Privacy policy

Last updated: 7 November 2026. This is a translation for your convenience. The legally binding version is the German privacy policy.

This privacy policy covers the website potcha.app, the “potcha” app for iPhone and Apple Watch (including widgets) and potcha in the browser at www.potcha.app/app (web app). It explains which personal data we process, for what purpose and on what legal basis.

1. Controller

We have not appointed a data protection officer, as we are not required to. If you have any questions about data protection, just write to the address above.

2. Principles and retention

We only process the data needed for the respective purpose. We do not sell data, show ads or use any analytics or tracking tools in the app or on the website.

We delete data we no longer need within 30 days at the latest. The details are in each section below. We only keep data longer where a statutory retention obligation requires it. In that case we restrict the data and delete it as soon as the period has expired. Content you create in the app is needed for as long as you use the app, so we store it for as long as your account exists (see section 5.9).

3. Website potcha.app

3.1 Hosting and delivery (Cloudflare)

The website is delivered via Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc., 101 Townsend St., San Francisco, CA 94107, USA). When you visit the site, Cloudflare processes technically necessary connection data. This includes your IP address, date and time, the page requested, the amount of data transferred, your browser and operating system, and the previously visited page (referrer). Cloudflare needs this data to deliver the site and protect it against attacks. We do not store any access logs ourselves.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in providing the website securely and reliably (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We have concluded a data processing agreement with Cloudflare (Art. 28 GDPR). Cloudflare is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. Transfers to the USA are therefore based on the European Commission’s adequacy decision (Art. 45 GDPR) and, in the alternative, on standard contractual clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR). For more information, see Cloudflare’s privacy policy.

3.2 Cookies

We do not use cookies for analytics, advertising or tracking. To protect the site against attacks and automated access, Cloudflare may set technically necessary security cookies. The legal basis is § 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG in conjunction with Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. No consent is required for this. What the web app stores in your browser is described in section 5.10.

3.3 Fonts

We use the “Nunito” typeface from Google Fonts. It is hosted on our own server and loaded from there. No connection to Google is made when you visit the website.

3.4 Contact form (Formspree)

Our contact form is provided by Formspree (Formspree, Inc., 21750 Hardy Oak Blvd Ste 104 #26968, San Antonio, TX 78258, USA). When you submit the form, your details (such as your name, email address and message) are sent to Formspree along with technical data such as your IP address and the time of submission. Formspree forwards the message to us by email and stores it on servers in the USA.

We only use this data to handle your enquiry. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR if your enquiry relates to a contract or steps prior to entering into one (for example, your potcha account). In all other cases, it is our legitimate interest in answering enquiries (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We have concluded a data processing agreement with Formspree. Transfers to the USA are safeguarded by the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR).

We delete enquiries and the related correspondence within 30 days after the enquiry has been fully resolved, unless a statutory retention obligation applies. For more information, see Formspree’s privacy policy.

3.5 Contact by email

If you email us, we process your email address and the content of your message in order to reply. The legal basis and deletion period are the same as for the contact form (section 3.4).

4. Downloading the app

You can download the app from Apple’s App Store. Apple processes data such as your Apple ID, the time of purchase and your device under its own responsibility. We have no influence over this. Apple’s privacy policy applies.

5. The potcha app

5.1 Account and sign-in

You need an account to use potcha. You can sign up with

• email address and password. We store your email address and your password. The password is stored only as a hash, never in plain text.
• “Sign in with Apple”. Apple sends us a unique identifier and, depending on your choice, your email address or an anonymous Apple relay address. This service is provided by Apple Distribution International Ltd., Hollyhill Industrial Estate, Hollyhill, Cork, Ireland.

