Last updated: July 22, 2026
Thrift ("the app", "we", "us") is an expense-tracking app that reads SMS transaction notifications (bank alerts, credit card confirmations, payment receipts) to help you track spending automatically. This policy explains what information the app collects, how it's used, and how it's stored.
To let you sign in and keep your session across app restarts, we use Firebase Authentication, a service provided by Google. Depending on how you sign in:
In all cases, we also store a unique account ID (UID) generated by Firebase to identify your session.
With your permission, the app reads SMS messages on your device to detect bank and payment notifications. This processing happens entirely on your device. SMS content is never uploaded, transmitted, or shared with us, Firebase, or any third party — the app only ever needs network access for the account sign-in described above.
Transactions detected from SMS, along with anything you enter or edit manually (merchant, amount, category, notes, receipt images), are stored in a local database on your device only. This data is not synced to any server or cloud service by us. If you create a manual backup, it's written as a file you choose the location for, encrypted with a passphrase only you know — we have no access to it or its contents.
We do not use analytics, advertising SDKs, or tracking of any kind. We do not collect your contacts, location, call logs, or any SMS content beyond what's needed to parse it locally into a transaction.
We do not use any information to advertise to you, build behavioral profiles, or for any purpose beyond running the app's features.
We do not sell your data or share it with third parties for advertising or marketing. The only outside party involved is Google/Firebase, which processes your account sign-in as our authentication provider under Google's Privacy Policy. Your SMS content and transaction data are never sent to Google, Firebase, or anyone else.
Transaction data, categories, budgets, and settings remain on your device until you delete them individually, clear the app's data, or uninstall the app. Uninstalling the app permanently deletes this local data, since it is not backed up to any server by us.
You can delete your account and all locally-stored data yourself at any time from within the app: go to Settings → Account & Privacy → Delete My Account. This immediately and permanently deletes your Firebase account (email/UID) and every transaction, review item, category, budget, and rule stored on your device — it cannot be undone. If you'd rather request deletion by email instead, contact us at the address below.
Thrift is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under the age of 13 (or the relevant minimum age in your region).
We may update this policy as the app changes. Material changes will be reflected here with an updated "Last updated" date.
Questions about this policy or your data, including account deletion requests, can be sent to: dev.thriftapp@gmail.com