Privacy Policy

Effective November 5, 2026

Tomebound collects nothing about you. What you make with your PDFs syncs only through your own iCloud account, and the PDFs stay on your device unless you turn on Sync PDFs, which keeps them in your iCloud too.

What Tomebound collects

Nothing. Tomebound has no account to sign up for, no analytics, no advertising and no third-party code. The app does not send your documents, your notes or how you use it to us or to anyone else. What it syncs goes to your own iCloud account, which we cannot read (see iCloud sync).

What stays on your device

To do its job, Tomebound keeps the following in its own storage on your device:

• a copy of each PDF you import, so the app can open it even if the original moves;
• your projects, hotbar destinations, groups, highlights, notes, drawings and reading positions;
• a search index of each PDF’s text, so search is fast;
• your preferences on that device, such as where the hotbar sits.

Tomebound never changes your PDFs. Highlights, notes and drawings are kept separately from the file.

Deleting the app deletes all of this from that device. What has synced stays in your iCloud account for your other devices. Your device’s backup can include your projects and settings, but it does not include the PDF copies. To keep a complete copy, PDFs included, use Export Project… in a project’s settings.

Password-protected PDFs

When a PDF asks for a password, Tomebound uses the password to open it and then forgets it. The password is never stored, so the app asks again the next time. A password-protected PDF is also never added to the search index.

Files you export or share

A project you export is saved where you choose, such as in Files or iCloud Drive. From then on it is your file, and it is handled by whatever service you keep it in or send it with. A .tomebound file can include the project’s PDFs, notes and drawings, so share it only with people you mean to.

Links in your PDFs

Apart from iCloud sync, Tomebound makes no network connections. When you tap a web, email or phone link in a PDF, it is handed to the app on your device that opens that kind of link, such as your web browser, and that app’s own privacy policy applies.

iCloud sync

Tomebound syncs your work between your devices through your own iCloud account, using Apple’s CloudKit. It syncs:

• your projects, and the names, sizes and page counts of the PDFs you’ve imported;
• hotbar destinations and groups, highlights with the words they mark, notes and their earlier versions, drawings and tags;
• the entries you’ve visited in a numbered-entry book, your pin and your reading positions.

These are kept in your iCloud account’s private storage, which only you can reach. We can’t see it, and nothing in it is sent to us.

The PDF files themselves sync only where you turn on Sync PDFs, in a project’s settings. It is off until you turn it on, it is set on each device separately, and it covers every PDF in Tomebound on that device. With it on, the device keeps a copy of each of its PDFs in your iCloud Drive, in storage that belongs to Tomebound and isn’t shown in the Files app, and downloads the PDFs your other devices have put there. They count against your iCloud storage, and we can’t see them. Turning it off stops that device sending and downloading PDFs, and leaves the copies already in iCloud for your other devices. Deleting a PDF from Tomebound deletes its copy in iCloud too, from a device where iCloud Drive is on.

A PDF reaches another device through iCloud only if Sync PDFs is on, on both. Otherwise it stays on the device you imported it on, and on your other devices it waits until you import the same file there.

Sync follows your device’s iCloud settings. A device signed in to iCloud syncs. Turning Tomebound off in a device’s iCloud settings removes your synced projects from that device, along with anything it hadn’t sent yet. They stay in iCloud for your other devices, and download again when you turn it back on. Deleting something in Tomebound deletes it on all your devices and in iCloud. Apple’s privacy policy covers how iCloud stores your data.

The TestFlight beta

If you test Tomebound through Apple’s TestFlight, Apple shares some information with us as part of that service: the name and email address you were invited with, and any feedback, screenshots and crash reports you choose to send. We use it only to run the beta and fix problems. Apple’s handling of TestFlight data is covered by Apple’s own privacy policy.

When you contact us

If you email us, we use your email address and what you write only to reply to you, and we don’t share it.

Children

Tomebound collects no personal information from anyone, including children.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new effective date. A change to what the app collects would be made here before the version of the app that does it is released.

Contact

Questions about privacy: support@tomebound.example