privacy policy

Last updated 12 October 2026.

Rough Notes is a notebook for messy thinkers. You photograph pages you wrote on paper, or scribble on your phone; we keep them and turn them into text you can find. This page explains what we keep, why, and what you can do about it.

Rough Notes is a brand of Maze Stuff Private Limited ("Maze Stuff", "we", "us"), a company registered in India. Maze Stuff runs Rough Notes and is responsible for your data under this policy. Your data is used only to run Rough Notes for you, and never to train AI models, by us or anyone else.

What we keep

• Your account. Your email address, or the name and email Google shares when you sign in with Google.
• Your notes. The photos you scan or pick, the pages you scribble in the app, the text we read from them, their tags, and any words you fix.
• Your plan. Whether you're on Free or Pro, how many notes were turned into text this month, and, if you pay, a reference to your purchase (see Paying for Pro).
• Server logs. When the app talks to our server we log the time, your device's IP address, what was asked and any errors, so we can keep the service running and stop abuse. Logs are deleted after 30 days.
• Why you left, if you choose to tell us when deleting your account. It's kept without your name or email.

We don't use advertising or tracking tools and the app has no ads. Your notes and photos are never used to train AI models.

What the app asks your phone for

• Camera, only when you tap to scan a page.
• Photos, only the ones you pick with Android's photo picker; the app can't see the rest of your gallery.
• Saving to your gallery, only if you turn on Save to gallery in Settings (it's off at first).

Why we keep it

Only to run your notebook: store your notes, read them, let you find them, keep them backed up and on every device you sign in to, and know your plan. We don't sell your data or share it for advertising.

Paying for Pro

If you buy Pro, Google Play handles the payment; we never see your card, UPI or bank details. Google sends us a purchase reference, which we keep with your account so Pro stays on wherever you sign in, along with which plan you're on and when it renews or ends. A scrambled tag of your account goes with the purchase so it can't be used by another account. We check the purchase with Google from time to time to know if it renewed, was cancelled or was refunded.

Who reads your notes

• You. Your notebook is private to your account.
• Our reading service. To turn a photo into text, the photo is sent to Google's Gemini API. It's used only to read that page; under Google's paid API terms it isn't used to train Google's models. If Gemini is down, the same photo may be read by OpenAI's API instead. It's sent without your name, email or account, OpenAI doesn't use it to train its models, and it isn't stored beyond OpenAI's short abuse-monitoring window (up to 30 days).
• AI apps you connect, if you're on Pro and choose to (see below).
• Nobody else. Our team doesn't browse your notes. We'd only look at a specific note if you send it to us for help.

AI apps you connect

On Pro you can let an AI app, such as Claude or ChatGPT, read your notes, so you can ask it about what you wrote. Nothing is connected unless you do it yourself: you add Rough Notes in that app, sign in with your Rough Notes email code, and tap Allow.

• A connected app can search and read your notes, with their titles, tags and dates. It can't add, change or delete anything, and it can only ever reach your own account.
• The notes it reads are sent to that app's company, and what happens to them there is under that company's own terms and privacy policy, not ours.
• We keep which apps you connected and when they last read something. We don't keep what they asked or what they read.
• Disconnect an app any time in Settings → Use in ChatGPT & Claude. It's cut off at once. A connected app also stops reading your notes if your Pro ends, and every connection is removed if you delete your account.

Services that help run Rough Notes

We don't sell or share your data with anyone for their own use. These companies handle it only on our behalf, to run the app:

• Supabase keeps accounts and stores your notes, text and photos.
• Google Cloud (Mumbai, India) runs our server, and gets what the app sends it.
• Google Gemini API reads your photos into text. It gets the photo being read.
• OpenAI API reads a photo only when Gemini is down. It gets the photo being read, nothing else.
• Resend sends the sign-in code email. It gets your email address.
• Google Sign-In, if you choose Continue with Google, gives us your name and email.
• Google Play handles payments if you buy Pro. Google has your payment details; we don't.

On the phone, Google's ML Kit finds the words on a page before it's uploaded, without sending the page anywhere. Google may collect anonymous performance statistics from it.

We'd only give data to anyone else if the law requires it.

Where it's stored

• Your account, notes, text and photos: Supabase, in a private store only your account can reach.
• The reading service: Google Cloud, in Mumbai, India.
• A copy stays on your phone, so the app works offline.

Some of these services may store data outside India; they're bound to keep it protected.

Data is encrypted on its way to and from our servers, and where it's stored. Each person's notes are locked to their own account in the database itself.

How long we keep it

• Your notes, for as long as you keep them. A deleted note waits 30 days in Recently deleted, then its photo and text are removed from our servers. You can also remove it from Recently deleted sooner.
• Your account, until you delete it.
• Backups of our database expire within 30 days, so deleted things are gone from them too after that.

Your choices

• Download all your notes any time (Settings → Delete account → Download all my notes first; you don't have to go on to delete).
• Correct any word we read wrong, right on the note.
• Delete your account in Settings → Delete account. Everything goes: notes, photos, text, tags and your plan. If you pay for Pro, cancel it in Google Play too, since Google bills it.
• Without the app: ask for your account to be deleted at themazestuff.com/rough-notes/delete-account, or email us from the address you signed in with. We delete it within 30 days.
• Ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, or to delete it, at the email below.

Why we're allowed to use it

Wherever the law asks for a reason (for example in the EU and UK under the GDPR, and in India under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act):

• To give you the service you signed up for: your account, your notes, reading them, backup, and Pro.
• To keep it safe and running: server logs and speed limits, which stop abuse and keep everyone's notes available.
• Because you chose it: connecting an AI app, saving copies to your gallery, telling us why you left. You can undo each of these any time.
• Because the law requires it: keeping purchase records as tax law says.

No decision with legal or similar effects on you is ever made automatically. The AI only reads your pages into text.

Your rights, wherever you are

You can ask us to show you the data we hold about you, give you a copy you can take elsewhere, correct it, delete it, or stop or limit some uses of it, and you can take back any choice you made. Most of this is in the app (Download, fix any word, Delete account, Disconnect); for the rest, email us and we'll answer within 30 days. We may ask you to confirm it's you, from the email you signed in with.

• In India, you can also nominate someone to use these rights for you if you die or can't use them yourself.
• In the EU or UK, you can also complain to your local data protection authority (in the UK, the ICO). We'd like the chance to sort it out with you first.
• In California and other US states, we don't sell your personal information or share it for advertising, and we don't treat you differently for using your rights.

Your notes are kept in data centres run by the services listed above, and some of them are outside your country (for example in the United States). Where the law requires it, these transfers are protected by the services' standard data protection agreements, such as the EU's standard contractual clauses.

Children

Rough Notes isn't meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly keep data about them; if you think a child has an account, write to us and we'll delete it. If you're under 18 (or under the age your country sets for agreeing to this yourself), use it with a parent's or guardian's permission.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we'll tell you in the app before it applies.

Contact

For any question, request or complaint about your data, write to Maze Stuff Private Limited at hello@themazestuff.com. We reply within 30 days.