Commonplace Privacy Policy

Effective 30 September 2026

Commonplace is a reading app for classic literature. This policy says what the app does with information. It covers Commonplace for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Android.

In short

• Your library, notes, saved passages and reading places stay on your device.
• Commonplace has no accounts, no advertising, no analytics and no crash reporting, and it does not track you.
• Nothing you write in Commonplace is sent to us.
• If you turn on Sync with Google, your notes, saved passages, bookmarks, reading places and the list of your books are kept in a private folder of your own Google Drive. We cannot see it. Google’s sign-in receives your Google account ID and IP address.
• Commonplace fetches books, covers and passages from its own catalogue. The catalogue receives ordinary connection information, as any website does.

What stays on your device

Your library and its details, books you import, your reading places, the daily passages you have been given, your notes, bookmarks and saved passages, cover choices, display preferences, and the history of each edition you hold. Searching your library, including the full text of your books, happens on the device. None of this is sent to us.

Finding and downloading books

When you open Commonplace, browse the Bookstore or download a book, Commonplace contacts the Commonplace catalogue (library.readcommonplace.com), for catalogue records, covers, passages and book downloads. Searching the Bookstore happens on your device.

The catalogue receives what any website receives when a device asks it for something: your IP address, the time, and what was asked for. The Commonplace catalogue is served by a hosting provider that processes the same connection information in order to deliver the files; we do not use it to identify or follow readers. Commonplace never sends the catalogue your notes or the books you imported.

When you open a link — to a source edition’s web page, for example — it opens in your browser.

Sync with Google (optional, off unless you turn it on)

Sync keeps your reading the same across your devices. It works through your own Google account, and no Commonplace server is involved.

When you turn it on, Commonplace asks you to sign in with Google and asks for one permission: to use a hidden folder in your Google Drive that belongs to Commonplace alone. It cannot see or change anything else in your Drive, and no other app can see that folder.

Into that folder Commonplace writes your notes; your saved passages and daily passages, with the notes on them; passages you have hidden or set aside; your bookmarks; your reading places; a list of the books in your library, books you imported included (title, author, edition, when it was added and whether it is pinned); and, for each of your devices, a random identifier and whether it runs Android or iOS. It reads the folder back on each of your devices to keep them the same. It does not copy the books themselves, your preferences or your reading history. A catalogue book you hold on one device is downloaded again from the catalogue on your others.

This information travels directly between your device and Google over an encrypted connection, and Google stores it under your Google account and Google’s privacy policy. We never receive it and cannot see it. It is protected by Google’s own storage encryption, not by a separate Commonplace password, so anyone who can get into your Google account could read it.

When you sign in, Google’s sign-in receives your Google account ID, to record the permission you give Commonplace, and your IP address, from which Google may estimate your general location to prevent fraud. Google handles both under its own privacy policy.

Signing in also gives the app the email address of your Google account, so that the Sync screen can show which account is in use. It is never sent to us. On Android, the app passes it to Google Play services to ask for access to your Drive folder.

Turning sync off stops syncing and signs you out of Google inside Commonplace; your device and your Drive folder are left as they are. To delete the copy in your Drive, open Google Drive on the web, go to Settings, then Manage apps, find Commonplace and choose “Delete hidden app data”. You can remove Commonplace’s access at any time in your Google Account, under Security, in your connections to third-party apps and services.

Commonplace’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. That information is used only to provide sync. It is never sold, never used for advertising, and never transferred to anyone.

Backups

On iPhone and iPad, the app’s data is included in your iCloud or computer backups, under your device’s settings.

Photos

If you choose a picture from your photo library to use as a book cover, Commonplace receives only the picture you choose. It never uses the camera.

Widgets and Apple Watch

The home screen widgets and the Apple Watch app show the day’s passage and the book you are reading. Commonplace passes that information between the app, its widgets and your Apple Watch; it is not sent anywhere else.

Children

Commonplace is a general-audience app for reading classic literature. It sends us no personal information about anyone, including children.

Your choices and rights

Because Commonplace sends us no personal information, we hold nothing about you to access, correct, export or delete. What Commonplace keeps is on your device — you can delete books, notes and saved passages in the app, or remove the app — and, if you use sync, in your own Google Drive, which you control as described above.

Changes

If Commonplace ever begins to collect more than this policy describes — for example, if accounts are introduced — this policy will be updated before that happens, with a new date at the top, and the app will ask you before anything new is collected.

Contact

Questions about this policy or about Commonplace: [email protected]