Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 15, 2026

Refeed is a mobile app for Android and iPhone. You describe in your own words what you want to learn or improve, and Refeed builds a feed of long YouTube videos from channels that fit. This policy explains what data the apps and our server handle, why, where it goes and how long we keep it.

Short version: there is no account, no email and no Google sign-in. Only what you type in Refeed reaches our server: your interests and, if you talk to Refeed, your messages, which are not stored. On Android, what you watch in other apps is read on your phone and never leaves it. We do not sell data, show ads or use analytics or tracking tools.

1. YouTube API Services

Refeed uses YouTube API Services to find YouTube channels and list their public videos. By using Refeed you agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. Google’s handling of data is described in the Google Privacy Policy.

Refeed calls the YouTube Data API from our server with our own API key. It never signs in to your Google or YouTube account and cannot see your subscriptions, history or any private data. Because Refeed never gets access to your Google account, there is nothing to revoke; you can still review connected apps at Google security settings.
We request public information only: channel names, handles, descriptions, statistics (subscriber, video counts), upload dates, and public video titles, durations and thumbnails.
Videos are not played inside Refeed. Tapping a video opens it in the YouTube app or on youtube.com, where YouTube’s own terms and privacy policy apply.
Video thumbnails are loaded by the app directly from YouTube’s image servers (i.ytimg.com), which receive your IP address as with any web request.

2. What we collect and why

Data	Where it is kept	Why
An anonymous user ID and sign-in tokens, created when you first open the app	Our server and your device (Android app storage, iOS Keychain)	To tell your requests apart from other people’s. It is not linked to your name, email or phone number.
The text you write about your interests, later edits to it, the content languages you pick, and topics you select or exclude	Our server and your device	To turn your text into topics and build your feed.
The topics generated from your text and the channels picked for each topic	Our server and your device	To show your feed and refresh it with new videos.
Channels you mark “Not for me”	Our server, linked to your anonymous ID; we also keep an anonymous count per channel	To stop showing you that channel and to notice channels many people reject.
The time and type of each request	Our server, deleted after 2 days	Rate limiting and abuse prevention.

We do not collect your name, email, phone number, contacts, location, photos, advertising ID or device identifiers.

3. Data that stays on your phone

Android: your time on YouTube

If you turn it on, Refeed’s Accessibility Service reads the YouTube screen: the titles and channels of videos, Shorts and feed cards, and how far a video has played. Refeed uses this to count how much of your YouTube time goes to your goals. It only reads; it never taps, scrolls or types for you.

All of it is processed and stored on your phone. Titles, channels and captions are never sent to our server or anyone else. Only when you talk to Refeed (section 4) do daily totals of minutes on and off your goals go with your messages.
Each video’s details are kept for 30 days; after that only daily totals remain (minutes for your goals, off your goals and unsure).
To recognise channels, Refeed also keeps each channel’s name and up to 10 recent video titles from it on the phone, together with any “for my goal” or “not for my goals” mark you give it, until you clear the app’s data or uninstall it.
If you also choose TikTok or Instagram, Refeed notes the author, caption and hashtags of each video there and sorts it into one of your topics on the phone. Captions and authors are erased after 7 days.
The only way any of this leaves the phone is if you yourself export a diagnostic report from the hidden debug screen and choose where to share it.
You can turn the service off at any time in Android Settings → Accessibility.

iPhone: your time on YouTube

On iPhone, Refeed cannot see what you watch. If you set up the two Shortcuts automations Refeed suggests, it records the times YouTube opens and closes, on your iPhone only, to show your YouTube time. These records are kept for 60 days. Only when you talk to Refeed (section 4) do your YouTube minutes for now, today and this week go with your messages.

Both apps

Your feed, settings and topics are cached on the device. Videos, courses and channel names from YouTube older than 30 days are removed from the cache.

4. Talking to Refeed

Refeed can offer a short conversation when you drift from your goals. Each reply is written by an AI model.

With every message, the app sends to our server and to Anthropic: the conversation so far, the names of your goals, numbers from your phone (for example minutes off your goals today and the time of day), short notes from your earlier conversations, a reminder you agreed on, and titles of a few videos from your own Refeed feed. It never sends titles or channels of what you watched on YouTube.
Our server does not store or log any of this; it only counts messages to apply a daily limit.
On your phone, conversations are kept for 30 days, and the last 10 notes are kept until you delete them in Settings → What Refeed remembers.
If you report a reply, that reply and your comment are stored for 90 days so we can review it.
“Delete my data” erases all of it, on the phone and on our server.

5. Who we share data with

Anthropic (Claude API) — receives the text you write about your interests and your edits, to turn them into topics and suggest channels, and receives public channel names, descriptions and video titles to check whether a channel fits a topic, and, when you talk to Refeed, the conversation details listed in section 4, to write each reply. Your anonymous ID is not sent. Anthropic does not use API data to train its models by default.
Google / YouTube — receives search queries generated from your topics (not your original text and not your ID) and requests for public channel and video data, as described in section 1.
Supabase — hosts our database and server functions in the EU (Frankfurt, Germany).

We do not sell or rent personal data, and we do not share it for advertising. We may disclose data if required by law.

6. How long we keep data

Your text, topics and channel list are kept while you use Refeed. Each rebuild replaces the previous ones.
Request logs are deleted after 2 days.
Information from the YouTube API (channel details, video lists, search results) is refreshed or deleted within 30 days, as YouTube’s policies require.
If you do not open Refeed for 12 months, we delete the data linked to your anonymous ID.

7. Deleting your data

In the app, open Settings and tap Delete my data. Your text, topics, channel list, request log and anonymous ID are deleted from our server right away, and everything Refeed stored on your phone is erased.
Uninstalling the app deletes everything stored on your phone, including all Accessibility data on Android. Data left on our server is then deleted after 12 months without use.
You can also email us at support@getrefeed.com with the topics text you wrote so we can find it. We delete it within 30 days.

8. Children

Refeed is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age in your country) and we do not knowingly collect their data. Channels marked by YouTube as made for kids are never shown. If you believe a child has used Refeed, contact us and we will delete the data.

9. Security

All traffic between the apps and our server uses HTTPS. Sign-in tokens are kept in the iOS Keychain and in private app storage on Android, with Android backups turned off. API keys for YouTube and Anthropic live only on our server.

10. Your rights

Depending on where you live (for example, under the GDPR), you may have the right to access, correct, delete or export your data, and to object to or restrict its processing. Email us to use these rights. You may also complain to your local data protection authority.

11. Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the date above and, for significant changes, tell you in the app.

12. Contact

Questions or requests: support@getrefeed.com.