Momentary is a journal that stays on your iPhone. This policy explains what the app stores, which Apple services it uses, and what you control. The app has no account, no advertising and no tracking.
What we collect
We, the developer, don’t collect your journal. Your photos, videos, recordings, notes, titles and dates are stored on your iPhone and aren’t sent to us. The app contains no analytics or advertising SDKs.
What’s stored on your iPhone
- Notes, titles, dates and the optional first name you give for greetings.
- References to photos and videos in your Photos library, with dates, location information when available, and previews used to display your memories. Originals stay in Photos. You can choose to keep an independent copy in Momentary; older app versions may also have stored copies.
- Recordings you make, and their transcripts.
- Photos and videos you take with the Momentary camera. Momentary saves these to Photos even if you don’t keep them as a journal memory. If saving fails, Momentary retains a local capture so you can retry or recover it.
- Files you select for imports from other journals, such as Day One, plus import progress and history. Momentary processes these on your iPhone to merge entries and reconnect media in Photos.
Momentary doesn’t provide its own cloud journal sync or backup service. Depending on your device settings, Apple may include local app data in an iCloud device backup, or you may include it in a computer backup. These backups are separate from iCloud Photos. We don’t receive them or have access to your journal through them.
Keep an export before deleting the app or changing devices. Recovery depends on the exports or device backups you have; we can’t restore your journal for you. Photos references may need reconnecting after a device restore.
Permissions
You can decline each permission and change your choice in iOS Settings. Momentary offers Photos and notification permissions during onboarding; you can also grant permissions through the features that need them. Declining a permission limits the related features.
- Photos: to suggest media by day, display and play media you’ve kept, reconnect media referenced by journal imports, save camera captures, and create albums you choose to export. With limited Photos access, Momentary can use the library items you’ve allowed.
- Camera and microphone: to take photos and videos and to record audio.
- Location: to attach coordinates to photos and videos you take with the Momentary camera. Precision depends on your iOS location settings and available location information. Momentary also uses location metadata in media you’ve allowed it to access for Places and Trips.
- Speech recognition: to transcribe recordings. Transcription runs on your iPhone.
- Notifications: for the evening reminder and On this day. These are scheduled on your iPhone.
- Face ID or passcode: to lock the app, if you turn this on.
Apple services
Some features use Apple services, which handle data under Apple’s privacy policy:
- Maps and place-name lookup: Momentary requests maps around journal locations and sends coordinates to Apple’s place-name lookup service to show readable place names.
- iCloud Photos: if you use it, full-size media may be downloaded from iCloud when needed.
Sharing and export
You choose when to share journal content. For a file export or a media share, Momentary may download originals from iCloud Photos and create temporary local files. You choose the receiving app or destination through the iOS share sheet. A Photos-album export creates an album in your Photos library.
Exported journal files aren’t encrypted. They can contain notes, recordings, dates, location information and media metadata. The receiving app or service handles shared content under its own policies. The Apple service requests described above can also occur while you use the app without starting an export.
Deleting your data
You can restore deleted memories from Recently Deleted during a 30-day recovery period, or remove them sooner. Momentary removes expired journal records when you next open the app. Removing a memory from Momentary doesn’t delete its original in Photos.
Settings › Delete local journal removes your local journal records, recordings and stored media copies, import files and history, unsaved camera captures, personal preferences such as your name, and Momentary’s scheduled notifications. It preserves app-lock and appearance settings and the reference to any export album. If cleanup fails, Momentary pauses imports and offers Retry cleanup so you can finish removing local files.
Deleting the app removes its local app data. Neither action removes originals or exported albums in Photos, exports you’ve saved or shared elsewhere, or copies in existing device backups. You manage those copies through Photos, the receiving app or service, or your backup settings.
If you delete an original from Photos or revoke access to it, Momentary may no longer be able to display or play that media. Your journal entry can remain with an unavailable-media notice. You can restore Photos access, reconnect another item, or remove the memory from Momentary.
App lock
You can require Face ID or your device passcode to open Momentary. App lock adds an access gate; it doesn’t provide a separate journal encryption key or lock originals in Photos. iOS provides device-level data protection for local app files. Keep your device passcode secure, and protect any exports you save elsewhere.
Children
We offer Momentary as a general-audience journal. We don’t direct the app or this website at children under 13.
Changes
If this policy changes, we’ll update the date above and describe significant changes in the app’s release notes.
This website
This website uses Google Analytics to understand how visitors use the site, including pages viewed, interactions, referring websites, and browser and device information. Google Analytics uses cookies to distinguish visitors and sessions. This website analytics does not collect your journal or run inside the Momentary iPhone app.
Google processes this information under its privacy policy. You can block analytics using your browser settings or the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.
Fonts and photos are served from this website. Your browser requests pages and assets from our hosting provider.
Contact
Questions about privacy: privacy@usemomentary.com.