Pulse
Privacy Policy
Last updated: 23 August 2026
Pulse is a three-week app for people who feel flat. This policy describes what it does with your information. It is short because the app does very little with it.
The short version
Pulse has no account, no server, and no analytics. Everything you write, photograph or answer stays in the app's own storage on your phone. Nothing is uploaded, and there is nowhere for it to be uploaded to — the app has no backend.
What Pulse stores, and where
All of it is on your device, in the app's private storage:
- the name you type at the start
- what you picked on the values and aliveness questions
- which missions you completed and when
- your reflections and the optional one-line notes
- the optional photos you attach to a mission
- what you wrote as the thing you carry forward
- your certificate
Photos you attach are copied into the app's own directory so the system cannot reclaim them. They are not added to your camera roll and are not readable by other apps.
What Pulse sends anywhere
Nothing, on its own, except one thing.
The pay-it-forward screen asks Google Play for the prices of four optional one-off payments. That request happens only if you open that screen, and it sends the four product identifiers — nothing about you. Payments themselves are handled entirely by Google Play; Pulse never sees a card number, and never receives your name or email.
Everything else that leaves your phone leaves because you sent it. The app opens your system share sheet, pre-filled with text you can read and edit first, and nothing is transmitted unless you choose a recipient and send:
- telling a friend you have started, or that a week is done
- the feedback message
- your certificate, storybook or one-pager
- adding a planned mission to your calendar, as a file your calendar reads
Pulse does not know who you sent any of it to.
Permissions
- Camera / Photos — asked for only when you choose to attach a photo to a mission, and only at that moment. Declining costs you nothing; the photo is optional everywhere it appears.
- Notifications — asked for only if you switch on “when a pair opens” in Settings, and only at that moment. It is off for everyone by default. See below for exactly what it sends.
- Internet / Network state — required by Google Play's billing library, which is why the app has to declare them from install. The app opens no connection of its own outside the pay-it-forward screen described above.
- Billing — the four optional payments. Pulse works fully without them.
Pulse asks for no other permissions.
Notifications
Pulse can send exactly one kind of message, and only if you ask it to.
If you switch on “when a pair opens” in Settings, Pulse schedules a single local notification for the day your next two missions unlock — the moment you were already shown a countdown to. That is the entire feature. It sends nothing about a day you missed, nothing about a streak, and nothing to bring you back. Switch it off and the scheduled message is cancelled.
The notification is scheduled on your phone by your phone. Nothing is sent to a server, no push service is involved, and Pulse has no way to message you that does not begin with you turning this on.
Pulse also asks to be told when the phone restarts, so that a reminder you have already asked for is not silently lost by a reboot. It does nothing else at startup and does not run in the background.
Analytics, advertising and tracking
There are none. Pulse contains no analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, no crash reporter and no tracking of any kind. This is a deliberate position and it has a cost the author accepts: nobody can tell how many people finish.
Children
Pulse is not directed at children and is not designed for them. It discusses low mood and points to crisis services for adults.
Deleting your data
Settings → delete everything removes all of the above from your device, including the photo files themselves. Because none of it is stored anywhere else, there is nothing to request from anyone and nothing to restore it from. Uninstalling the app has the same effect.
Health and crisis information
Pulse is not therapy, treatment, or a medical device, and makes no clinical claims. It shows crisis helplines chosen by your device's region. Tapping one opens your phone's dialler or browser — at that point you are in another app, and that app's own terms apply.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it.