Privacy policy
Last updated 17 September 2026
Garden Rescue identifies plants, weeds, pests and diseases from photos and keeps a care plan for your garden. This page says exactly what it stores, who else sees it and how to get rid of it.
What Garden Rescue stores
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| The photos you scan | To identify them and to show your history so you can compare your garden over time. Photos are re-encoded when they are saved, which strips camera metadata such as GPS coordinates. |
| The identification and care guide for each scan | So your scans, care plan and the garden guide work. |
| A device token | A random identifier the app or browser generates. It is how your scans stay yours before you create an account. |
| Your email address | Only if you create an account. It is how you sign in (a six-digit code, no password) and how your scans follow you to another device. |
| Your garden location | Only if you set one. The coordinates (rounded to about a kilometre when the forecast is fetched) and the town name give you local weather, soil temperature and timing. |
| Your garden answers | Garden size, sun, how you water and how experienced you are, if you answer them in the app. They make the Smart Plan fit your garden. |
| Your care record | The jobs you mark done or skip, the notes and note photos you add, and the areas and plants in your garden. |
| Subscription status | Whether Garden Rescue Pro is active, as reported by the app's subscription provider. Garden Rescue never sees your payment details. |
| Device details | Time zone, app version, platform and, if you allow notifications, a push token. These make reminders arrive at the right hour. |
| Technical logs | Requests to the services below and error reports, kept for a short time to fix problems. |
Who processes it
Garden Rescue uses a small number of services to do its job. They only get what they need for their part.
| Service | What it receives |
|---|---|
| OpenAI | The photo you scanned (as part of the request, not stored by Garden Rescue anywhere else) plus context such as the date, your units and your town, to identify it, check it for unsafe content and write the care guide. |
| Cloudflare R2 | Stores your scan and note photos. |
| Postmark | Your email address, to send sign-in codes. |
| Firebase Cloud Messaging | Your push token and the reminder text. |
| Firebase Analytics and PostHog | App usage events (screens opened, paywall shown, purchase completed) tied to a random identifier. |
| RevenueCat and Superwall | Subscription status and paywall events. |
| Sentry | Error reports, with identifiers shortened so a report can't be traced back to your login. |
| Open-Meteo | Your rounded coordinates, to return the forecast and soil temperature. |
| iNaturalist | The species name, to fetch openly licensed reference photos. It receives nothing about you. |
| Apple | Handles your subscription and billing if you buy Garden Rescue Pro. |
Garden Rescue does not sell your data and does not share your photos with advertisers.
Who can see your scans
Your scans are private to you. A scan page (/scan/…) can be opened by anyone who has its link, which only exists if you share it, and those pages ask search engines not to index them. The garden guide pages are public, but they use openly licensed photos from iNaturalist contributors, never your photos.
Deleting things
- One scan: delete it from your history in the app or on the web. Its photos go too.
- A plant, or a whole part of the garden: remove it from My Garden. Its jobs, notes and care log are deleted with it.
- Everything: Settings in the iPhone app, or Settings here, deletes your account, scans, photos, garden areas, plants, notes and care history for good.
- By email: write to [email protected] from your account's address and we'll do it for you.
Without an account, your scans belong to the device that made them; deleting them in the app removes them from the server too.
Keeping things
Scans, garden areas, plants and notes are kept until you delete them or delete your account. Sign-in codes expire in 30 minutes. Technical logs are removed on a rolling basis (weather readings after two days, request and notification logs after 30 days).
Children
Garden Rescue is meant for adults looking after a garden and is not directed at children.
Your rights
You can ask what Garden Rescue holds about you, ask for a copy, ask for corrections, or ask us to delete it. Email [email protected] and we'll answer within 30 days.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes and the app will point it out.