Privacy Policy
History Unlocked · last updated 23 September 2026
History Unlocked does not require an account, does not run analytics, and has no server that records what you read. Almost everything the app knows about you is on your phone and goes away when you uninstall it. There are two exceptions, and both only happen if you choose them: signing in, and keeping a day as a founder.
What stays on your device
The app keeps the following in your phone's own app storage. It is never sent anywhere, and no one — including us — can read it.
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Which events you have read | So the feed opens on something new instead of repeating |
| Which events you kept, and your album | The collection you chose |
| Quiz answers and which questions you have seen | So a question is not asked twice |
| Your accuracy per era | The breakdown shown on your profile |
| Your review schedule | Spaced repetition — when an event comes back |
| XP, rank, streak and streak shields | Progress |
| Reminder time, and whether reminders are on | Your daily notification |
| Whether you have Pro | Unlocking paid features offline |
What leaves your device
The archive itself. The app downloads a single file of historical events from our hosting and caches it. Like any web request, the server that serves it can see your IP address and the time of the request in its ordinary logs. Nothing in that request identifies you or says what you read.
The day's film. The app reads a small list of short films, and when you press play it streams the video, from Cloudflare's storage (R2). As with the archive, Cloudflare sees your IP address and the time of the request in its ordinary logs, and nothing in the request identifies you. See Cloudflare's privacy policy.
App updates. The app checks Expo's update service (EAS Update) for small fixes, so they can reach you without a new store download. That check carries a random token identifying this installation — not you, not your account, and not your phone's hardware — together with the app's version and your operating system, so an update is only sent to installs it will work on. See Expo's privacy policy.
Images. Event pictures and portraits are loaded
directly from Wikimedia Commons (upload.wikimedia.org).
Wikimedia therefore sees your IP address when an image loads, under
their
privacy policy. We do not send them anything else.
Signing in — optional, two ways. You do not need an account to read. If you choose to sign in, there are two routes and neither uses a password:
- With Google. Google gives the app your name, email address and Google account ID.
- With an email link. You type an address, we send a link to it, and opening the link signs you in. The address is what we hold; there is nothing else.
Accounts are handled by Firebase Authentication, a Google service, acting for us. It holds your account record — the address, the Google identity if you used one, and the internal account ID — and, like any service handling a request, sees your IP address and the time. We use the account for exactly three things: so a purchase survives a new phone, so a founder's seat and day can be proved to be theirs, and — for the first 5,000 readers — to record the free week of Pro they were given on signing in (a number and two dates, deleted with the account). There is no profile, no mailing list, and no advertising.
Keeping a day — founders only. A lifetime founder may claim one date of the year and write a name on it. That name and that date are stored on our side, in Cloud Firestore, and they are published: the name appears on its day in the app, in the register of days that every reader can open, and in the archive when it rebuilds each night. That is the point of the tier, and it is the only thing this app ever shows publicly.
The name is yours to choose and does not have to be your real one. It goes when the account goes — see deleting your account.
Purchases. Subscriptions and the lifetime purchase are processed by Google Play and managed through RevenueCat. We never see or handle your card details. RevenueCat receives a purchase identifier and, if you signed in, your account ID — see the RevenueCat privacy policy and Google's.
For the lifetime tier, RevenueCat also tells our server that the account owns it, and tells it again if the purchase is refunded. That is how a founder's seat is proved without the app being able to claim one for itself, and how a refunded day goes back into the calendar. What is stored is a yes or a no against your account ID — never an amount, a card, or anything about the payment.
Suggestions you send. If you use "Missing something from this day?", the app opens your own email app or a form with the text prefilled. Nothing is sent until you send it, and you can see and edit every word first.
What we do not do
- No analytics or tracking SDKs of any kind.
- No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
- No selling or sharing of personal data with third parties.
- No location access. Events carry coordinates; your phone's location is never requested.
- No access to contacts, photos, microphone or camera.
- No server-side record of what you read, what you answered, or which events you collected. Those stay on the phone. The only thing we hold about a signed-in reader is the account itself and, for a founder, the day they keep.
Notifications
The daily reminder is scheduled by your phone, on your phone. There is no push server, so no one is notified that you were notified. Turning it off in the app, or in your phone's settings, stops it completely.
Children
History Unlocked is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect anything from them. It covers historical events including war and disaster, described plainly.
Deleting your data
Uninstalling the app removes everything listed under "What stays on your device" — permanently, and there is no copy elsewhere to request.
If you made an account, you can delete it from inside the app: your profile → Account → Delete account. It is immediate, and it takes the account, the seat and the kept day with it. If you have already uninstalled, write to the address below and it will be done within 30 days.
Full instructions, and exactly what is and is not deleted →
If you signed in with Google, you can also remove the app's access at myaccount.google.com/permissions. That stops Google sharing anything further; it does not delete the account on our side, so do both.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what leaves your device, the app will say so before the change takes effect. The date at the top always reflects the current version.
Contact
Questions about this policy, or a data request: support@gridconvertpro.com