Effective July 9, 2026 · Updated August 24, 2026
Cloister Ink is built on a simple rule: your writing is yours. This policy is short because there is very little to disclose.
Seven Swords Productions LLC collects nothing. Cloister Ink has no accounts, no sign-in, no analytics, no telemetry, and no servers we operate. We never see your documents, your usage, or your identity.
There is one exception, and it is entirely your choice: the optional "Ask" feature, which is off by default. If you turn it on and set up one of the choices below, the text you highlight is sent to the AI you selected, under your own account with that company, or to the endpoint address you entered yourself, where a key is optional. You choose which: Claude, from Anthropic; Grok, from xAI; ChatGPT, from OpenAI; or a Custom endpoint, an OpenAI-compatible server whose address you enter yourself. It goes only to the one you have selected when you send. Cloister Ink sends that text at your instruction, to the destination you chose, and never to us. Because that text can leave your device to a company or to a server we have no part in, our App Store privacy label declares it as user content used for app functionality and linked to your identity: with Claude, Grok or ChatGPT, your API key identifies your account with that company. We declare it the same way for every Ask destination, including a custom endpoint and any key you choose to save for one. Full detail is in the Ask section below. Leave Ask off and Cloister Ink sends nothing anywhere. One optional feature of your own device can also send text, and only if you switch it on in Settings. It is Apple's rather than ours: see Apple's Writing Tools below.
Your documents are markdown files you can read in any text editor. Two other kinds of file are written for you, both of them yours, both of them plain files on your own disk or in your own iCloud Drive:
Converted copies are also tidied on arrival, which normalises spacing, list marks and table alignment in the markdown Cloister Ink itself wrote. Markdown and text files you already wrote are never tidied on import. The switch is under Settings, Imports.
Your documents are plain markdown files stored in your own iCloud Drive (used whenever iCloud is available) or locally on your device. You choose where each new document goes when you first save it, and you can move any file between the two at any time from the sidebar. Cloister Ink has no setting that moves your vault or decides which of the two your documents live in. Settings does carry one location control, Inbox location, and it decides only where imported files land. iCloud storage and sync are provided by Apple under Apple's privacy policy; Cloister Ink simply reads and writes files in your own container. Draft-history snapshots are stored locally on your device and never leave it.
On iPhone and iPad, Cloister Ink appears in the system share sheet so you can send a page or a note into your Inbox from another app. What you share is written straight into your own vault: the iCloud Inbox when iCloud Drive is available, and otherwise into a private folder that Cloister Ink and its share extension both hold on your device, which the app moves into your Local Inbox the next time you open it. This is the one place Cloister Ink chooses for you: a shared item goes to iCloud when it can, whatever Inbox location is set to, because a page you saved belongs on every device. Nothing shared this way is sent to us. The share extension contains no networking code of its own, so the only thing that leaves your device is your own file syncing through your own iCloud account, under Apple's policy linked above.
Ask is off by default. If you enable it, you choose which AI it talks to and provide your own API key for that company. The choice of four arrives with version 1.0.7; earlier versions use Anthropic only, and a key saved there keeps working unchanged.
The three links above are those companies' public privacy policies. A custom endpoint has none for us to give, because we do not know whose it is. API traffic is also governed by the terms of the API account you open with them, which may differ from the consumer product. We do not control, and we never see, what they keep.
Each key is stored separately in your device's Keychain, under its own entry, never written to disk in plain text, never logged, and never transmitted anywhere except to the destination it belongs to, which is the company for Claude, Grok and ChatGPT and the address you entered for a custom endpoint, as the credential on requests you start. A key for one AI is never sent to another. Keys you have saved are kept when you switch, so changing your mind costs you nothing.
When you send an Ask request, the app transmits only the text you explicitly highlighted and the instruction you typed (follow-up questions resend that conversation), directly to the API of the AI you selected, using your key for that company. In addition, while Ask is enabled, opening Ask may request the current model list from the AI you selected, using your key when you have saved one, so the model picker stays current. For Claude, Grok and ChatGPT that happens only when a key is present, at most once per window per app run. For a custom endpoint it also runs with no key at all, and it runs again each time you save the address, tap Fetch models, or save a key for it. The on-screen indicator is visible whenever any of these requests is in flight, and nothing is ever sent without Ask being enabled. If you chose Claude, Grok or ChatGPT, your use of Ask is governed by that company's privacy policy, linked above, under your own API account with them. If you chose a custom endpoint, the terms are whatever the operator of that server sets, and there is no policy of theirs for us to link. Disable Ask and Cloister Ink stops making network connections of its own. Apple's Writing Tools, described in the next section, is a feature of your device rather than a connection Cloister Ink makes.
