Your books never leave your device. They go straight from your Google Drive to your phone, and the voice that reads them is generated on the phone itself, so we never receive, see or store a single one of your books — and there is no arrangement under which we could. PhonoLeaf also offers an optional backup of a small record of your reading, so that replacing your phone does not lose your place in every book. That backup holds what you read and how far you got, such as titles, authors, reading positions and listening time; the full list is below. It never holds a book. It is off until you turn it on in Settings, and turning it off again deletes what has been stored. If you turn it on, Friends shows the people you invite what you are listening to. Everything the app sends anywhere is listed below.
PhonoLeaf ("the app", "we", "our") turns epub books stored in your Google Drive into read-aloud audio, on your own device. This policy explains what data the app touches, why, and — just as importantly — what it never does.
Both things are true at once, and the distinction is simply where: the app does save things — your reading position, listening stats, settings and cached book covers — and all of it is written to your own device, the same way a browser saves a bookmark. Your books are never sent to us. What does leave your device, only for the features you use, is described below: the optional backup, Friends if you turn it on, your subscription status if you subscribe, and one anonymous report about your phone's speed. None of it ever includes a book. That is also why you can export or erase everything yourself from Settings, without asking us and without waiting — see Your rights over your data below.
| Data | Why | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Google Drive access (read-only) | To list and download the epub files in the folder you choose | Directly between your device and Google — never through us |
| Your Google display name | For the greeting on the Home screen, and, if you use Friends, so the people you chose can see who you are | Stored on your device. Also stored on our server once you use Friends |
| Your Google email address | To fill in the reply address when you send feedback or a bug report | Stored on your device only. It reaches us only in an email you choose to send, and is never sent to our server or shown to anyone |
| What you are listening to, if you share it | So the people you chose can see where you are in your books | Shown only to people connected to you through an invite code, only while sharing is on, never for a book you hid |
| Book titles/authors | To look up genre and page-count metadata | Sent to Open Library (openlibrary.org), a public, third-party book database — no personal or account data is included |
| Reading progress and listening stats | So the app remembers your place and your listening history | Stored on your device. Also copied to your backup, if you have backup turned on (see "What your backup holds") |
| Settings, voice choice, reminder times | So the app remembers your preferences | Stored on your device only |
| Your highlights and notes | So you can find the passages you marked and what you wrote about them | Stored on your device only. Not part of the backup |
| Your books themselves | They are yours; the app only reads them aloud | Never sent anywhere. They travel from your Drive to your device and stop there |
| Your phone's model and speed score | To learn which voices work well on which phones | Sent once per install, with no account or identifier of any kind attached |
| Anonymous usage counts, only if you turn them on | To see where people get stuck, so we can fix it | Daily totals with no account, identifier or book attached. Off unless you say yes; switch them off anytime in Settings |
| Your subscription | So the app knows whether you have paid access | Kept on our server under an identifier derived from your sign-in. The payment itself is handled by Google Play or the App Store |
| Book covers | Cached so they don't re-download every time | Stored on your device only |
PhonoLeaf requests read-only access to Google Drive (the drive.readonly scope). This is a broad, Google-classified "restricted" scope — broader than the app strictly needs for the one folder you connect — chosen because it's the only way to support "connect a folder once, new books appear automatically" without you re-selecting files every time. Because of that scope, PhonoLeaf is required to go through Google's own app verification process; see Google's own explanation of what that review covers at support.google.com/cloud/answer/13463737.
The app never modifies, deletes, or uploads anything to your Drive. It only lists and downloads the epub files inside the one folder you pick.
Signing in can also give the app a sign-in identifier and your basic Google profile (your name). Our server uses them to recognise your backup and to show your name to the people you share with. Signing in never gives us your password.
PhonoLeaf's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically: Google user data is used only to provide the user-facing reading features described on this page. It is never transferred to anyone except as the features you have turned on require: your own backup, held under an identifier derived from your sign-in and readable by nobody else; and, only if you use Friends, the title, author and your progress for books you have not hidden, and the details of any book you recommend, shown only to people connected to you through an invite code. It is never sold, and never used for advertising, ad targeting or credit assessment. No one at PhonoLeaf reads it. It is never used to train any AI or machine-learning model.
