Thorne Privacy Policy

Effective date: September 8, 2026

Thorne is a local-first app for folders and Obsidian vaults on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. This policy explains what Thorne does — and, just as importantly, does not — do with your information.

The short version: Thorne has no account, no server, and no analytics. There is nothing for us to collect, because nothing you do in Thorne is sent to us. Your notes, recordings, photos, and any other content stay on your device (and wherever you personally choose to sync them, such as your own iCloud account).

Information we do not collect

We do not require or offer account creation, and we do not operate a server that Thorne talks to. We do not use analytics, advertising SDKs, crash-reporting services, or any other third-party tracking tools. We do not collect your name, email address, device identifiers, or usage data, and we have no way to see the contents of your vault, your notes, your recordings, or your photos.

Information stored on your device

When you first open Thorne, you choose an existing folder — your Obsidian vault — using the system file picker. From that point on, Thorne reads and writes plain Markdown and YAML frontmatter files directly in that folder, the same way Obsidian itself does. That folder can live in local storage or in iCloud Drive; either way, it's your folder, under your control, and Thorne does not copy its contents anywhere else.

If your vault folder is in iCloud Drive, syncing across your devices is handled entirely by Apple's iCloud service, under Apple's own privacy policy — Thorne is not involved in that transfer.

Permissions Thorne may request

Thorne only asks for a system permission when you use the feature that needs it, and each one is used strictly on-device:

Files & folders — needed to read and write the vault folder you selected.

Microphone — used only when you record an audio or voice note. Recordings are transcribed on-device using Apple's Speech framework; audio and transcripts are never sent over the network to us, to Apple, or to anyone else.

Speech recognition — powers the on-device transcription described above, including the optional "Structured Notes" mode, which uses Apple's on-device Foundation Models to turn a transcript into organized notes. This processing happens entirely on your device.

Camera — used only when you capture a photo note. Photos are saved as attachments directly in your vault folder.

Location (optional, off by default) — the Location Hub feature is disabled until you turn it on yourself in Settings. When enabled, Thorne tags new notes with your device's raw GPS coordinates at the moment you save them, so you can see them plotted on a map inside the app. Thorne never performs reverse geocoding — it doesn't look up or store place names, only coordinates — and those coordinates are written into your own note files, not sent to us. If your vault syncs via iCloud, Dropbox, or a similar service you've set up yourself, that location data travels along with the rest of your vault through whatever sync service you already use, the same as any other note content.

Third-party services

We do not share, sell, rent, or otherwise transmit your vault content to any third party. The only third party involved in using Thorne is Apple, in two limited ways you control: iCloud, if you choose to store or sync your vault there, and the App Store, which processes any in-app purchases you make. Both are governed by Apple's own privacy policy, not this one.

In-app purchases

Thorne offers one-time, non-consumable in-app purchases to unlock optional feature packs. There are no subscriptions. All purchases are processed by Apple through the App Store and StoreKit — we never receive or store your payment information.

Children's privacy

Thorne is not directed at children and, because it does not collect personal information from anyone, it does not knowingly collect personal information from children either.

Your control over your data

Because everything lives in the vault folder you chose, you're always in direct control of it — no request to us is needed to access, export, or delete anything. You can delete individual notes or attachments, delete the vault folder itself, or revoke Thorne's access to it at any time from Thorne's Settings or from your device's system Settings. Since we don't collect or store anything on our end, there is nothing on our servers to delete.

Security

Thorne's core features do not send your data over a network, so there's no data-in-transit exposure from Thorne itself. Your content is protected by the same device and file-system security you already rely on for the rest of your files.

Changes to this policy

If Thorne's data practices ever change — for example, if a future feature introduces optional cloud functionality — we'll update this page and revise the effective date above. We will not make that kind of change without updating this policy first.

Contact us

Questions about this policy or how Thorne works can be sent to seth@madjackdesign.com.

Thorne is an independent companion app for Obsidian vaults and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Obsidian.