We also store your profile. This includes your display name, your profile colour and, optionally, a profile picture. It also includes your settings, for example for the dashboard and notifications. The legal basis is the performance of the user agreement (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

5.2 Your household’s content

potcha helps you organise shared living. To do this, we process the content that you and your flatmates create:

• household and membership (household name, members, roles)
• chores and cleaning rotas, including subtasks, completions, exceptions and agreed penalties
• expenses, splits, balances, settlements and contracts (such as provider, amount, billing cycle, notice period)
• shopping lists
• events and absences
• polls and votes
• recipes with images, folders, ratings and comments, the meal plan and recipe swipe
• posts, reactions and the household’s activity feed
• your current mood as an emoji
• personal task lists that only you can see

All members of your household can see household content. Only you can see private content (such as personal tasks or private shopping items). This is enforced on the server through access rules. The legal basis is the performance of the user agreement (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

Please only enter information about other people that is needed to organise the household.

5.3 Storage location (Supabase)

We store accounts and content with Supabase (Supabase Pte. Ltd., 65 Chulia Street #38-02/03, OCBC Centre, Singapore 049513). Supabase is our processor (Art. 28 GDPR). The data is stored in a data centre in Frankfurt am Main, Germany (region eu-central-1). Because Supabase and some of its sub-processors are based outside the EU, access from third countries cannot be completely ruled out, for example for maintenance or support. To cover this, Supabase has agreed the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses with us (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR). The connection between the app and the server is encrypted.

5.4 Push notifications

If you allow notifications, we store a device token for your iPhone and your choice of which notifications you want to receive. Notifications are sent via Apple’s Apple Push Notification service (APNs). The token and the text of the notification are sent to Apple, for example “Sam added an expense”. The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, § 25(1) TDDDG). You can withdraw it at any time in the app or in the iOS settings. We delete invalid tokens automatically.

5.5 Features on your device

Some features need your permission in iOS. The data for these features is processed on your device and is not sent to us:

• Camera: When you scan a receipt, your iPhone recognises the amount and the shop. We only store the expense you create from it.
• Photos: Only the images you select yourself, for example as a profile picture or recipe image, are uploaded.
• Calendar: If you want, potcha adds your household’s events and absences to your calendar.
• Reminders: If you want, potcha syncs your shopping list with Apple Reminders.
• Alarms and Live Activities: For cooking timers.
• Apple Watch: The Watch app receives its sign-in and data directly from your iPhone.

So that potcha also works offline, the app caches some data. This cache stays on your device. You can revoke these permissions at any time in the iOS settings.

5.6 Calendar subscription

If you want, potcha creates a personal subscription link (webcal) for your household’s events. Your calendar app uses it to fetch the events from our server regularly. Anyone who knows this link can see the events, so please do not share it. If you add the link to a calendar service such as Google Calendar, that service fetches the events from us and stores them under its own responsibility. That service’s privacy policy applies.

5.7 Importing recipes

When you import a recipe from a link or a text, the iPhone app fetches the page directly from your device. This includes, for example, Chefkoch’s interface (Chefkoch GmbH, Bonn, Germany) or the public embedding interfaces of Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest. The provider in question receives your IP address and the address requested. This only happens when you start an import yourself. These providers’ own privacy policies apply. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

For technical reasons, the browser cannot fetch other websites itself in the web app. Your browser therefore sends the link to a server function at Supabase (“import-recipe”, section 5.3). It loads the page and returns only the recipe it found. The website’s provider sees our server’s address, not yours. If you paste a recipe text, your browser reads it itself and it is not sent to us. To prevent misuse, imports are limited to 60 per hour. For this we store only the time of your imports and delete it after one hour.

Recipe images hosted on other websites are loaded by the app and the web app directly from there when you view the recipe. The image’s provider receives your IP address. Images from Instagram and TikTok, whose links expire after a while, are copied in reduced size to our storage at Supabase when you save the recipe.

5.8 Payment links

You can choose to add your PayPal.me, Revolut or Wise username to your profile. Your flatmates can use it to send you money. potcha does not process any payments. It only opens the respective link. Anything that happens after that is the responsibility of the provider.

