What's in your bins is your business.
Cubby is an inventory app for iPhone and iPad that helps you find things stored in bins. This page describes what data Cubby handles and what it does with it. The short version: your inventory, photos, and tags stay on your device unless you explicitly share them.
What Cubby collects
Nothing. Cubby has no accounts, no sign-in, no analytics, no crash-reporting SDK, no advertising identifiers, and no third-party SDKs of any kind. The developer receives no data from the app — there is no Cubby server for it to be sent to. Two things leave your device, and both are described in full below: the optional product-barcode look-up, which sends only a scanned barcode to a public database; and, if you turn on the optional AI naming feature, a one-time download of the AI model itself from Apple's servers — nothing about you or your photos is ever part of that download.
Where your inventory lives
Your racks, bins, items, quantities, and activity history are stored in a database on your device. Item photos are saved as files in the app's own storage area. None of this is uploaded or transmitted by Cubby. If you choose to share something — for example a printed label PDF via the iOS share sheet, to Files, AirDrop, Mail, or a printer — that destination's privacy policy governs the file from that point on.
Camera access
Cubby requests camera access so you can photograph an item and let the app suggest a name for it. Identification uses Apple's on-device Vision framework: the analysis runs entirely on your device, camera frames are used only while you are adding an item, and no image is uploaded anywhere. The photo you keep with an item is stored locally with that item and nowhere else. Decline camera access and you can still add and name items by hand.
Optional AI naming
Cubby can optionally use a downloadable AI model to suggest more specific item names than the built-in Vision framework alone. Turning this on in Settings → Enhanced Recognition downloads the model (about 1.2 GB) directly from Apple's servers using Apple's Background Assets system — the same mechanism apps use to download game or app content. That download is a one-time transfer of the model itself; it never includes anything about you, your device, or your inventory. Once downloaded, every photo the model looks at is analyzed entirely on your phone — nothing about the photo, the suggested name, or your usage is ever sent anywhere. The feature is off unless you turn it on, and you can delete the downloaded model at any time from the same Settings screen to reclaim the storage.
NFC and QR tags
Cubby reads and writes NFC tags and reads QR codes on your racks and
bins. A tag holds only a link that identifies a bin or rack — for
example https://gotcubby.com/b/<id>. The tag
never contains the bin's contents; the contents are always
looked up locally on your device from that identifier. Anyone who taps
one of your tags with another phone sees only the link, not what is in
the bin. Reading a tag requires no network connection.
Barcodes you capture
If you scan a product barcode while adding an item, Cubby stores the
barcode value locally with that item. If product look-up
is on — it is on by default — Cubby sends only that barcode number
to a public product database (api.upcitemdb.com) to fetch a
suggested name. This is one of only two things Cubby ever sends or fetches
over the network — the other is the optional AI model download described
above — and it contains nothing but the barcode — no item details, no
identifiers, nothing about you. You can switch it off under
Settings → Product lookup to keep every barcode scan fully
on your device. The suggested name is only ever a suggestion you review;
the barcode itself is never used as the item's name.
Multi-device sync
By default, Cubby does not sync across devices — your inventory lives on the one device, and there is no Cubby account or Cubby server. You can optionally turn on iCloud sync in Settings to share your inventory across your own devices; when you do, your data goes into your own private iCloud account, encrypted and managed entirely by Apple — Cubby has no server of its own and the developer never has access to it. It's off unless you turn it on. Separately, if you have iCloud Backup enabled at the system level, your Cubby data may be included in your device's standard encrypted iCloud Backup regardless of the sync setting, which is also governed by Apple.
On-device processing
Everything Cubby does — storing your inventory, identifying items, generating QR labels, building printable label PDFs, and searching — runs on your device. There is no server-side component and no telemetry.
Children
Cubby is rated 4+. It does not collect any information from anyone, so it does not collect information from children either.
Changes
If a future version of Cubby changes what data it handles, this policy will be updated and the "Last updated" date revised before that version ships.
Contact
Questions about privacy can be sent to contact@abhijitbansal.com.