Meow ChineseMeow Chinese Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 19, 2026
Meow Chinese is an iPhone app that helps you learn to read Chinese. It's made by Sean Lee ("we" and "us" below). This policy covers what the app keeps on your phone, what it sends to us, and how to stop it.
The short version
- Your screenshots and photos, their text, translations and the words you save stay on your phone. We never receive them.
- Unless you turn it off, the app sends us counts of what you do in it, like "a screenshot was read" or "a word was saved", with a random ID for your install. They go to PostHog, our analytics provider, and help us improve the app.
- To turn it off, switch off Share usage with the developer on the app's home screen.
- No accounts, no ads, no tracking. We don't sell your data or share it with anyone except PostHog.
What stays on your phone
Text recognition, the dictionary, pinyin, speech and translation all run on your iPhone. These are stored only on your phone:
- The screenshots and photos you open in the app, and the text recognized in them
- The words you look up and save, your review schedule and history, and your practice days and streaks
- Your settings
We can't see any of it. If you back up your iPhone to iCloud or a computer, the backup includes it; Apple runs those backups under its own privacy policy. Deleting the app deletes all of it from your phone.
English translations use Apple's Translation feature, which translates on your phone once you've downloaded the languages from Apple.
What the app sends
Unless you turn sharing off, the app sends the following to PostHog.
Events. A short record each time you do one of these things, made up of counts, yes-or-no answers and choices from a fixed list. Never free text.
| When | What it records |
|---|---|
| The app is installed, updated, opened or moved to the background | The app's version and build, and whether it was opened fresh or from the background |
| You tap Add the Show Pinyin shortcut | Nothing more |
| A screenshot opens in the app | Where it came from (such as the Action Button, Photos, the sample chat or a list in the app), whether it's a new one, and whether the app had just started |
| The app finishes reading a new screenshot | Whether it found Chinese text, and roughly how many Chinese words: 0, 1–9, 10–29, 30–99, or 100 or more |
| You save a word | Which button you used |
| You start practice | The kind of practice, how many cards are left, and whether more reviews were due than fit in a day |
| You leave practice | The kind of practice, how many cards you graded, how many were new, how many you missed, how many seconds it took, and whether you finished the day's plan |
| You finish the day's plan | Whether you finished it in practice or while reading, your streak, how many reviews and new words you did, and how many minutes it took |
| You first read or practice on a given day | Which of the two it was, your streak, and how many streak freezes you have |
| You answer How did you hear about Meow Chinese? on the home screen (asked once) | Your answer from its list (such as a friend or family, TikTok or App Store search), or that you skipped it |
Each event also carries the time it happened, an ID for that session of use, and whether it came from the App Store, TestFlight or a development build.
A random install ID. PostHog's software makes up a random ID the first time the app sends anything and attaches it to every event. It lets us see how one install uses the app over time, for example whether people come back after their first week. It isn't connected to your name, Apple Account, email, phone number or your device's advertising identifier. Turning sharing off replaces it, and so does deleting and reinstalling the app.
Facts about your install, each sent once: whether you'd used the app before it started sending usage data and whether your iPhone has an Action Button (only a yes or a no, worked out on your phone), and how you heard about Meow Chinese, once you answer that.
Device details that PostHog's software adds: your iPhone's model (for example "iPhone17,1", never the name you gave it), its iOS version and screen size, the language it's set to, its time zone, whether it's on Wi-Fi or cellular, the app's name, version and build and the Xcode version that built it, whether the app came from TestFlight, whether it's running on a Mac or in a simulator, and a few technical fields about PostHog's software itself.
What we never collect
- Your screenshots or photos, or any part of them
- The text recognized in them, or their translations
- Which words you look up or save, in any form (not even scrambled or as codes)
- Which app you were in when you took a screenshot
- Your name, email address, phone number, contacts or location
- Your device's advertising identifier, or any ID other than the random install ID above
Internet addresses and location
Like any internet connection, each upload to PostHog comes from your phone's internet (IP) address. Our PostHog project discards that address when the data arrives, so it isn't stored, and the app tells PostHog not to work out a location from it.
How we use the data
Only to understand how people use Meow Chinese and to make it better: for example, where people get stuck setting up the Action Button, whether they come back, how practice is going, and where people hear about the app. We don't use it for advertising, we don't sell it, and we don't combine it with data from anywhere else. Only the people who build Meow Chinese can see it.
No tracking, no ads
Meow Chinese has no ads. It doesn't track you across apps and websites owned by other companies, doesn't use your device's advertising identifier, and so never asks for permission to track you.
PostHog, our analytics provider
PostHog, Inc. receives and stores the usage data for us, on Amazon Web Services servers in the United States (Virginia). It handles the data only to provide its service to us, as a service provider under the California Consumer Privacy Act, and it never sells customer data. Its security is independently audited (SOC 2 Type 2). PostHog protects the data at least as well as this policy promises. Its own policy is at posthog.com/privacy.
How long we keep it
PostHog deletes events automatically seven years after they arrive. The facts about your install stay with its random ID until we delete them, which we will on request (see below).
Turning sharing off
On the app's home screen, switch off Share usage with the developer. The app stops recording usage right away and throws away its random ID. A few events recorded just before you switched it off may still go out the next time the app connects. If you turn sharing back on later, it starts again with a new ID.
Asking us to delete your data
Turning sharing off cuts the link between your phone and the data already sent: the ID that connected them is gone from your phone.
To have that data deleted sooner, email us at support@meowchinese.com with your iPhone model and roughly when you used the app. Because we never know who you are, that's how we find your install. We'll delete everything we can match to it within 30 days and tell you when it's done. Anything we can't match is still deleted automatically after seven years.
To delete what's on your phone, delete the app. Your iCloud or computer backups keep their copy until you delete those backups.
Children
Meow Chinese isn't directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them. If you think a child under 13 has been using the app and you'd like their usage data deleted, email us.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top and post the new version at this address. If a change affects what the app sends, we'll also say so in the app's release notes.
Contact
Questions or requests: support@meowchinese.com