Privacy Policy
Last updated 2 August 2026
The short version. Crosswordy has no accounts and no servers of its own that store anything about you. Your puzzles, your progress and your streaks live on your device, and sync between your own devices through your private iCloud, which we cannot see into. We don't collect analytics, we don't use tracking or advertising SDKs, and we have no way to identify you.
What stays on your device
Everything you do in the app is stored locally, using Apple's on-device database, and is never sent to us:
- Puzzles you've played, are part way through, or have built yourself
- Your answers, timings, completions, ratings and bookmarks
- Your streaks and the history behind the Home Screen widget
- Your settings, including theme, difficulty mode and haptics
If you turn iCloud sync off, or aren't signed in to iCloud, all of it stays on that one device and deleting the app deletes it permanently.
iCloud sync
When you're signed in to iCloud, your puzzles and progress sync between your own devices using Apple's CloudKit, so a new phone or a reinstall picks up where you left off.
This uses your private iCloud database. That means the data belongs to your Apple Account, is governed by Apple's privacy policy, and is not visible to us — we have no server, no administrative access to it, and no ability to read it. Nobody else can see it either.
Sync follows your device's iCloud settings. Turning off iCloud Drive for Crosswordy, or signing out of iCloud, stops it; the app keeps working locally.
What leaves your device
There are only two kinds of network request the app makes.
- Downloading daily puzzles. The app fetches the day's puzzles as static files from our publishing host. These requests carry nothing about you beyond what any web request unavoidably includes — your IP address and the fact that a file was requested. We don't build profiles from server logs and we don't use them for analytics.
- Purchases. If you subscribe to Crosswordy Plus, the transaction is handled entirely by Apple. We never see your name, your payment details or your Apple Account. The app only ever asks Apple a yes-or-no question: is this device entitled to Plus?
Puzzles you share
When you share a puzzle, the entire puzzle is encoded into the link itself, after the
#. That part of a URL is never sent to a web server by design — so if someone opens
your link without the app installed, the page decodes and previews the puzzle in their browser,
and the puzzle's contents never reach us. Nothing is uploaded, and no copy is kept.
Clues and Apple Intelligence
Clues come from a list bundled inside the app. Where the app uses Apple's on-device Foundation Models to help write a clue or suggest a title, that processing happens on your device. Nothing is sent to us or to a third-party service for it.
Children
Crosswordy is suitable for all ages and collects no personal information from anyone, including children. Words and clues are filtered against a blocklist, and text you type when building a puzzle is checked against the same list before it can be saved or shared.
Analytics and advertising
There are none. No analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, no crash reporter that identifies you, no tracking across apps or websites, and nothing sold or shared with anyone. The app requests no tracking permission because it has nothing to track.
Your rights
Because we hold no personal data about you, there is nothing for us to export, correct or delete on request. Deleting the app removes everything the app stored. If you're in a jurisdiction with data protection rights such as the UK GDPR, EU GDPR or CCPA, those rights still apply — there simply isn't any data of yours in our hands for them to reach.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what the app collects, the change will appear here with a new date above, and in the app's release notes.
Contact
Questions about privacy can go to privacy@crosswordy.app.