Privacy policy

Last updated: 27 October 2026

This policy covers Yoma, the journal app for Android (package com.getyoma.app), and this website, getyoma.com. Yoma is a journal: you speak or type your days, and they become pages of a book you can read in the app and order in print. What you put in it is personal, so this page says plainly what leaves your phone, where it goes, and how to remove it.

The short version

• You can use Yoma without an account. Then your journal, recordings and photos stay on your phone and are not sent to us.
• With an account, your journal, recordings and photos are backed up on our servers so you can get them back on another phone. Only you can reach them through the app.
• With an account, the words of a spoken moment are sent to Google’s Gemini AI to suggest a title and a written “Story”. We do not keep a copy of the words that were sent.
• When you order a printed book, your pages and delivery details go to our print partner, Prodigi.
• No ads, no advertising ID, no selling of data, no third-party analytics or tracking tools.
• You can export your journal and delete your account from inside the app at any time.

Who we are

Yoma is run by Nirel Apps, an independent developer in Israel (“Yoma”, “we”, “us”). We decide how the personal data described here is used, which makes us its “controller” under data-protection law. Write to us any time at hello@getyoma.com.

Using Yoma without an account

An account is optional. Without one, everything you create stays on your phone: your moments and their words, recordings, photos, journals, book designs and settings. We do not receive any of it. A few things still involve other parties:

• Speech-to-text is done by your phone’s own speech-recognition service (see below).
• Android backup. If backup is turned on in your phone’s settings, Android copies the app’s data to your own Google account, as it does for most apps. Yoma leaves recordings and photos out of that backup so it stays small; the journal’s words and settings are included. You control this in your phone’s settings, not in Yoma.
• App notices. The app asks our server whether there are announcements or a newer version you must install. These requests carry no journal content, but like any internet request they reveal your IP address to our hosting provider.

Without an account there are no AI Stories, no cloud backup and no print orders, and if you lose or reset your phone, anything not in your Android backup or in an export is gone.

With an account

When you create an account and sign in, Yoma keeps a copy of your journal on our servers, so it is safe if you lose your phone and you can sign in on another one. We store:

• Account details: your email address, your password (stored by our authentication provider in hashed form, never readable by us) and, if you give one, your name.
• Your journals: the words of your moments, their titles, AI Stories, dates and times, the journals you keep and their settings, and anything you fill in for a journal type, such as a child’s name, age, height and weight; a trip’s places; a dream’s tags; or a health journal’s answers about sleep, energy and notes for a doctor. Also your book designs, page edits, decorations and the words of your books (title, dedication and so on).
• Voice recordings of your moments.
• Photos you add. We upload a resized copy (up to 3000 pixels on the long edge) with the camera details (EXIF), including any location, removed. The original stays on your phone.
• Your answers to the first-run questions (what you want to keep a journal for, and optionally how you heard about Yoma), and preferences such as whether reminders are on.
• Messages you send us through “Contact us & FAQ” in the app, with your email address, so we can answer.
• Usage and error information, described in its own section.

We use this to run the app for you: to back up and restore your journal, to keep your phones in step, to write AI Stories, to make and deliver books you order, to answer you, and to keep Yoma working and secure. Your journal is not public, and nobody else can open it through Yoma. We do not read your journals. People who run Yoma can technically reach stored data, and we only do so when you ask us for help with something specific, when it is needed to fix a fault or keep the service secure, or when the law requires it.

Your voice and speech-to-text

When you record a moment, Yoma asks your phone’s speech-recognition service to turn your voice into words as you speak. On most Android phones that service is provided by Google, and depending on your phone, its settings and the language, the audio may be processed on the phone or sent to Google to be recognised, under Google’s own terms. Yoma does not send the audio to us for transcription.

Yoma also saves the recording itself, so you can listen to it again. It stays on your phone; with an account it is also backed up on our servers. Recordings over 50 MB are kept on the phone only.

AI Stories

With an account, Yoma can write a short “Story” and suggest a title from a spoken moment. You choose whether to keep your own words or use the Story, and you can edit either. To do this:

• the words of the moment, the language you spoke in, the type of journal, and a few of the moment’s own details that help the writing (for example a child’s name, a trip’s place, a dream’s tags) are sent from the app to our server, and from there to Google’s Gemini API, which writes the Story;
• this happens automatically for a new spoken moment when you are signed in, and again when you ask for a new or updated Story. A typed moment gets a Story only when you ask. Without an account nothing is sent;
• we keep a record of each request (when, how long the text was, whether it worked), but not the words or the Story on that record. The Story you keep is saved with your moment like the rest of your journal.

