Garden Journal Privacy Policy

Effective October 12, 2026 · Garden Journal for Android, made by SofritoConRecao

Who we are

Garden Journal is made by SofritoConRecao, an independent developer. If you have a question about this policy, email sofritoconrecao@gmail.com.

What we collect

The app itself collects nothing. It doesn't send any information about you to us or to anyone else, and we never see your garden. It includes no analytics, advertising, or tracking SDKs and doesn't use an advertising ID.

The app itself has no internet access. Google Play's billing library, included for the optional purchase below, contains Google's own diagnostics component, but it runs inside the app, so it can't reach the internet either. Purchases and restores go through the Google Play Store app on your phone, which is covered by the Google Privacy Policy.

We only receive information about you when you choose to: if you buy something, Google Play shares a purchase record with us (see Purchases), and if you email us, we have your message and email address, which we use only to reply. Google Play also shows us reviews you choose to post and crash statistics that Google collects under its own policy.

What the app stores on your device

To work as a journal, the app saves what you enter — only on your phone:

• Your garden: your plants with the nicknames, locations, and care notes you enter (a location is a place you type, like “kitchen window” — the app never uses GPS); custom plant types and tasks you create; groups (name and color); care schedules; your care history; any hat you pick for a single plant; and, for archived plants, the reason and note you gave.
• Journal entries: notes you write about your plants.
• Photos you add: a copy resized to at most 1024 pixels is saved inside the app. Photos you pick from your gallery stay in your gallery; photos you take with the camera from inside the app are kept only inside the app. Photos keep the details your camera saved in them, which can include where a photo was taken — turn off location tagging in your camera settings if you don't want that.
• Custom hats: pictures you upload or draw in the hat editor.
• Hat names: if you name one of your hats, the name you give it.
• Hat placement: if you move a hat on a plant's pixel art or on a photo, where it sits (its position, size, flip, or that it's hidden on that photo).
• Unsaved hat drawing: if the app closes while you're drawing a hat, the unfinished drawing may be kept on your device so you can continue it. It never leaves your device, isn't included in backups, and is deleted when you save or discard it or reset the app.
• Settings: your theme, chosen hat, and reminder time.

Your garden data is kept in a database encrypted with SQLCipher, using a key held in Android's secure storage. Photos and hats are kept in the app's private storage, which other apps can't read.

The home-screen widget keeps a short summary (how many tasks are due, and the next task with its plant's nickname) in the app's private storage so your launcher can display it. Reminder notifications are created on your phone; their text never leaves it.

Permissions the app uses

• Notifications — to remind you about plant care. Optional: you can turn reminders off in the app or deny the permission in Android settings.
• Run at startup — to restore your scheduled reminders after your phone restarts.
• Vibration — for reminder notifications.
• Photos and camera — the app doesn't ask for access to your photo library or camera. When you add a photo, Android's own picker or camera opens, and the app only receives the single photo you choose.
• Google Play billing — for the optional purchase described below.

The home-screen widget and Google Play billing libraries also add a few standard Android permissions: “prevent phone from sleeping” and “run foreground service” (so the widget can refresh in the background) and “view network connections” (lets a library check whether a connection exists). None of them lets the app connect to the internet.

Backups you export

Settings → Back Up Garden creates a file containing your whole garden — everything listed above except an unsaved hat drawing, including your journal, photos, custom hats, and settings — then opens Android's share menu so you choose where it goes — for example your own cloud storage or a message to yourself. We never receive it.

The backup file is not encrypted. Anyone who gets a copy can read it — including any location details saved in your photos — so treat it like a private photo album and keep it somewhere you trust.

Android's automatic cloud backup is turned off for this app, so your data isn't copied anywhere without you doing it.

Story cards you share

A plant's Share story button creates an image of that plant — its pixel art, nickname, plant type, how long you've had it, and how many care logs, photos, and notes it has — plus a short caption with its nickname, then opens Android's share menu so you choose where it goes. It never includes your photos or where they were taken. We never receive it.

Hat cards you share

If you share one of your hats, the app creates an image of it — the hat on a plant's pixel art, its name if you gave it one, and “Made in Garden Journal” — and a copy of the hat picture itself (just its pixels, nothing else the original file carried), so a friend can add it as their own hat. Android's share menu then opens with both, and a short caption with the hat's name if it has one, so you choose where they go. They never include your photos, your plants' nicknames, or where anything was taken. We never receive them.

Purchases

Garden Journal is free. An optional one-time cosmetic unlock (“Garden Supporter”) may be offered in the app. If you buy it, the purchase goes through the Google Play Store app, and Google Play processes the payment under the Google Privacy Policy. We never see your card or other payment details.

For each purchase, Google Play shares an order record with us. Google's reports list the order number, what was bought, its price and taxes, the buyer's city, state, postal code, and country, and the device model. Play Console also lets us look up an order by the buyer's email address — that's how we find your purchase if you write to us about it. Google keeps these records in Play Console, and we use them only for refunds, support, tax, and accounting. We never sell them or use them for anything else.

On your phone, Google Play tells the app which items your Google account owns, and the app keeps that short list on your device so the unlock works offline.

Refunds: within 48 hours of buying, you can request a refund in Google Play. After that, email sofritoconrecao@gmail.com with the order number from your Google Play receipt. A refund never deletes anything you made in the app.

Keeping and deleting your data

• Your data stays on your device until you delete it.
• You can delete plants, journal notes, photos, and custom hats individually in the app. Deleting a photo removes it from the plant's growth timeline and from its journal note (the note's text stays). Deleting a plant deletes all of its photos. Deleting a note, or removing or replacing a plant's cover photo, keeps that photo in the timeline, where you can delete it.
• Settings → Reset All Data deletes your whole garden — plants, journal, photos, and hats — resets your settings, and clears the app's temporary files, such as your most recent backup.
• Uninstalling the app deletes everything it stored on your device.
• Backups you exported stay wherever you saved them — delete those files yourself if you want them gone.
• The list of purchases you own isn't removed by Reset All Data, because it belongs to your Google account. Uninstalling removes it; reinstalling restores it from Google Play.

Children

Garden Journal isn't directed at children under 13. The app itself collects no personal information from anyone, including children.

Your rights

Everything you put in the app stays on your device and under your control, so there's nothing about your garden on our side to access, correct, or delete. Apart from reviews you post publicly on Google Play, the only personal information we can have is a purchase record, if you buy something, and any email you send us. Privacy laws such as the GDPR and CCPA give you rights over data a company holds about you, like seeing it or asking for it to be deleted — to ask, or with any question, email sofritoconrecao@gmail.com. We may need to keep purchase records for as long as tax law requires, and Google keeps its own copy under the Google Privacy Policy. We never sell any of it.

Changes to this policy

If the app's handling of data changes, we'll update this page and the effective date above before the change reaches you, and mention it in the app's release notes.