Commonplace is a reading tracker made by Tim Lockridge. This policy explains what the app does with your information. The short version: your reading library is yours, it is stored in your own iCloud account, and the developer cannot see it.
What is not collected
Commonplace has no accounts, no sign-up, and no server operated by the developer. There are no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising identifier, and no third-party tracking code of any kind in the app.
Nothing you record — the books you read, your notes, ratings, dates, or reading history — is ever sent to the developer.
Where your library is stored
Your library lives in two places, both of which you control:
- On your device, in the app's own storage.
- In your private iCloud database, if you are signed in to iCloud. This uses Apple's CloudKit private database, which is tied to your Apple Account. The developer has no access to it. Apple's handling of that data is governed by the Apple Privacy Policy.
If you connect a micro.blog account, its API token is stored in the iOS Keychain on your device.
When the app contacts other services
Commonplace has no book database of its own, so looking up a book means asking someone who does. These requests happen only when you take an action that requires them, and they carry only what the lookup needs: a title, author, or ISBN. Your notes, ratings, and reading history are never included.
Searching for or adding a book (in the app, or with the Add Book action in Siri or Shortcuts), or looking up a book's missing details (the Find ISBN, Find Missing Details, and Find Description buttons on a book's page) sends your search terms — or that book's title, author, or ISBN — to:
- Apple Books / iTunes Search
- Open Library (Internet Archive)
- Wikidata (Wikimedia Foundation)
- Inventaire
Requests to Open Library include a header identifying the app, its version, and a contact email address for the developer, which that project asks API users to provide. It does not identify you.
Book covers are downloaded from those same services when you add or import a book, or choose a cover. Find Missing Covers (Settings → Import & Export) sends the title and author of each book that has no cover to Apple Books as you step through them — including the next two books in line, so their choices are ready when you reach them.
Importing a magazine issue fetches the issue's contents from that magazine's website — currently Clarkesworld, Uncanny Magazine, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, or Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Each magazine's back catalog (issue and story titles, authors, and dates) ships inside the app, so browsing past issues happens without contacting the magazine's site at all; the app fetches only current listings, issue contents the bundled copy doesn't have, and cover images, which are always loaded from the magazine's own site.
Sharing a link to Commonplace causes the share extension to fetch that page so it can find the book — or, for a supported magazine, the issue or story — being described. It requests the page you shared, and may send the book's title, author, or ISBN to Open Library and Apple Books to complete the record (a store that blocks the page request, such as Bookshop.org, is identified from its link alone and looked up on Open Library). A link to a book on Apple Books is not fetched as a page at all: the book's store id from the link is sent to Apple's lookup service, which returns that edition's details and cover. For a magazine share it also fetches the issue's cover image (and, for a shared story, the issue page the story belongs to) from that same magazine's site. The next time you open the app, each shared book that is still missing an ISBN, cover, or description is looked up by title and author (or ISBN) on Apple Books and the other book services above, the same requests as adding the book by search. Unless you switch the toggle off before saving, the link itself is kept with the book as a note — stored like any other note, on your device and in your private iCloud database, and sent nowhere.
Sharing a screenshot or photo to Commonplace reads the text and any barcode in the picture on your device, using Apple's Vision framework; the image itself is never sent anywhere and is discarded when the share sheet closes. What was read — a title and author, or an ISBN — is then sent as a search to Apple Books, Open Library, and Inventaire, the same requests as typing it into the Add sheet. Shared text that isn't a link is searched the same way. The search text is shown in the sheet before anything is saved, so you can see exactly what was sent and correct it.
Searching a screenshot with visual intelligence (iOS 26, on devices with Apple Intelligence) works the same way: the system hands Commonplace the screenshot's pixels, Commonplace reads them on your device, and only the title and author it read (or an ISBN) are sent to the book services above as a search. Commonplace does not keep the screenshot. How the system itself handles the screenshot is covered by Apple's privacy policy.
If you connect micro.blog, and only then, the app sends book information and reading status to micro.blog using your token, so it can update your bookshelves there. This happens according to the Shelf Syncing preferences you set in Settings, which can be set to never sync. micro.blog's handling of that data is governed by its own privacy policy.
As with any internet request, these services can see your device's IP address. Each is operated independently and handles data under its own policy, linked above.
What is stored on your device
To avoid repeating the same lookups, responses from the book services and magazine sites above are cached in the app's cache folder on your device for up to seven days. Cover images you save are stored with their book, magazine, or story. None of this is shared with anyone.
Automatic backups. Commonplace saves copies of your library (everything except cover images) as JSON files in its own Documents folder on your device, and, unless you turn off Back Up Cover Images, one copy of each cover as an image file in a Covers folder beside them — when the app goes to the background and before imports, replacements, and Delete All Data. They stay on the device: the folder is visible to you in the Files app (On My iPhone › Commonplace › Backups) and in Finder on the Mac, and is included in your device's iCloud or computer backup like the rest of the app's data, but Commonplace never uploads these files anywhere itself. Older copies are removed automatically (the newest, one per day for a week, one per week for a month, and the last few pre-import copies are kept); you can delete any of them in the Files app or in Settings → Import & Export → Automatic Backups.
