Privacy

Soot is a notes app for Mac, iPad and iPhone. Your notes are plain files on your own devices. Soot Sync can keep them in step across your devices, encrypted end to end. This page says what Soot keeps about you, why, and who else handles it.

Soot is made in Edinburgh, Scotland. It’s the trading name of Robert Schmitt, a sole trader, who is responsible for your data under UK data protection law. Write to hello at sootsync dot com with any question about it.

Your notes

Without Soot Sync, your notes never leave your devices. Soot has no copy of them.

With Soot Sync, each note and its attachments are encrypted on your device before they’re uploaded. Their file names are encrypted too. The key is made on your device. Only a copy locked with your encryption password is uploaded, so Soot can’t use it. Soot also saves the key in iCloud Keychain so your other Apple devices can unlock your notes without asking for the password. iCloud Keychain is encrypted end to end, so Apple can’t read the key. Soot can’t read your notes, and can’t recover them if you lose both your encryption password and your recovery phrase.

The encrypted files are stored with Cloudflare in the European Union. Soot can see how much storage you use, how many files there are and when they changed, which it uses for the storage allowance.

Soot Sync keeps earlier versions of your notes while your account exists. They’re encrypted too. Deleted notes stay in Recently Deleted for 30 days.

Your account

A Soot account is your email address. Soot keeps:

• your email address and when the account was made
• for each device you sign in on, the device’s name and when it last connected
• whether you have Soot Pro and until when
• how much sync storage you use

These are used to sign you in, to decide whether your devices may sync, and to answer you if you write in. Sign-in links are emailed through Resend.

Buying Soot Pro

Soot Pro is sold through the App Store. Apple takes the payment, and Soot never sees your card or bank details. RevenueCat keeps the record of your purchase for Soot, using a random account ID rather than your email address, so your subscription works on each device you sign in on.

The waitlist

If you joined the waitlist on this site, Soot keeps your email address to tell you when Soot is available. Ask to be taken off it at any time.

Your browser

If you pick a theme on this site, your browser remembers it on your device. Nothing is sent to Soot.

What Soot doesn’t do

• No advertising, and no analytics or tracking in the apps or on this site.
• Your data isn’t sold or shared for anyone’s marketing.
• Nothing reads your notes on a server, and no AI sees them unless you give it access on your own device.

If you use Claude with your notes, it reads them on your Mac, and what it does with them is between you and Anthropic.

Who else handles your data

• Cloudflare runs Soot Sync and this site, and stores your encrypted notes in the EU. It keeps short-lived logs of requests to the service.
• Resend sends sign-in emails.
• RevenueCat keeps the record of your Soot Pro purchase.
• Apple handles App Store purchases, and crash reports if you’ve chosen to share them with app developers.

Soot uses each of these services only for the purposes described above.

Deleting your account

To delete your account, choose Delete Account in Soot’s Sync settings on your Mac, iPad or iPhone, or email hello at sootsync dot com from the address you sign in with. We then delete your account details, your synced notes and their earlier versions, your storage records and your purchase record at RevenueCat. The notes on your devices aren’t touched. Apple keeps its own record of the purchase where the law requires it, for example for tax.

If your Soot Pro subscription ends and you don’t renew it, we keep your account and synced notes for six months, then delete them in the same way. We’ll email you a month before that happens.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what Soot holds about you, have it corrected, have it deleted, or object to how it’s used. Write to hello at sootsync dot com. If you’re unhappy with the answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Changes

If this page changes, the date at the top changes with it. A change to how your notes or account are handled is emailed to account holders first.