Heartless Chef Privacy Policy

Catnap Apps LLC · Effective November 2, 2026

Who we are

Heartless Chef is made by Catnap Apps LLC ("we"). Questions about this policy: support@heartlesschef.com.

What stays on your iPhone

Everything you keep in the app is stored on your device: recipes and their photos, your cooking journal (notes and photos), grocery list, meal plans, the people in your household and their allergies, diets and tastes, and your settings. We don't have a copy, apart from what you share (below). The AI features below send only what each request needs, and nothing is kept on our side. Your device's own backups (like iCloud Backup) include it as Apple describes. Deleting a recipe or the app deletes it.

iCloud sync

When your device is signed in to iCloud, Heartless Chef keeps your recipes, meal plans, grocery list, household, journal and Recipe Lab chats in your iCloud so your other devices have them too. That's your own iCloud account, under Apple's privacy policy; it counts against your iCloud storage, and none of it passes through us. Turn it off for Heartless Chef in Settings → iCloud → Apps; what's already there stays in your iCloud until you remove it in your iCloud settings.

Household sharing

If you share a household with someone, what you share has to live somewhere you both can reach, so it's kept on our server (Cloudflare, in the United States) until you stop sharing. Nobody who doesn't share a household has anything there.

• What's kept: the grocery lists you've marked as shared, with their lines (what to get, how much, which recipe asked for it, who added it and when it was crossed off) and the list's picture if it has one, the household's week of meals (the dishes planned for each day, occasions, who's bringing what, and asks for a recipe a member doesn't have), the collections shared with the household with their recipes and photos (never your ratings, notes, favorites or journal), your household's name, and each member's own People card: the name they chose to be seen by, and its photo, allergies (or that they have none), diets, likes, dislikes and birthday (never its note). A dish you mark "Just for me" stays on your iPhone.
• Signing in: to know which member is which, you sign in with Apple or Google. We keep only the random user id that provider gives us for the app, never your email or name from it, even when the sign-in sends one. Signing in with Apple also gives us a token, which we keep encrypted and use only to tell Apple to end your sign-in with the app once you've deleted your account. That id is used for nothing else: your recipes, credits and subscription don't change with it.
• Plus or Pro for the household: one member's Plus or Pro covers everyone in it. To know it does, that member's app sends Apple's signed record of the subscription, which our server checks the same way as for the AI, and we keep only the date the current period ends and which member it is, never the purchase itself.
• Who sees it: the members of your household, and nobody else. We don't read it, analyze it or use it for anything but showing it to your household.
• How long: a line or list you delete is marked deleted so every member's phone hears of it, and removed within 30 days. When you leave a household, your card's details are removed from our server at once and its photo within 30 days. When a household is deleted, or its last member leaves, everything it shared is removed within a day. Invite codes last 7 days.
• Deleting it all: Settings → Household & Account → Delete Account removes you from your household and deletes your sign-in record and sessions. Your own recipes, lists and plans stay on your iPhone. Or email support@heartlesschef.com.
• To keep the service from being overloaded, our server counts how many times each signed-in session syncs per hour, for up to two hours.

Shared links

Share as Link on a recipe, a collection or a cook book makes a web page of it, at heartlesschef.com, so you can send it to anyone, whether or not they have the app. It's kept on our server (Cloudflare, in the United States) for 30 days after you last share it.

• What's kept: the recipe as it's shared in a recipe file (name, description, ingredients, steps, times, servings, nutrition, where it came from) and its photo; for a cook book, also its title, subtitle, dedication, chapters, look and cover and chapter pictures; the link's code and title, when it was made and last shared, and the random credits account ID of the device that made it (no name or email), so only you can change or delete it. Never your rating, notes, favorites or cooking journal.
• Who sees it: anyone with the link. It isn't listed anywhere, and the page asks search engines not to show it, but we can't promise every one listens, and someone you send it to can pass it on.
• How long: 30 days from when you last shared it. Then the page says the link expired, and its recipes and photos are deleted within the hour; the link's code, title and your account ID are kept a year, so sharing the same recipe, collection or book again brings back the same link. Sharing it again before then updates the page and starts its 30 days over. Deleting the link (Settings → Your Library → Shared Links) removes the page, the recipes and their photos right away. We may take down a page that breaks the rules for shared recipes in our Terms of Use.
• To keep the service from being overloaded, our server counts the links each credits account and network address (IP) makes per day, and the network addresses that open each link, once a day each, for up to 48 hours. A link opened by a great many people pauses, since links are for sending a recipe to people you know, not for publishing it.

