Lifestream for iPhone

iPhone app privacy policy

Last updated 15 October 2026

The Lifestream iPhone app keeps a record of your own day on your phone and sends it to your home: Lifestream running on your own Mac. The maker of the app runs no server for it, has no account system, and never receives your data.

Who makes the app

Lifestream is made by an independent developer. Questions about this policy or the app go to [email protected].

What the app reads

Each kind of data is read only after you allow it in iOS, and you can turn each one off in iOS Settings at any time. The app works with any of them turned off; it records only what you allow.

• Location, including in the background, so your day's path has no gaps while the app is closed. iOS shows a location sign while it records in the background.
• Motion and fitness: walking, driving or still, and step counts.
• Health, read only, never written: workouts and their routes; steps; heart rate and heart rate variability; active energy; walking speed, step length, walking asymmetry and double support time; respiratory rate; blood oxygen; sleep; and state of mind. Sleep times your check-ins. Health data is never used for advertising and never shared with anyone by the maker.
• Photos: your photo library's items, their times and places, and their original files.
• Contacts: names, details and contact photos.
• Camera and microphone, only when you use them: photos you take in the app, photos you attach to notes, voice notes, and scanning your home's pairing code.
• What you write and choose: notes, check-ins, place names you give, podcasts you play in the app and how far you listened, and files you share to the app.
• The app's own health: battery level, the app's energy use, its version, your phone's model and iOS version, so you can see what the app costs your battery.
• Your Apple account name, if you type it when pairing, so your home files your Health, photos and contacts under the right account. iOS does not let an app read it.

Where it goes

Everything is kept on your phone first. Once you pair the app with your home, it sends what it recorded to your home automatically, over your own Tailscale network. Your home is software you run on your own Mac; it keeps your record there. Without a home, nothing leaves your phone unless you export a bundle yourself with the share button.

The maker never receives your data, and the app contains no analytics, advertising or tracking code. Nothing is sold.

Other services the app touches

• Apple: the app asks Apple Maps for place names near you when you name a place. If you send feedback or crash reports through TestFlight, Apple shares them with the maker; that is your choice each time.
• Tailscale carries the connection between your phone and your Mac. See Tailscale's privacy policy.
• Google Places, only if you add your own Google key in the app's settings: the app then sends your position to Google to suggest place names. Without a key, it never contacts Google.

Your home is software you run and set up. If you connect your home to another service yourself, such as an AI service, that service's own terms apply to what your home sends it.

Stored on your phone

The app's record is kept out of iCloud and out of your phone's backups, so your Health data is never stored in iCloud by the app. The app keeps a history of what it recorded; photo copies are cleared from the phone once your home holds them. The pairing with your home is kept in your phone's Keychain, so a reinstall can continue where it was.

Stopping and removing

• Turn any kind of data off in iOS Settings. Recording of that kind stops at once.
• Unpair the app from your home in the app's settings, or stop the phone from your home on your Mac. Nothing more is sent.
• Deleting the app deletes its record on your phone.
• What your home already holds stays on your Mac until you remove it there. It belongs to you, and the maker has no copy.

Children

The app is not made for children.

Changes

Changes to this policy appear on this page with a new date. A new kind of data, or a new place data goes, is described here before the app uses it.