Start straight away
You download the app and start, without sign-up, without an address and without a password. Offline everything works for you just as it does with a network.
Your cards stay exactly where you put them
Qardbox has no server, no account and no analytics. You see on this page what that means in detail, and how you check every statement here yourself, without having to take my word for it.
Three sentences up front
Only your cards
The app processes only what you enter yourself, without analytics, tracking or advertising identifier. That is what the app's privacy manifest says too, and you can read it there at any time.
Your device, your storage
The only way outwards leads into your own iCloud and you switch it on yourself. There is no Qardbox server your cards could go to.
Your device
Cards, subjects and learning progress live here. Fully usable offline.
iCloud, if you want it
Off by default. Once on, Qardbox syncs through your own private CloudKit database. Card contents are stored there as encrypted fields.
No Qardbox server
There is no third party. The developer has no access to your data.
Where your cards live
Your cards live on your device and iCloud sync is off by default. You turn it on once under Settings, Study, iCloud sync, and you can turn it off there again at any time. What has already been synced then stays on both devices.
What exactly happens once you switch the sync on
Your subjects, cards and progress then sync between your Apple devices, through CloudKit in a private database on your own Apple ID. The developer has no access to it and could not obtain any.
The contents of your cards, that is question, answer, categories, note and the subject name, are set up as encrypted fields. And if you additionally turn on Advanced Data Protection under Apple ID, iCloud, then not even Apple can read them.
Your ratings and study timestamps, by contrast, stay unencrypted. From those someone can read that you studied, but not what you studied. So without your card contents these are just timestamps and two possible values, no more.
Qardbox never deletes anything through your sync. What you removed on one device stays on the other until you delete it there as well.
Why there is no built-in AI
A built-in card generator would have to send your material to an outside provider, and Qardbox sends nothing to servers. Instead you get a text block for an AI of your choosing. What goes out that way is your decision alone, with the same awareness as for any other app on your device.
Do not just take my word for it. Check it yourself.
iOS keeps a record of this itself and you can read it at any time. Switch on the App Privacy Report in your iOS settings under Privacy and Security. Then after a few days you see there, for every app on your device, which addresses it contacted and how often it did so.
For Qardbox at most two addresses appear, and both belong to Apple:
| Address | What is behind it |
|---|---|
| gateway.icloud.com | Apple's iCloud. It appears only if you have switched the sync on. Without sync everything stays on your device. |
| mzstorekit-sb.itunes.apple.com | Belongs to the App Store. iOS contacts the address on the app's behalf, for instance to check whether a review prompt may be shown, and when you buy or restore a deck. No study data goes along. |
If nothing is listed there, then nothing happened, because the report records for you only what actually took place.
Backing up and deleting
Under Settings, Privacy you create a copy of your data and restore it again. Under Study, Reset you remove your progress and reviews while the cards themselves stay. And if you uninstall the app, all local data is gone, without your having to cancel an account anywhere.
When your material must not leave the house
Some content is not secret and is still nobody else's business. Internal procedures belong to it and names from the job and exam material under lock. If you learn such things, you have a problem with every app that sends your content to a provider for processing.
With Qardbox the question does not arise, because there is no place for anything to go to. Your cards live in your device's storage, iCloud sync is off by default, and AI card generation deliberately takes place outside the app. What you write in stays there until you decide otherwise yourself.
Whether that is enough for your own case, only you can judge, and in public bodies and companies there are usually rules of their own for it. So this page describes only what technically happens, and draws no conclusions for you.
The legal side
The full privacy policy is available in twenty-one languages at Privacy policy, word for word identical to the version inside the app. I am glad to answer your questions about it, and you find the address for that in the legal notice.