Feature counts

So we know what to fix and what to keep, the app tells our server once a day which of its features were used, as a list of names (like "cooking mode" or "Recipes tab"), and which chef you've picked. The list also says, as names and rough ranges and never your words: what brought up the Plus and Pro offer and whether it led to a purchase, when an import failed or a free limit or empty credits stopped you, which of the chef's tips you saw and used, which features you used in your first week and whether you came back after it, how many days you opened the app last month (like "2 to 5 days"), and your library's rough size (like "11 to 50 recipes"). With the list go the app's build, whether it's free, Plus or Pro, whether it came from the App Store or TestFlight, and the month the app was first opened on that device. Our server adds these to daily and monthly totals and keeps only the totals. No account, install ID, push token, recipe or anything you wrote goes with them, and we don't keep your network address with them. While few people use the app, one total could still be a single device, and we don't try to work out whose. No other company receives them. It's on unless you turn it off, except on an App Store account in the EU, the EEA or the UK, where it's off unless you turn it on. Change it any time in Settings → AI & Privacy → Feature Counts.

What we don't do

• No account or sign-in, unless you share a household (above).
• No advertising, and no outside analytics, crash-reporting or tracking tools. The feature counts above are our own.
• We don't sell or share your information for advertising, and we don't track you across other apps or websites.

AI features (Heartless Chef Pro)

Recipe Lab, refining a recipe, Ask the Chef while cooking, Plan My Cook's step timings, converting units, and importing a shared recipe the app can't read by itself use an AI model from OpenAI. When you use one of them, the app sends what that request needs to our server, which passes it to OpenAI and streams the reply back:

• Your message, and any photos you attach.
• The recipe you're working on (for refining, cooking questions, timings and converting).
• For an import the app can't read by itself: the shared web page's text, PDF text, or photos.
• Your settings that shape recipes: units, servings, skill level, chef's tone, kitchen equipment and collection names.
• The month, the country in your iPhone's Region setting, and where you cook if you've added it in Settings (a city or region you type), so Recipe Lab's ideas suit the season and what's grown nearby. Never your device's location.
• For Recipe Lab: which meals are already planned in the weeks you're planning (usually the next three), and their names, so the chef can plan around them, and which days have an occasion, without the occasion's name or who's bringing a dish.
• For Recipe Lab: your menus for single meals, their names and which recipes are in them, so the chef can cook one again or plan it. Never your occasion or week menus.
• What the chef remembers about your cooking (Settings → Chef's Memory, where you can see, edit and delete memories, or turn the memory off). The names of people on your People cards are replaced before it's sent.
• Your recipe list: titles, collections, favorites, ratings, and how often and when you made them, so Recipe Lab can suggest your own recipes. If you pick one of its suggestions, that recipe is sent in full.
• For Recipe Lab, only with a message about it (such as “what's on my list?” or “do I need to buy eggs?”) or one you say to the chef while the list is on screen: what's still to get on your grocery list, so the chef can answer.
• The allergies, diets, likes and dislikes of the people you mark “Eats Here Every Day”, so the chef can cook around them, and the notes on their cards until each note's end date (with names on your People cards replaced).

Never sent: the names on your People cards, your journal notes, the photos in your recipes and journal, and your grocery list with any other message. Photos go only when you attach them to a message.

Allergies, diets and notes can be sensitive health information. They're sent only so the chef can cook around your household's needs, and they're never sold or used for advertising. Our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy covers them in more detail. You agree once, before first using the AI; you can turn the AI off at any time in Settings → AI & Privacy → Use AI Features, and nothing is sent until you agree again.

Our server runs on Cloudflare Workers. It passes your request to OpenAI and doesn't store your messages, photos or recipes. OpenAI processes the request to write the reply. Under OpenAI's API terms, it doesn't use this data to train its models and may keep it for up to 30 days to monitor for abuse (OpenAI's policies).

Your subscription

Apple handles payment for Heartless Chef Plus, Pro and credit packs; we never see your payment details. To confirm a subscription or a credit pack, the app sends Apple's signed record of the purchase to our server, which checks it with Apple's certificates.

For Pro, we use the purchase's original transaction ID to count how many AI requests you've made this minute, today and this month. The minute's count is deleted after two hours, the daily count after 48 hours and the monthly count when the month ends.

To keep AI costs in check, our server adds up how many requests each AI feature handled per day and how much text they used. These are totals for everyone together, with nothing about who made the requests.