5.9 Retention and deleting your account

We store your data for as long as your account exists. The app clears some content before that on its own. Completed personal tasks and ticked-off shopping items disappear after 5 days. Your mood is shown for 24 hours and replaced by your next entry.

You can delete your account at any time in the app or in the web app (Settings → Delete account). A server function at Supabase does this (“delete-account”, section 5.3). We then immediately delete your sign-in data, your profile picture, your device tokens and your personal content. If you used “Sign in with Apple”, you confirm the deletion with Apple (in the web app via a redirect to appleid.apple.com), and we revoke the connection with Apple.

Entries you shared with your household, such as expenses, settlements and balances, are still needed by the household for its accounts. They are therefore kept. Your name in them is replaced by “Former member”, so the entries can no longer be linked to you. The legal basis for this is the other members’ legitimate interest in accounts they can follow (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). If you are the last member, the household is deleted. Deleted data disappears from backups within 30 days at the latest.

5.10 potcha in the browser (web app)

At www.potcha.app/app you can also use potcha in your browser, with the same account and the same content as in the app. Sections 5.1 to 5.9 apply accordingly, with these specifics:

• Delivery: Like the website, the web app is delivered via Cloudflare (section 3.1). Your browser then loads your content directly from Supabase over an encrypted connection (section 5.3).
• Sign in with Apple: Your browser is redirected to Apple and, after signing in, back to potcha. Section 5.1 applies.
• Storage in your browser: To keep you signed in, the web app stores your sign-in in your browser’s local storage (localStorage). It also stores a cache of the overview and your recipes so they appear faster, your appearance and sorting choices, running cooking timers and the day of the last mood prompt. This data stays in your browser. It is necessary for the features you use (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG). The web app does not set cookies. When you sign out, the web app deletes your sign-in and the caches. You can delete the remaining storage at any time in your browser’s settings.
• Cooking timers: If you allow it, your browser shows a notification when a timer ends. This notification is created in your browser; no data is sent to us or to third parties for it. The web app does not receive push notifications from our server (section 5.4).
• Photos: You choose profile and recipe pictures yourself. Your browser reduces their size before uploading them.

5.11 Feedback from the app

In the app and in the web app you can choose to report a problem or suggest an idea under Settings → Feedback. We then store your message, its type (problem or idea), the time, your profile and your household. If you leave “Attach device info” switched on, we also store the app version, the operating system version and the device model (in the web app: browser and device type). Without this information a bug often cannot be traced, but you can switch it off at any time.

Messages are stored at Supabase (section 5.3). Once a day a server function (“feedback-digest”) collects all new messages into one email to us. The email contains the details above as well as your display name and your email address, so that we can reply to you. To send it we use Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc., 2261 Market Street #5039, San Francisco, CA 94114, USA). Resend is our processor and processes the email in the USA. The transfer is safeguarded by the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses (Art. 45 and Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR).

We only use your feedback to fix bugs, improve potcha and reply to you where needed. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in an app that works and keeps getting better (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Messages are deleted automatically after 12 months. If you delete your account before then, the message is kept without any link to your profile. If you would like it deleted sooner, write to us (section 1).

6. Your rights

You have the right to

• access your stored data (Art. 15 GDPR),
• rectification (Art. 16 GDPR),
• erasure (Art. 17 GDPR),
• restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR),
• data portability (Art. 20 GDPR),
• withdraw your consent with effect for the future (Art. 7(3) GDPR).

Right to object: Where we process data on the basis of a legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR), you can object at any time on grounds relating to your particular situation (Art. 21 GDPR).

An email to [email protected] is enough. You can also lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR). The authority responsible for us is:

7. Obligation to provide data, no automated decisions

You are not obliged to provide us with any data. However, you cannot use the app without an account. We do not make automated decisions or carry out profiling within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR.

8. Changes

If the app, the website or the law changes, we will update this policy. The version published here applies.