The Mental Faculty

Studies Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2026.

Your stacks belong to you. Studies stores your flashcards and study history on your devices and, if you enable iCloud sync, in your private iCloud account. We do not have access to any of it.

What Studies stores locally

  • The flashcards, notes, and stacks you create
  • Audio, image, and video files you attach to cards
  • Your study history and statistics
  • Application preferences

iCloud sync

If you enable iCloud sync, Studies stores your stacks and study history in your private iCloud database. This data is associated with your Apple ID, encrypted in transit and at rest by Apple, and visible only to you. We have no access.

Apple Intelligence

When you use Generate Stack, or when Studies writes wrong answers for a quiz, the topic and the card text are sent to Apple Intelligence. This runs on your device or on Apple's Private Cloud Compute, which does not keep your data and which Apple cannot read. Nothing goes to us or to any other company.

If an answer the AI wrote looks wrong or harmful, you can report it from the app. This opens an email to us with the text in question; nothing is sent until you send that email yourself.

Newsletter

Studies asks you once whether you want its newsletter, and you can also sign up from the Help menu. Signing up is optional, and the app works the same either way.

If you sign up, the email address you type and the language of the app go to our server, which passes them to Brevo, the email service that sends the newsletter. Brevo then emails you a link, and you join the list only after you open it. Every newsletter has a link to unsubscribe, and you can ask us at [email protected] to delete your address.

Our server does not store your address. So that one address gets at most one confirmation email a day, it keeps a scrambled code made from the address (not the address itself) for one day, then deletes it. Brevo keeps your address while it is on the list, and we delete it when you ask.

Other things that stay with you

  • Siri, Shortcuts and Spotlight: the names and text of your stacks and notes are shared with your device's own Siri and Spotlight so you can find and use them. This happens on your device.
  • Automation (Mac): if you turn on the automation server, other apps on your Mac (for example an AI assistant you set up) can read and change your stacks. It accepts connections only from your own Mac, with a key stored on your Mac.
  • Schoolwork: if your school uses Apple's Schoolwork, your progress on class stacks is shared with your teacher through Apple's ClassKit.
  • Purchases go through Apple, or through Setapp for the Setapp edition. We do not receive your payment details.

Setapp

The iPhone and iPad app includes Setapp's framework, so that Setapp members get Studies Premium. Setapp (MacPaw) uses it to check your membership and to count how much members use the app, and it receives a device and user identifier for that. This is covered by Setapp's privacy policy. The Mac App Store edition does not include it.

Information we do not collect

Studies does not include analytics, tracking, advertising, or telemetry. We do not collect personal information from app usage. We do not know what stacks you study, when you study, or how you perform.

Crash reports

If you opt in via Apple's system settings, anonymous crash reports may be shared with us by Apple. These contain no personal content.

Data sharing

We do not sell, rent, or share your data with third parties. Your stacks are never shared except when you explicitly export or share them yourself. An email address you give for the newsletter goes only to Brevo, which processes it on our behalf.

Your rights

  • Delete stacks and study history at any time from within the app
  • Disable iCloud sync from System Settings
  • Export your stacks in standard formats
  • Unsubscribe from the newsletter with the link in any issue
  • Uninstall Studies and remove all local data

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated through the app.

Contact

For questions about this policy, contact [email protected].