privacy

Charms is a charm bracelet for your phone — friends draw each other little charms, send them to each other, and wear them on their Dynamic Island. This page says exactly what the app stores, where it goes, and how to delete it.

Last updated 10 October 2026. Charms is made by one person, Diya Sabharwal.

what never leaves your phone

Your profile photo, your drafts, your app preferences, and the motion data that makes charms sway. Motion is read live to animate the bracelet and is never recorded, stored, or sent anywhere.

what goes to your private iCloud

The charms you keep are backed up to your own private iCloud database, so they survive a new phone. This uses Apple's iCloud with your Apple Account — nobody else can read it, including me. If you are not signed in to iCloud, the app simply keeps everything on the device.

what goes to the shared database

When you send a charm, it is placed in a database shared by the app, addressed to the account of the person you picked, until their phone collects it. That record holds the drawing, the words you wrote on it, the name you go by in the app, the recipient's username, and an anonymous ID for your device.

Please take this plainly: only the account a charm is addressed to can collect it, and the record is deleted from the shared database the moment it is collected. If nobody collects it, it returns to you after 14 days. A charm for someone who isn't on Charms yet never reaches the shared database at all: it stays on your phone until their number is verified. Your username is stored in the shared database too, so the app can tell you whether a name is already taken.

When your charm is collected, its record is marked with the recipient's username for the instant it takes to tell you, then deleted. When you wear someone's charm, a record with your username and the charm's name is stored so the maker can be told. You can turn that off in settings.

When you report a charm, a record is stored with the drawing, the note on it, who sent it, and the anonymous ID of your device — so a human can see what was sent and a repeat offender can be recognised. Reports are read by a human.

signing in with Apple

Signing in is optional — you can skip it and use the whole app. If you do sign in, Charms asks Apple for no personal information at all: not your name, not your email, not a relay address. It receives only the anonymous identifier Apple issues, and that identifier is kept on your device and never uploaded.

your phone number

Adding your number is optional. It lets friends who have you in their contacts find you, and lets a charm be sent to you by number. To verify it, Charms sends a code to that number by text. The text is delivered by Twilio, who sees the number only to deliver it.

Once the code matches, the number itself is dropped. What is stored is a keyed hash of it: a fingerprint made with a secret that only the server holds. A fingerprint can be matched, so a friend's phone can ask whether a number is on Charms, but it can't be turned back into a number or listed. Nobody can read a phone number out of the database, including me. The fingerprint is removed when you delete your account, or when you turn verification off.

your contacts

If you let Charms see your contacts, their numbers are hashed on your phone before anything leaves it. The server compares the hashes against the fingerprints above, tells your phone which ones are on Charms, and keeps nothing: the hashes are not stored, not logged, and not used for anything else. Your contacts are never uploaded as names, numbers, or a list. If you give access to only some of your contacts, only those are hashed.

notifications

If you allow notifications, they are delivered through iCloud when a charm arrives, one you sent is collected, or someone wears one you made. The app never collects a device token and never sends you anything you didn't ask for.

what Charms never does

No analytics or usage tracking. No advertising and no ad identifiers. No third-party SDKs — the app links only Apple's own frameworks. Nothing is ever sold, rented, or shared with data brokers. Your drawings are never used to train anything. The one outside service is Twilio, which delivers the verification text and sees nothing else.

children

Charms is not directed at children under 13, and I don't knowingly collect anything from them. If you believe a child has used the app and you'd like their data removed, write to me and I'll take care of it.

deleting everything

In the app, open your profile and choose delete my account & charms. That erases your charms from iCloud, cancels any charm you sent that is still waiting to be collected, returns any charm still waiting for you to its sender, removes your phone number's fingerprint and the lookup that goes with it, releases your username, and wipes everything on the device. If iCloud can't be reached, the app refuses to delete anything rather than pretend — so try again when you're online.

A charm you already gave to someone belongs to them, and lives in their collection. If you want something removed that you can't reach yourself, write to me.

changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Anything that would meaningfully affect what is stored will be said plainly in the app before it takes effect.

contact

Questions, deletion requests, or anything else — diyasabharwal7@gmail.com. Read by a human, answered within a few days.

little things, from the people you love.