Your privacy matters
No ads. No selling what you log. Ever.
CalorieCounter is built so that logging what you eat never becomes something that is sold, profiled, or advertised against. This page says, in plain language, what the app collects, why, and how to take it back.
The short version
- There is no advertising SDK in the app, no App Tracking Transparency prompt, and no sale of data.
- Meal photos are stripped of location and device metadata on your phone before anything leaves it.
- Photos are sent to Google Gemini to estimate calories, kept for 30 days, and never used to train Google’s models. You can turn photo analysis off in Settings.
- Everything you log stays yours. Export and account deletion live inside the app under Settings › Privacy.
- In the app, analytics are opt-in and stay off unless you switch them on.
- This website uses Ahrefs and Google Analytics, including Google’s advertising features, to measure visits. What that means, and how to switch it off, is under Measurement on this website.
What the app stores
| Data | Why | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Diary entries, foods, recipes, water | To show your day, week, and trends | On your phone; mirrored to your account while “Store body metrics and diary in my account” is on, so it survives a new phone. Switch it off and the mirroring stops and the copy in your account is removed |
| Body metrics you enter (sex, birth year, height, weight, goal, activity) | To size your calorie and macro targets | On your phone; stored in your account only while “Store body metrics and diary in my account” is on — the switch shown during setup, and in Settings › Privacy and data afterwards |
| Meal photos you choose to scan | To estimate the foods and portions on the plate | Sent to Google Gemini through our servers, kept 30 days for re-analysis and support, then deleted |
| Apple Health data you allow | Weight and active energy are read into your diary; a weight you type in the app is written back to Health. Food and water are not written to Health in this version | On your phone, and mirrored to your account with the rest of the diary while “Store body metrics and diary in my account” is on. Never used for advertising or marketing |
| Subscription status | To unlock Premium and restore purchases | Verified with Apple; we never see your card details |
| Crash reports | To fix bugs | Sent without your diary contents |
| Usage analytics | To understand which screens work | Only if you opt in under Settings › Privacy; off by default |
| Waitlist email address (this website) | To send you the App Store link when the app is live | On our web host, outside the public site folder, until the launch email has gone out |
| Page visits and button use (this website) | To see which pages are useful and where people give up | With Ahrefs and Google Analytics, as set out under Measurement on this website. Never your email address, and never anything typed into a calculator |
What the app does not do
- It does not show ads, and it contains no advertising or attribution SDK from ad networks.
- It does not ask for tracking permission, because it does not track you across apps or websites.
- It does not sell, rent, or share your data with data brokers.
- It does not use your photos or diary to train machine-learning models.
- It does not read your contacts, calendar, location, or microphone, other than voice describe while you hold the button.
Meal photos, in detail
When you scan a plate, the app removes location and device metadata from the image on your phone, then sends the pixels to our servers, which forward them to Google Gemini for an estimate. Every item comes back labeled Pretty sure, Best guess, or Check this, and you can edit any of it before it is saved. Photos are kept for 30 days so a Premium re-analysis can look at the same image, then deleted. You can turn photo analysis off at any time in Settings and keep logging by barcode, search, voice, or text, all of which run without sending images anywhere.
Your controls
- Export. Settings › Privacy › Export creates a file with everything you logged.
- Delete. Settings › Privacy › Delete account removes your account and server data. Deleting the app or your account does not cancel a subscription; that is done in Settings › Apple Account › Subscriptions.
- Photo analysis. Settings › Privacy › AI photo analysis switches it off.
- Health. Settings › Apple Health chooses what is read and written.
- Analytics. Settings › Privacy › Share usage analytics is off until you turn it on.
The waitlist on this website
Until the app is on the App Store, the buttons on this site open a waitlist. When you join, we store the email address you typed, the time, which button you used, and a shortened, one-way hash of your connection address that we use only to slow down automated signups. We do not store your name. The address you type goes to the waitlist and nowhere else: it is never sent to an analytics service.
- What it is for. One email with the App Store link on launch day, sent from an address on this domain. No newsletter, no reminders, no sharing with anyone else.
- How long we keep it. Until that launch email has been sent. Within 30 days after launch the list is deleted.
- How to leave. Reply “stop” to any email from us, or write to support@thecaloriecounterapp.com from the address you signed up with, and we remove it by hand.
- A note on the browser. After you join, this site remembers that on your device only, so the button shows “You’re on the list” next time. Clearing your browser data forgets it, and your address is not sent anywhere again.
Measurement on this website
This website measures how it is used, with two services. Neither one ever receives the email address you give the waitlist.
- Ahrefs Web Analytics. Counts page views without cookies and stores nothing on your device. What it is sent is the address and title of the page, the site you came from, your browser’s language, and your screen size. Like any web request, it arrives with your connection address and browser type, which Ahrefs uses to work out a country, a city and a kind of device.
- Google Analytics 4. Records which pages are opened, how far down a page is read, and which buttons are used, such as opening the waitlist, switching a serving size, or touching a calculator. It sets first-party cookies,
_gaand_ga_LWSBD3HHQR, which hold a random number and last up to 13 months. Google states that Analytics 4 neither logs nor stores your connection address; it is used once, to work out a country and a city. - Google signals and advertising features. These are switched on. If you are signed in to a Google account with ad personalization turned on, Google links your visit to that account, using its own advertising cookies and identifiers alongside ours, and gives us reports on age bands, gender and interests, in totals and never by name. Google may also use visits to this site in its advertising products, and we could build advertising audiences from them if we ever run Google ads.
- What is never sent. Your waitlist email address. Anything you type into a calculator, and any number a calculator shows you. The text of anything you copy.
- Where a yes comes first. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, Google Analytics waits for a yes: it sets no cookies before you give one.
- Browser signals. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, Google Analytics does not load.
- Switching it off. Privacy choices, also in the footer of every page, turns Google Analytics off for your browser and deletes its cookies. You can also turn off ad personalization for your Google account at adssettings.google.com, or install Google’s Analytics opt-out add-on.
None of this touches the app. What you log in CalorieCounter is not part of this measurement, and the app’s own analytics stay off unless you switch them on.
Age
CalorieCounter is for people aged 13 and over. Under 18, the plan holds weight steady and never offers a deficit.
Food data sources
Nutrition data comes from USDA FoodData Central and from © Open Food Facts contributors, plus anything you add yourself. Every catalog row shows its source.
Questions
Write to support@thecaloriecounterapp.com. We answer every message.