answer it (your plants' names, species, notes, and care history and health information) to our server, which relays it to Anthropic's Claude API. This never includes your plant photos, and since Green Thumb doesn't use accounts, there is no name, email, or other personal identifier included.

If the cloud service isn't used for a given question — for example, no internet connection, a temporary outage, or after a daily usage limit is reached — Green Thumb instead generates the response entirely on-device using Apple Intelligence, on devices that support it. In that case nothing about your chat or your plants leaves your device.

Our server does not store the content of your chat questions or the plant summary sent with them. It does record the request itself — the random per-install identifier, your IP address, that the Plant Assistant was used, and the time — to rate-limit the feature (see Data Storage). Each question is also checked by an automated safety classifier (running on Claude) to detect off-topic or abusive use; if a message is flagged, only a short category label (for example "off-topic") is recorded, never the message text.

Data sent to Anthropic is subject to Anthropic's Privacy Policy. By default, Anthropic does not use API data to train its models, and automatically deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days of processing them.

This feature is being rolled out gradually and may not yet be active for all users.

Web Browsing

The Scan from Web feature includes an embedded web browser that allows you to navigate to plant care websites. When you scan a page, the visible text is processed entirely on your device using Apple Intelligence — nothing is sent to external servers. Web pages you visit through this browser are subject to the privacy policies of those individual websites. Green Thumb does not track, log, or store your browsing history.

The separate "Look Up Care Guide" action is different: it sends the plant's name and species (only) to our server to fetch general care information for that species. It does not send any page content, notes, photos, or care history.

Data Retention

Your on-device data is retained for as long as you use the app; you control when it is deleted. On our server: cached AI content is retained so it does not have to be re-generated, and carries no information that identifies you. The request logs (random install identifier, IP address, feature name, timestamp) are kept only as long as needed for security and abuse prevention; there is no fixed schedule. Data sent to Anthropic is deleted by Anthropic within 30 days as described above.

Children's Privacy

Green Thumb does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The app does not require account creation or any personal information to use. If you believe a child under 13 has submitted information through the app, please contact us so we can address it.

Data Deletion

You can delete all app data at any time from within the app by going to Settings → Delete All Data. This permanently removes all plants, photos, care history, and preferences from your device. You can also delete all app data by deleting the Green Thumb app from your device.

If you have iCloud sync enabled, removing data from your device may not immediately remove data from iCloud. To fully delete iCloud data, go to Settings → [Your Name] → iCloud → Manage Account Storage → Green Thumb and delete the associated data.

Because Green Thumb has no accounts, there is no way to look up "your" entries in the server request logs — they are tied only to a random per-install identifier and an IP address, not to you. Those logs are kept only as long as needed for security and are not used to identify or contact anyone. If you have a concern about them, contact us at the address below.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be reflected on this page with an updated date. Continued use of the app after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

Contact

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how Green Thumb handles your data, please reach out:

greenthumbapp@outlook.com