Starting with version 1.0.4, Apple's Writing Tools reaches the editor only if you turn on the Apple Writing Tools switch in Settings, and that switch is off by default. With it off, Cloister Ink asks the system to keep Writing Tools out of the editor on every platform that offers it; older systems have no Apple Intelligence and no Writing Tools to keep out in the first place. With it on, Writing Tools appears in the text selection menu on devices that offer Apple Intelligence, the same way it does in any standard text field on your device. Cloister Ink still provides no button, menu item, or command of its own that opens it. This is Apple's feature, not ours. It does not use any API key you have saved and it works whether Ask is on or off.
One narrower detail on iPhone and iPad: with the switch on, Writing Tools is offered in its limited inline form, and only while spell check is on, which is also switched on by the Revise pass. On Mac, with the switch on, the full Writing Tools menu is available. These are requests to the system; a small number of iPhone and iPad configurations decline the limited request and follow their own default instead.
When you use Writing Tools, your device may send the text you selected to Apple for processing, and Apple's rewrite is returned into your document just as typed text would be. That handling is governed by Apple's privacy policy and by Apple Intelligence's own terms. Seven Swords Productions LLC never receives the text, the result, or any record that you used it. If you turn Apple Intelligence off in your device settings, this path does not exist.
This path runs only when you invoke it from your device's own menus, and you can stop it at any time by turning the Apple Writing Tools switch off in Cloister Ink's settings, or by turning Apple Intelligence off in your device settings. Apple is the recipient. We do not control where Apple processes the text or on what terms, and that part is between you and Apple. There is nothing here for us to keep, delete, or hand over on request, because no copy of the text, the result, or the fact that you used it ever reaches Seven Swords Productions LLC.
Cloister Ink is sold through the App Store. Payment is handled entirely by Apple; we receive no personal or payment information about you.
Cloister Ink is sold in many countries, and privacy laws such as the EU/UK GDPR, Brazil's LGPD, Canada's PIPEDA, and the California Consumer Privacy Act give you rights over personal data an app maker holds about you: access, correction, deletion, and portability among them. Because we hold nothing, those rights are already in your hands: your documents are plain files you can read, export, or delete at any time; deleting the app deletes everything it stored on your device; anything in iCloud is controlled through your own Apple account. We do not sell or share personal information. We have none to sell. If you believe we hold any personal data about you (for example, from a support email you sent us), contact us and we will confirm, provide, or delete it. If you email us, we use your message and address only to respond, keep them no longer than needed, and delete them on request. You may also raise a concern with your local data-protection authority (for example, the UK ICO, Brazil's ANPD, or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada).
Apart from anything you choose to email us, which is received in the United States, we transfer no data across borders, because no other data reaches us. The only network activity Cloister Ink itself performs is the optional Ask feature described above: requests you start, sent with your own key to the AI company you selected, or sent to a custom endpoint address you entered, which may sit in your own country, in another, or on a machine of your own. Which of those it is follows from the address you chose, and we do not learn it. Apple's Writing Tools may also send text to Apple when you use it, under Apple's own policies.
Cloister Ink is a general-audience writing app, not directed at children. Seven Swords Productions LLC collects no data from anyone, including children. The optional Ask feature is off by default, and Cloister Ink sends no text anywhere until someone turns it on and either enters an API key obtained from one of those companies or enters the HTTPS address of an OpenAI-compatible server. That is set-up work we expect an adult to do. Cloister Ink creates no account for you, issues no key, and asks for no personal details at any point.
If a future version ever changes what leaves your device, this policy and the App Store privacy label will be updated first, and the change will be called out in the release notes.
August 24, 2026. Ask gained a fourth choice, a custom OpenAI-compatible endpoint at an HTTPS address you enter yourself, described in the Ask section above. A key is optional for that choice, and when you have not saved one, requests to that address carry no key. Nothing new reaches Seven Swords Productions LLC, and the App Store privacy label is unchanged, because it already declares the text you send from Ask as user content used for app functionality and linked to your identity.
August 23, 2026. Cloister Ink added a share extension on iPhone and iPad, described in the Sharing into Cloister Ink section above. What you share is written into your own vault. Nothing about it reaches Seven Swords Productions LLC, and the App Store privacy label is unchanged because no new data reaches us. An earlier version of this page named a Settings control for choosing where documents are stored. There was no such control, and the sentence has been removed.
July 27, 2026. Clarified how this policy describes Apple's Writing Tools, which is a feature of your device rather than something Cloister Ink sends anywhere. The Apple's Writing Tools section above is new and describes that path in full. An earlier version of this page, live from July 9 to July 26, 2026, did not describe it. In the same update, Cloister Ink removed its own Format ▸ Proofread menu item on Mac, so the app no longer offers any command that opens Apple's Writing Tools. Seven Swords Productions LLC has never received the text, the result, or any record that you used it.
With version 1.0.4. Cloister Ink added an Apple Writing Tools switch in Settings, off by default. Until you turn it on, the app asks the system to keep Apple's Writing Tools out of the editor on every platform that offers it. The Apple's Writing Tools section above now describes the switch.
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