For credits, the app makes a random account ID (no name or email) and keeps it in your iCloud Keychain. Our server keeps that ID, your credit balance, and the transaction IDs of credit packs you've bought, so your credits can be restored on a new iPhone. To give free credits only once per iPhone, we use Apple's DeviceCheck, which stores a single "free credits given" mark for the device with Apple; it says nothing about you. To stop free credits being claimed over and over, our server also counts free-credit claims per network address (IP) for up to two hours.

If an account ever uses the chef far more than anyone could need, we may put a limit on an account; that limit is kept until we remove it.

Recipe photos from Pexels

When you search for a photo for a recipe, your search words go through our server to Pexels. To keep the service from being overloaded, our server counts searches per network (IP) address for up to two hours. The photos themselves download straight from Pexels.

Technique videos from YouTube

When the chef suggests a video and you tap it, its search words (like "how to julienne carrots") go through our server to YouTube's API Services, which find the videos. Our server keeps each search's results for up to 30 days, with nothing about who asked, and counts searches per network (IP) address for up to two hours (the searches it sends on to YouTube, for up to 48 hours). The videos play in YouTube's player, from youtube-nocookie.com, and Google's privacy policy covers what YouTube collects when you watch.

Recipe videos from YouTube, TikTok and Instagram

When a recipe's link is a video and you tap Watch the original, the video plays in that site's own player, loaded straight from YouTube (youtube-nocookie.com), TikTok or Instagram; nothing goes through our server, and nothing loads until you tap. That site sees your network (IP) address and what you watch, as its privacy policy describes (Google, TikTok, Instagram). Anything it stores in the player is forgotten when you close the video.

Importing recipes from the web

When you import a recipe from a link, the app downloads that page directly from the website, the same way a browser would. If the page includes recipe information in a standard format, the app reads it on your iPhone. If not, and you have Pro, its text goes to the AI as described above.

Grocery list pictures

To offer a store's logo as a grocery list's picture, the app looks the list's name up on Apple Maps near the town in Where You Cook, as any map search does (Apple's privacy policy); it never asks for your location. It downloads the logo straight from the store's own website, the way a browser would, and when the site won't share one, asks Google's icon service for it, which sees the site's address and your network (IP) address (Google's privacy policy). None of this goes through our server. The picture you pick stays on your iPhone, unless the list is shared with your household (see Household sharing).

Voice and dictation

Talking to the chef uses Apple's speech recognition, on your iPhone when it supports on-device recognition; otherwise Apple processes it as described in Apple's privacy policy. Reading steps aloud happens on your iPhone.

Reminders and notifications

Plan My Cook's reminders are notifications scheduled on your iPhone. If you send your grocery list to Apple Reminders, it's saved there and syncs according to your own iCloud settings.

So that notifications can reach it, every copy of the app sends our server a push token from Apple when it first opens, whether or not you ever allow notifications. The token can't show you anything by itself, and iOS doesn't ask you about it. We keep it with your random credits account ID (no name or email), which of Apple's notification services it belongs to, the kind of device and when it was first and last sent, until you ask us to delete it. In a household, the token is also kept with your sign-in, so your household's changes can reach your iPhone quietly; that copy goes when we haven't heard from it for 60 days, or when you delete your account.

Devices you're signed in on

When you're signed in, we keep a record of each device: a random install ID, whether it's an iPhone, an iPad, a Mac or an Android device, its hardware model (like "iPhone18,1"), the app's build number and when it was last seen. That lets Settings → Household & Account list your devices and sign one out. Deleting your account deletes these records.

Technical information

Like any internet service, our hosting provider (Cloudflare) receives your IP address to deliver requests and protect the service. Our server doesn't write your content to logs; short technical error messages can appear briefly in Cloudflare's logs while we diagnose problems.

Children

Heartless Chef isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them.

Your choices

• Turn the AI off in Settings → AI & Privacy → Use AI Features.
• Turn feature counts on or off in Settings → AI & Privacy → Feature Counts.
• Delete anything in the app, or delete the app to remove everything on your iPhone.
• Our server keeps no messages, no People cards but household members' own, and no recipes but the ones you share. What it does keep is described above: the feature totals, the daily and monthly AI counts for a subscription, for credits the random account ID, its balance and the credit packs bought, for a household what you've shared with it and your sign-in's user id, for a shared link its page, for every copy of the app its push token, and for a device you're signed in on its record. To ask what we hold or to have it deleted, email support@heartlesschef.com. Deleting a credits account also deletes its credits.

Changes

If we change what the app sends or keeps, we'll update this page and its effective date.