Search and Siri. On iOS 18 and later, Commonplace adds your books (title, author, description, categories, status, and a small cover image) and your book and story notes to your device's Spotlight search index, so you can find them from the Home Screen and so Siri and Apple Intelligence can work with them. The index is kept by iOS on your device. Commonplace doesn't send it anywhere. How Siri and Apple Intelligence use it is governed by the Apple Privacy Policy. To remove your library from the index, turn off Settings → Siri & Search → Show Library in Search & Siri.
When you use a Commonplace action through Siri or the Shortcuts app, such as adding a note, the app saves the change exactly as if you'd made it in the app. If you hand Add Book a picture (a photo of a cover, or "Add this to Commonplace" with a book in view), the picture is read on your device the same way as a shared screenshot, and only the title and author read from it (or an ISBN) are sent to the book services as a search; the picture itself is not kept or sent anywhere. Your request is handled by Apple, not by the developer. On iOS 27 and later, your notes are described to Siri in Apple's standard format for notes (the text, the book it belongs to, and its dates), so Siri can find and create them from what you say. With the Settings switch off, your notes are removed from the search index, but Siri can still look up a book or note by name when you ask it to.
Screens that show a book or note also tell iOS which item they show, so that when you ask Siri about "this book" it knows which one you mean. It names only what's already on your screen, and Commonplace doesn't send it anywhere; how Siri and Apple Intelligence use it is governed by the Apple Privacy Policy linked above. The Settings switch above doesn't turn it off.
Sharing your shelf with friends
Friend sharing is off until you turn it on (Settings → Friends → Share My Shelf). It needs no account and no server: it uses Apple's CloudKit sharing, the same mechanism as sharing a note or a reminder list.
When it is on, the app copies a small, separate record of each published book into a shared area of your own iCloud account: the title, author, ISBN, a small cover thumbnail, its status (currently reading or finished), its start and finish dates, how many times you've read it, and — only if you choose — your rating, together with the display name you typed. Only the people you invite by name can read it. They can't see each other, they can't see who else you invited, and they can't write to it. Nothing else is copied: never your notes, descriptions, formats, page counts, books you haven't started, or books you set aside. The developer still cannot read any of it. Cover thumbnails come from the same sources described above and are copied only into your iCloud account.
You choose what to publish (currently reading, finished, ratings) and how many years of finished books to include, and can change it at any time; books you stop publishing, or that fall outside the years you chose, are removed from the shared copy. Stop Sharing deletes the shared copy from iCloud and removes everyone's access. Removing one person is done in the same system sheet you invited them with.
When a friend shares their shelf with you and you accept, their shared records are read from iCloud and kept on your device so the Friends screen opens instantly and works offline. The app then offers to share your shelf back with that friend; if you agree, they are added by name to your shelf and you send them your invitation. Nothing is shared back unless you choose to. Nothing about you is sent to them, and the app never tells them what you read or looked at. Stop Following removes their shelf from your device and removes you from their share. Adding one of their books to your own To Read list looks the book up with the same services described under When the app contacts other services, using only its title, author, or ISBN. Opening one of their books sends that book's ISBN, or its title and author, to Apple Books / iTunes Search to show a description and an Apple Books link — the same request a book's own page makes. The lookup carries nothing about your friend or you.
No new third party is involved. Apple's handling of shared iCloud data is governed by the Apple Privacy Policy.
Deleting your data
- Deleting a book, magazine, or note moves it to Settings → Recently Deleted, where it stays — in the app and in your iCloud data, so every device sees the same — for 30 days before it is removed, or until you restore it or choose Delete Now. It leaves the Spotlight index the next time the app refreshes it.
- Settings → Delete All Data permanently removes every book, magazine, story, and note from the app, including Recently Deleted. Their entries leave the Spotlight index the next time the app refreshes it, at the latest when you leave the app.
- Settings → micro.blog → Manage Connection → Disconnect removes the stored token. Books already added to your micro.blog shelves stay there; you can remove them at micro.blog.
- Settings → Friends → Share My Shelf → Stop Sharing deletes your shared shelf from iCloud for everyone. Stop Following on a friend's shelf removes their cached shelf from your device.
- Deleting the app removes its local storage. Data already synced to iCloud is removed through your device's iCloud storage settings.
Exports you create through Settings → Import & Export are ordinary files saved wherever you choose to put them, and are outside the app's control once saved. Automatic backups are removed with the app, or individually from the Files app or Settings → Import & Export → Automatic Backups.
Children
Commonplace does not collect personal information from anyone, including children.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted here and the date at the top will change. Substantive changes will be noted in the app's release notes.
Contact
Questions about this policy can go to tim@timlockridge.com.