Privacy Policy

Information handled on your phone

The Android app may store a budget name, spending-label accounts, buckets, categories, monthly limits, expenses and notes, a downloaded budget working set, merchant references, reminder occurrences, expense drafts, changes waiting to synchronize, reminder dismissals, pairing information, and app settings.

This information supports the budget you create on your phone or download from Windows, expense entry, recent history, downloaded reminders, and synchronization of changes you explicitly save. You can create and use a real budget without a computer. The Android app does not require an online Budget Unplugged account and does not connect to banks or track account balances.

Local storage and security

Standalone and downloaded financial information is stored in encrypted app-private storage on your Android device. Android Keystore protects the mobile encryption and pairing keys. Android backup is disabled for Budget Unplugged, and the app does not expose its private financial data to other apps.

You are responsible for controlling access to your phone and keeping its operating system and security settings current.

Pairing and synchronization

Windows is optional. You can pair with an existing Windows profile or transfer a phone-created budget into a new empty Windows profile after reviewing and approving the transfer on the PC. A transfer includes the retained budget structure, accounts, limits and expenses. After a successful transfer, Windows manages the shared profile.

Selected budget information moves directly between your phone and the paired Windows app over an authenticated encrypted connection on your local network. The desktop sends the phone its mobile budget working set, eligible account, bucket, category and merchant references, and reminder occurrences. The phone sends expenses and supported budget changes you explicitly save, and reminder dismissals you explicitly make.

You start each synchronization by opening the connection on Windows and choosing Sync now on the phone. The app does not synchronize financial records in the background. Failed attempts keep pending changes available for retry or correction.

The developer does not operate a synchronization relay and does not receive or store this financial information. Pairing can be forgotten on the phone or revoked from the desktop. Forgetting a desktop removes the phone's local pairing information; revoking a phone prevents later authenticated connections to that desktop profile.

Mobile features

Sample data

The Android app offers clearly identified fabricated sample data so you can explore without creating a real budget or pairing. Sample data stays separate from standalone and paired information, cannot synchronize, and can be reset or removed inside the app.

Reminders and notifications

Phone reminders are scheduled locally from reminder information already synchronized to the device. Notification permission and reminder activation are separate choices. A reminder does not pay a bill, transfer money, create a desktop transaction, or contact the desktop in the background. A reminder dismissal waits on the phone until you next choose to synchronize.

Receipt scanning

Receipt scanning uses the Android system camera and bundled Google ML Kit text recognition. The app creates one temporary receipt image in app-private cache, processes it on the device, returns only suggested merchant, total, and date values for your review, and deletes the image after success, cancellation, or failure. Receipt images and recognized receipt text are not synchronized or sent to Google by ML Kit.

Google states that ML Kit may collect limited device and app information, installation identifiers, performance measurements, configuration, feature and event details, input/output sizes, and error codes for diagnostics and usage analytics. Google states that this diagnostic information is encrypted in transit and not transferred to third parties. See Google's ML Kit Android data disclosure.

Advertising and developer analytics

Budget Unplugged does not contain advertising, behavioral tracking, developer-operated analytics, or developer-operated telemetry. The developer does not sell, rent, or use your financial information for advertising.

Android permissions

Local network and internet: used for optional pairing, phone-budget transfer and direct synchronization with Windows, and for the Google ML Kit diagnostic behavior described above. Budget Unplugged does not use this permission to upload financial records to a developer-operated service. Standalone budgeting and manual entry work offline.

Camera: used only when you choose receipt-assisted entry. Manual transaction entry remains available if camera access is denied.

Notifications: used only after you choose to enable phone reminders. Budget and synchronization features remain available if notification access is denied.

Start after device restart: used to restore local reminders you previously enabled. It does not start desktop synchronization or perform financial activity.

Retention, access, and deletion

Standalone budgets and the current synchronized mobile working set retain the current month and two previous months. As the app advances to a new month, older mobile budget history is removed. This does not delete the Windows profile's history. Pending changes and acknowledgements may remain until synchronization or explicit resolution; the three-month history window is not an automatic acknowledgement of unsent changes.

Forget PC removes only the saved desktop connection and keeps the downloaded budget. Reset phone data removes the phone's real budget and related app-private financial data. Reset sample or Exit sample affects only the isolated fabricated sample. Clearing Android app storage or uninstalling removes app-private mobile information according to Android's application-data behavior. None of these actions deletes a Windows profile.

Before resetting, clearing storage or uninstalling, resolve changes waiting to synchronize and consider whether you need the retained budget on Windows. A standalone budget that has not been transferred has no developer-hosted backup. Temporary receipt images are deleted after recognition, cancellation, or failure. Because the developer does not receive or maintain a copy of your financial records, the developer cannot retrieve or delete them for you.

Google's ML Kit diagnostic information is handled by Google as described in its linked SDK disclosure; local budget-reset controls do not constitute deletion of Google's diagnostic records.

Children's privacy

Budget Unplugged for Android is not directed to children under 13, and the developer does not knowingly collect children's personal information.

Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated when the Android app's features or data practices change. The effective date shown on this page will be revised when an update is made.