Privacy policy

Last updated 17 October 2026

This policy explains what information the Scholia app and this website handle, and why. “Scholia”, “we” and “us” mean the people who make the app. If anything here is unclear, write to us at contact email not set yet.

Information that stays on your phone

Everything you put into Scholia is saved in the app’s own storage on your device. That includes:

• the books you add, their status (want to read, reading, finished), the page you’re on, your ratings and your margin notes;
• how you arrange your bookcases and shelves;
• your reading goal, your Book Bingo card, your books of the month and year, and your Book-Tris best score;
• your settings, such as light or dark appearance.

As a guest, we don’t receive a copy of your library. If you sign in, the app sends a copy to our service to back it up and sync it. If your phone backs up apps to iCloud or your computer, local information may be included in that backup under Apple’s terms. Deleting the app deletes its local information from your phone.

If you create an account

An account is optional. If you make one, we store:

• your name and email address, and a securely hashed password if you sign up with email;
• if you use Sign in with Apple, the identifier Apple gives us for you, and the name and email Apple shares (which may be a private relay address Apple creates);
• a copy of your library: the books, shelves, notes, ratings, reading goal, room and settings described above, so they’re backed up and kept the same across your devices.

We use this to let you sign in, keep your library backed up and in step, and provide the features you choose to use. It’s stored on our hosting provider’s servers and sent over an encrypted connection. We don’t sell your notes or library.

You can log out at any time. Delete account in the app’s Settings deletes your account, the copy of your library, and your posts, comments, likes and votes from our service; the library on your phone stays until you delete it. Purchase records held by Apple and RevenueCat, and analytics records held by PostHog, may be retained separately under their policies and applicable law. Contact us if you want help with those records.

Posts, comments and likes

With an account you can post to the Home feed, comment on posts, like them and vote in polls. Posts and comments are public: anyone using Scholia, signed in or not, can see them along with your account name. A post can include the book it’s about and your rating; nothing else from your library is shared. Likes and votes are counted in public, but the list of who liked or voted isn’t shown.

If you’ve posted at least once, other readers can find you by your account name in Search. Your reader page shows your name, the month you joined, how many posts you’ve made and how many books they mention, and the posts themselves. If you’ve never posted, you can’t be found. Readers who block each other can’t find or see each other’s pages.

You can delete your own posts and comments at any time, and delete comments left on your posts. You can report a post or comment, which sends it to us for review, and you can block another reader so neither of you sees the other’s posts or comments. We may remove posts or comments, or close accounts, that break the terms.

Photos you choose to add

If you add a profile picture or photos to a public post, the app sends them to our service and our image hosting provider, Cloudinary. Profile pictures and post photos can be seen by other readers. If you add a custom book-spine photo while signed in, we store it with your account so it can appear on your other devices. You can remove your profile picture and posts in the app; deleting your account removes the photos attached to it from our service and image host.

Subscriptions

If you subscribe to Scholia Pro, Apple handles your payment and gives you subscription controls in your Apple account. We use RevenueCat to check your purchase and subscription status, restore access, and keep Pro access in step with your Scholia account. RevenueCat sends us an account identifier, product, entitlement and subscription event details; we use these to enable or end Pro access. We do not receive your full payment card number.

Product analytics

For readers aged 13 or older, the app sends product events and screen names to PostHog in the United States. These include actions such as adding or finishing a book, starting a reading session, visiting a feature, and viewing or buying Pro, along with limited details such as counts, status, genre, or subscription plan. PostHog uses an anonymous identifier until you sign in; after sign-in, we associate events with your Scholia user ID. We use these records to understand and improve Scholia. We do not send your book notes, full library, email address or payment card number as event properties. The app opts readers under 13 out of PostHog analytics.

Searching for books and scanning barcodes

To find books, Scholia uses Open Library, a free book catalogue run by the Internet Archive. When you type a search or scan a barcode, the app sends the search text or the book’s ISBN (the number under the barcode) to Open Library, and downloads book details and cover images from it. Open Library receives these requests like any website would, including your device’s IP address. Their own privacy policy applies to how they handle them.

We don’t send your library, notes or anything else about you with these requests.

The camera

Scholia asks for camera access only so it can read the barcode on a book. The camera image is processed live on your phone to find the barcode. No photos or video are saved, and nothing from the camera is sent to us or anyone else. You can turn camera access off at any time in your iPhone’s Settings; you can still add books by searching or typing them in.

Sharing

The Shelfie feature makes a picture of your bookcase on your phone. It is only shared if you choose to share it, with the app or person you pick in the iOS share sheet.

What we don’t do

• We don’t show ads.
• We don’t use your information for advertising or cross-app tracking.
• We don’t sell or rent your information, and we don’t share it with data brokers.
• We don’t send marketing emails.

This website

This website doesn’t use cookies for tracking or advertising. Like most websites, the server that hosts it may keep short-lived technical logs (such as IP address, browser type and the page requested) to keep the site running and secure. The site loads its fonts from Google Fonts, so your browser’s request for those fonts reaches Google.

Children

Scholia isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has made an account, contact us and we will delete it.

Your choices and rights

Because your library lives on your phone, you’re in control of it: you can edit or delete anything in the app, or delete the app to remove everything. If you have a question about your information, or you want to exercise a right you have under the law where you live, contact us at contact email not set yet and we’ll answer.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top of this page. If a change affects what information leaves your phone, we’ll tell you in the app before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions about privacy: contact email not set yet.