Last updated: 20 August 2026
What Siftory reads
With your permission, Siftory reads screenshots that Apple Photos makes accessible to the app. If you choose Limited Photos Access, Siftory can read only eligible screenshot items you selected. Siftory is designed not to index ordinary camera photos.
What stays on your device
Siftory creates a compressed preview, recognized text, category, tags, notes, hashes, and reminder details in the app’s local storage. Full-resolution originals remain in Apple Photos unless you explicitly select screenshots and confirm deletion through Apple’s Photos interface.
Core text recognition, search, and categorization run on the device. If you leave optional iCloud organization sync off, your organization metadata also stays only on that device.
Optional private iCloud organization sync
If you explicitly enable iCloud organization sync, Siftory stores custom category definitions, manual category choices, favorites, personal notes, reminder dates, and learned category keywords in your private Apple CloudKit database. This lets supported devices using your iCloud account restore that organization when the same screenshot can be matched locally.
The iCloud archive does not include screenshot images, compressed previews, recognized OCR text, automatic tags, visual fingerprints, or Apple Photos identifiers. Turning sync off keeps the existing private iCloud copy. You can separately delete Siftory’s iCloud copy from Settings without deleting screenshots or your local index.
Optional Enhanced AI
If you are a Premium user and explicitly enable Optional Enhanced AI in a supported build, Siftory may send a redacted excerpt of recognized text from eligible Unsorted screenshots, broad language hints, and the names of allowed categories to a Siftory-controlled service that uses the OpenAI API.
Screenshot images, personal notes, reminders, and Apple Photos identifiers are not sent. Before sending, Siftory removes common phone numbers, email addresses, web links, social handles, and account-number patterns. This is data minimization, not anonymity: names or unusual identifiers can remain.
OpenAI states that API data is not used to train its models unless the API customer opts in. Under OpenAI’s default abuse-monitoring policy, API content may be retained for up to 30 days. You can disable Optional Enhanced AI and stop a review at any time. Items you categorized manually are not submitted for automatic reclassification.
To protect this optional service from automated abuse, Siftory may use Apple App Attest to verify that a request came from an authentic Siftory app installation. The service keeps aggregate daily request, cache, error, rate-limit and token counts for reliability and spending controls. These operational records do not include screenshot text, screenshot identifiers, names, notes, or raw IP addresses.
Deletion and access changes
You can select screenshots inside Siftory and request deletion from Apple Photos. Apple shows a system confirmation, and deleted items normally move to Recently Deleted. After Photos confirms deletion, Siftory removes the corresponding local previews, recognized text, notes, and reminders.
You can also remove a local memory while keeping its Photos original. Siftory remembers not to import that item again until you restore ignored screenshots in Settings. When an indexed original is no longer accessible, Siftory removes its local data during library verification.
Clear Index removes Siftory’s local index without deleting the originals in Photos. Settings also provide controls for the ignore list and learned category examples.
Apple services and permissions
Apple Photos may download an iCloud-backed original when needed. Voice search uses Apple’s Speech framework. Siftory requests on-device recognition when the selected language and device support it; otherwise the feature may be unavailable. Siftory does not save a voice-search recording.
Reminder notifications and calendar events are created only when you choose those actions and grant the related Apple permission.
Purchases
Siftory Premium purchases are handled by Apple through StoreKit and the App Store account on your device. Siftory does not require a separate Siftory account to make a purchase. Apple’s own privacy terms apply to App Store billing.
Tracking and analytics
Siftory contains no advertising, third-party behavioral analytics, or cross-app tracking code.
Website privacy
This website uses limited first-party, aggregate analytics to count daily page views, App Store interest, support-assistant openings, and support questions. It does not use analytics cookies, persistent device identifiers, advertising trackers, cross-site tracking, or a marketing database.
The analytics record only an allowlisted event name, the public page path, the UTC day, and an aggregate count. They do not store IP addresses, user-agent strings, referrers, URL query strings, support-question text, screenshot content, OCR text, names, email addresses, or payment information. Individual event records are not retained. The website honors supported Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track browser signals by not sending these analytics events.
Contact
Questions about privacy can be sent to privacy@siftory.co.