Google processes this text as our service provider, under the Gemini API terms. AI writing can be wrong: please read a Story before it goes into a book.

Photos and places

• Choosing photos. Photos are chosen with Android’s photo picker or file picker, so Yoma only gets the photos you pick, never your whole gallery.
• Dates and places from photos. If “Suggest from photo dates” or “Suggest from photo places” is on (Settings), Yoma reads the date and location stored in a picked photo, on your phone, to suggest which day or which town it belongs to. To read a photo’s location Android asks you for the “access media location” permission. The coordinates are turned into a town name and then forgotten: they are never saved in your journal, backed up or sent to us. Only a suggestion you accept (for example the town’s name) becomes part of the moment.
• Your location. If you tap “My location”, or accept the town Yoma offers on a trip (Settings: “Offer the town I’m in, on a trip”), Yoma asks Android for your approximate location (never your precise location, and never in the background), works out the town on your phone, and keeps only the town’s name and the town’s general map point. Your actual position is not stored or sent to us.
• The trip map. To place towns and places you have named on a map, Yoma uses your phone’s built-in geocoding service. On Android that service is provided by Google, which receives the place name or coordinates to answer.
• Exports. “Export my journal” makes a file on your phone with your words, photos and recordings. Its photos are the originals, with their camera details (which can include where they were taken). The app says so before you share the file, and where it goes is up to you.

Reminders, widgets and app lock

• Reminders are scheduled on your phone by Yoma itself. We do not use push messaging and do not collect a push token. A reminder’s text can mention your journal, so it may show on your lock screen.
• Home-screen widgets show your current book and recent activity from a small copy the app keeps on the phone. With app lock on, the widgets show only “Yoma”.
• App lock uses your phone’s fingerprint, face or screen lock through Android. Yoma never receives your biometric data. While app lock is on, Yoma also blocks screenshots and screen recording of the app.

Printed books

When you order a printed book we collect what is needed to make it, take payment and deliver it:

• the name, mobile phone number, email address and delivery address in Israel you enter (if the book is a gift, the recipient’s name, phone and address), and any delivery notes;
• the order itself: the book, page count, cover, paper, number of copies, price and its status;
• the print file: a PDF of the book made on your phone from the pages you approved. It contains everything printed in the book, including your words, photos and any names in them.

We share them with:

• Prodigi, our print partner (a UK print company that prints our books at a partner lab in Europe), which receives the print file and the delivery name, address and phone number, and passes the delivery details to the courier that brings the book to the door;
• a payment provider, which we will name here before paid orders open, and which takes your card details on its own secure page. We never see or store your full card number; we receive only whether the payment went through and a reference to it;
• Resend, which sends the order emails to you, and Telegram, which carries a short order notice to us (the order number, the name, town and phone number on the order).

We use the phone number and email address only for this order: to tell you about it and so the courier can reach you. We keep the print file for one year after the order, so the same book can be reordered.

Usage and error information

When you are signed in, the app records how it is used, in our own database, with your account’s identifier: which screens are opened, which features are used (for example that a moment was saved or a book opened), how long a session lasted, the app version and that the phone runs Android. It does not include what you wrote, said or photographed. We use it to understand what works, fix what does not, and improve Yoma. There is currently no switch for it in the app; if you do not want it, use Yoma without an account, or ask us.

When something goes wrong in the app, it sends us an error report: the error message, technical details of where in the code it happened, the app version and your account’s identifier. Errors that happen while you are signed out are held by the app and sent only if you sign in.

We do not use any third-party analytics, advertising or tracking service. The app contains a crash-reporting library (Sentry) that is switched off; if we ever turn on an outside crash-reporting service, we will update this policy first.

Who helps us run Yoma

We do not sell personal data, rent it, or share it for advertising. We share it only with service providers who run parts of Yoma for us, and only what each needs:

• Supabase (database, sign-in, file storage and server functions), which hosts your account and backup on servers in Tokyo, Japan (Amazon Web Services).
• Google: the Gemini API (AI Stories), and, through Android rather than through us, speech recognition, geocoding and Android backup.
• Prodigi and its courier (printing and delivery), the payment provider, Resend (order emails) and Telegram (order notices to us), for print orders.
• The email service that sends sign-in and password-reset emails on behalf of our authentication provider.
• Vercel, which hosts this website, and Buttondown, which runs the waitlist (see below).

We may also disclose data if the law requires it, to protect people’s safety or our rights, or as part of a sale or merger of Yoma, in which case this policy would continue to apply to it.

