Inkspace
Privacy policy
Last updated 1 October 2026
Inkspace is a free reading tracker: a shelf for your books, a timer for your sittings, and the numbers that come out of them. It is made by Vijay Shankar, an independent developer. This page says what the app keeps about you, where it is kept, and how to get rid of it.
The short version
- You sign in with Google. Inkspace stores your library — your books, your reading sessions, your yearly goal and the genres you like — so that it is there on every device you sign in on.
- If you photograph a page to keep with a book, the photo is kept on Inkspace’s own server, with the highlights and note you add to it. Only you can see it.
- There are no ads, no analytics and no trackers. Your data is not sold, rented, or shared with anyone for their own use.
- You can export your library, erase it, or delete your account whenever you like, from inside the app.
What Inkspace stores
Your account
When you choose “Continue with Google”, Google tells Inkspace your name, your email address, the address of your profile picture and an ID for your account. These are kept by Firebase Authentication, a Google service, so that you can sign in again. Inkspace never sees your Google password.
Your library
Everything you put into the app:
- each book you add — its title, author, page counts, reading status and dates, and its cover (either the address of a cover picture or the colours of a drawn one);
- each reading session you log — when it started, how many pages, and how long it took;
- your yearly goal, and the genres you picked;
- a short summary of your numbers — totals, streaks and pace — worked out from the above.
It is stored in Cloud Firestore, a Google database, on servers in the United States, under your account’s ID. The database’s rules let only you, signed in, read or change it. Nobody else using Inkspace can see your shelf.
Photos of pages
When you keep a page — you photograph it, or choose a photo of it, and add it to a book — the photo is sent to Inkspace’s own server, media.inkspacex.com. There it is made smaller and saved as a new picture, with a thumbnail, and without any of the photo’s metadata: the time it was taken, the camera, and any location the camera recorded are all left out. A record of it — which book it belongs to, its size and when you added it — is kept in Cloud Firestore with your library, and so are the highlights, the note and the page number you add. The app keeps copies of the photos you have opened, so they show without being fetched again: on a phone in its own storage, which signing out empties, and in a browser in the browser’s ordinary cache.
The server is a virtual machine that Inkspace runs itself, rented from Microsoft Azure in its Central India region. It checks your sign-in on every request and only ever gives you your own photos. Nobody else using Inkspace can see them.
On your device only
How the app looks (light or dark), your reminder choices, a reading timer that is running, and the suggestions you have waved away. These stay in the app’s own storage on your phone or browser. The home-screen widget and the lock-screen timer read from the same place. Reminders are scheduled by your device itself: Inkspace has no push-notification service and holds no notification token for you.
What Inkspace does not collect
No location, contacts or microphone. The camera and your photo library are opened only when you choose to keep a page, and Inkspace receives only the one photo you take or pick — never the rest of your photos. No advertising ID. No analytics about how you use the app, and no crash-reporting service.
Other services the app talks to
- Google runs the sign-in, the database and the website (Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore, Firebase Hosting), and delivers parts of the web app from its content servers. As with any internet service, its servers see your IP address and basic details of your device or browser when the app connects. Google handles this on Inkspace’s behalf; see Privacy and Security in Firebase.
- Inkspace’s media server (
media.inkspacex.com, on Microsoft Azure) keeps the photos of pages described above. It is run by Inkspace; Microsoft provides the machine and its disk, and does not use what is on it. Like any server, it sees your IP address when the app connects. - Open Library (openlibrary.org, run by the Internet Archive) supplies book details and cover pictures. When you search for a book to add, the words you type are sent to Open Library, and covers are loaded from its servers. When you import a Goodreads export (Settings → Import from Goodreads), the file is read on your device, and only the ISBNs of the books in it — and the title and author of a book that has no page count — are sent, to find covers and page counts. The ratings, reviews and notes in that file are never read or stored. Open Library receives each request and your IP address, as any website does; it is not told who you are. See the Internet Archive’s terms and privacy policy.
- Book suggestions. When the app has nothing to suggest after a book on your shelf, it files a request so that suggestions can be written. The request holds that book’s title and author and nothing else — not your account, and not the rest of your shelf.
What it is used for
To run the app, and for nothing else: showing your shelf and your statistics, keeping your devices in step, suggesting what to read next, and reminding you to read if you ask it to. There is no profiling, no marketing, and no automated decision made about you.
Who it is shared with
Nobody, beyond the services above that store and deliver it. It would be disclosed only if the law required it.
Keeping and deleting
- Export. Settings → Copy a backup puts your whole library on the clipboard as text. Photos of pages are not part of it.
- Erase your library. Settings → Erase everything deletes every book, every session and every photo of a page, and keeps your account.
- Delete your account. Settings → Delete my account deletes your library, your photos of pages, your profile and your Inkspace account together. The steps, and what to do if you cannot open the app, are on the account deletion page.
Until you do one of these, your library is kept so that it is there when you come back. Deleting removes it from the live database, and removes photos of pages from Inkspace’s server, straight away. A single photo can also be deleted on its own, from the page itself. Google may hold encrypted backup copies for up to 180 days before they are overwritten, as described in its data deletion documentation.
Security
Everything travels over an encrypted connection (HTTPS). Google encrypts your library where it is stored, and Azure encrypts the disk the photos are kept on. Access rules tie each library to its owner’s account. No system can promise perfect security; if your data were ever exposed, you would be told.
Children
Inkspace is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has signed in, write to the address below and the account will be deleted.
Your rights
You can see, correct, export and delete your data from inside the app, and you can ask for any of these by email. Depending on where you live — the EU or UK, India, California and other places have such laws — you may also have the right to complain to your data protection authority.
Changes to this policy
If the policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. A change to what is collected, or to how it is used, will be posted on this page before it takes effect.
Contact
Privacy questions and requests: privacy@inkspacex.com
Help with the app: support@inkspacex.com