Backup is off until you turn it on in Settings. Turning on Friends also turns it on, because Friends works through it. While it is on, the app keeps this on our server, and nothing else:
All of it is kept under an identifier derived from your Google sign-in, and nobody else can read it. It never holds a book, your email address, your settings or your voice choice. Friends, if you turn it on, adds what the next section describes.
Friends is optional and off until you turn it on. Nothing in this section happens unless you do. Friends works through your backup, so it needs backup to be on.
We measure what your phone can do, never what you read. Once per install, the app sends your phone's make and model, its operating system and version (for example, Android 15), and the score from a short speed test, under a second, that it runs once for this report. Nothing else goes with it: no account, no identifier, nothing about your books or your reading. We use these reports to learn how well the voices run on different phones and which new voices they could handle, and to publish combined results for each phone model. A single report cannot be linked back to you, because we store nothing that could link it.
When you first set up the app, it asks whether you want to help us improve it. If you say yes, it sends us a few counts, such as "a voice download finished", "reading started for the first time", "came back after a week", minutes spent reading aloud, or "the plans screen was opened". Each count is added to a daily total on our server, filed with only your phone's system (Android or iPhone), the app's version and the app's language. Nothing else goes with it: no account, no identifier, no book, no time of day. A total cannot be linked back to you, because we store nothing that could link it. Counts made while the app is still asking wait on your phone and are deleted, unsent, if you say no. You can turn this off at any time in Settings, under Data & storage.
Subscriptions are bought through Google Play or the App Store, and paid to them. We never see your card or payment details. The store tells us whether your subscription is active, and we keep your plan, its status and its trial and renewal dates under the same identifier derived from your sign-in. When you follow someone using their code, we record that they invited you, so any referral reward goes to the right person. Gift codes are recorded the same way: who created each code, and who used it.
We make no automated decisions about you and build no profile of you. Where a law such as Europe's GDPR asks for a legal basis, these are, in order: our agreement with you (and your consent, for Friends), and our legitimate interest in a safe service and in offering voices that work. Our server, Google, Open Library and our email provider may handle your information outside your country, including in the United States.
Your device talks directly to a short, fixed list of external services. Like any website, each of them can see your device's IP address when the app contacts it:
Everything else — your reading progress, listening stats, theme choice, voice preference, and which folder you've connected — is stored in the app's own storage on your phone. Apart from the optional backup, which is off until you turn it on in Settings, and Friends, if you turn it on, both described in this policy, it never leaves your device. Uninstalling the app or using "Delete my data" in Settings removes it; "Reset listening data" removes your listening statistics only.
If you send feedback or a bug report, the app opens your own email app with a draft addressed to support@phonoleaf.com, and nothing is sent until you press Send. The draft holds what you type, your email address and any screenshot you attach. A bug report also adds a few technical details: the app version, your device's browser description (which names its model and system version), the screen size, the language and the voice in use. We use these emails only to answer you and fix problems, keep them for at most 3 years after your last message, and delete them within 30 days if you ask.
Neither the app nor our website uses cookies for tracking or advertising. The website remembers your language choice in your browser's own storage, and counts page views with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which uses no cookies. Cloudflare, which delivers the website, may set a strictly necessary security cookie to block automated attacks. Because we do not track you, a browser's Do Not Track setting changes nothing here.
Signing out revokes the app's access to your Google account, including the underlying Google authorization grant, not just the local session.
It also removes from the phone everything tied to that Google account: the offline copies of books that came from your Google Drive, the list of your Drive folder, the folder you chose, and your name and email address. Someone else signing in on the same phone cannot open them. Your reading positions, listening statistics, downloaded voices and books you imported from the phone itself stay, so you can pick up where you left off; Delete my data removes those too.
Almost everything is on your own device, so you can act on it directly, without asking us and without waiting:
These rights apply wherever you live, and where your local law gives you more, you have that too. If you have a question we can't answer through the app itself, contact us using the address below.
PhonoLeaf is not intended for anyone under 14, or under the minimum age that applies where you live, if that is higher. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under that age, and if we learn that we have, we delete it. We do not build profiles, serve advertising, or collect anything beyond what the backup and Friends described above hold.
If this policy changes in a way that affects what we collect or how we use it, we will tell you in the app before the change takes effect. The current version is always at this address, with its effective date.
Questions about this policy, or requests about your personal information: support@phonoleaf.com. The person responsible for the protection of personal information at PhonoLeaf is the person who runs it, reachable at the same address.