Phone permissions

Yoma asks for each permission only when you use the feature that needs it, and works without any of them:

• Microphone: to record and transcribe your moments.
• Notifications: for the reminders you set.
• Approximate location: only when you tap “My location”, accept the town offer on a trip, or ask the map to find places. Yoma never asks for precise or background location.
• Access media location: only if photo place suggestions are on, to read where a picked photo was taken.
• Fingerprint or face unlock: for app lock.

You can withdraw any permission in Android’s settings at any time.

How long we keep data

• Your account and journal: for as long as you have an account.
• A moment you delete: once the app’s short undo window has passed, its words are cleared from our servers and its recording and photos are deleted.
• Usage and error information: while your account exists. When you delete your account it is detached from you and kept only in anonymous form.
• Print files: one year after the order. Order records: kept as long as tax and accounting law requires (in Israel, generally seven years); after you delete your account they are kept without your name, phone, email or address.
• Our hosting provider keeps routine backups of the database for a limited period (no more than 30 days), after which deleted data is gone from them too.
• Support messages: while your account exists.

Deleting your data and account

• In the app: Settings → Account & backup → Delete account → Delete forever. This deletes your account, every journal, moment, Story, recording, photo and print file from our servers, and clears the journal from the phone. It cannot be undone. If a book you paid for is still being printed or delivered, the app asks you to wait until it arrives, because we need the address to deliver it.
• Without the app: email hello@getyoma.com from the address you signed up with and ask us to delete your account. We will do it within 30 days and confirm.
• Only some data: you can delete single moments, recordings, photos or journals in the app, or ask us by email to delete specific data without deleting the account.
• Without an account: Settings → More → Advanced → Erase this phone’s journal, or uninstall the app. We hold nothing of yours to delete.
• Before you go: Settings → Export my journal gives you a copy of everything.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to tell you what data we hold about you and give you a copy, to correct it, to delete it, or to stop using it for a purpose. Much of this you can do yourself in the app (edit, export, delete). Write to hello@getyoma.com; we answer within 30 days and may ask you to confirm it is your account.

In Israel, under the Privacy Protection Law, you have the right to review the information about you in our database and to ask for it to be corrected or deleted. You can also complain to the Privacy Protection Authority.

In the European Union, the UK and similar places, you also have the rights to data portability, to restrict processing, to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to complain to your local data-protection authority. Our legal bases are: performing our contract with you (running the app, backup, AI Stories, print orders); your consent (location, photo places, microphone, which you can withdraw at any time in the app or in Android’s settings); our legitimate interests (understanding use of the app, fixing errors, keeping Yoma secure); and legal obligations (accounting records).

Some of what you write can be sensitive, for example about health or about your children. It is stored and used only to run Yoma for you, as described above, and never for advertising or profiling.

Children

Yoma is made for adults. It is not directed to children, and you must be at least 16 to create an account. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16; if you believe a child has created an account, write to us and we will delete it.

Many people keep a journal about their children, with their names, photos, milestones and growth. That information belongs to the parent’s journal: it is treated like the rest of your content, kept private in your account, used only to run Yoma for you, and deleted with it.

Security

Everything the app sends travels encrypted (HTTPS). On our servers, each account’s journal and files are kept in private storage that only that account can reach through the app, enforced by the database itself. Our hosting provider encrypts stored data at rest. The AI key is held only on our server, never in the app. On the phone you can add app lock. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

Your journal is not end-to-end encrypted: it is encrypted while it travels and while it is stored, but our systems can read it so that they can back it up, restore it, write Stories and build books.

Where data is stored

We are based in Israel. Your account and backup are stored in Japan; AI Stories are processed by Google, which may process data in the United States and other countries; printing happens in Europe and delivery in Israel. Israel, Japan, the UK and the European Union are recognised as giving adequate protection to personal data. Where data goes to a country without such recognition, we rely on our providers’ data-protection terms, including standard contractual clauses where they apply.

This website and the waitlist

getyoma.com is hosted by Vercel, which keeps standard server logs (such as IP addresses and the pages requested) to run and protect the site. The site uses no advertising or tracking cookies. Fonts come from Google Fonts and the 3D book’s code from jsDelivr, so those services see a normal request from your browser.

If you join the waitlist, we collect your email address and use it only to tell you about Yoma: when it launches and your founder price. The list is run by Buttondown, which stores the list and sends the emails for us and asks you to confirm your address first. Every email has an unsubscribe link. If you answer the “which book first” question after signing up, the answer stays in your browser.

Changes and contact

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect, and update the date at the top. Questions, requests or complaints: hello@getyoma.com.