Anchor Word Get the app

Yours, and nobody else's.

Anchor Word keeps what you write on your phone. It has no account, no advertising and no analytics, and it collects nothing about you or how you read.

In effect from 12 October 2026.

In short

What stays on your phone

Everything you make in Anchor Word is kept on your phone, in storage other apps can't read:

  • your notes, folders, highlights and bookmarks;
  • your settings, where you were reading, and the places and words you searched for recently.

The translations and study tools you download are kept there too. So is any translation you import from a file of your own: it is read on the phone and never sent anywhere.

When the app goes online

Translations and study tools

These download from packages.anchorword.app, a file server that Cloudflare runs for us. Each time the app opens, it also asks that server whether anything you have has been updated.

These requests carry nothing about you, your phone or what you read, and we keep no record of who downloads what. The server sees what any web server sees: your internet address and which file was asked for. Cloudflare's handling of that is set out in Cloudflare's privacy policy.

Nothing else

There is no analytics, no advertising, no crash-reporting service and no tracking of any kind. The fonts and the King James Version come with the app. The only permission Anchor Word asks Android for is internet access.

Sync, if you turn it on

Sync keeps your library the same on your phone and your other devices. It is off until you set it up.

  • It goes where you choose: your own Google Drive, a folder that a sync app of yours carries between devices, your own Nextcloud, or another WebDAV server. It never passes through us.
  • It is locked with your sync phrase before it leaves the phone. Only a device with the phrase can open it. Google, the folder, the server and we can't. What they can see is each file's name, size and time. A name is a random device number and the time it was made.
  • What travels: notes, highlights, bookmarks, folders, your reading settings, and the name you give each device. Deleting something on one device deletes it on the others when they next sync. Translations stay on each device.
  • Signing in. With Nextcloud, you sign in in your browser, and your server gives Anchor Word an app password, which it takes back when you stop syncing. With another WebDAV server, the password you give is kept in Android's Keystore. The server's address and your username are kept in the app's own storage.
  • Google Drive. You sign in on Google's own screen and allow Anchor Word one thing: its own folder in your Drive, which is hidden from your files and which no other app can open. It can't see anything else in your Drive. Google Play services on your phone keeps that permission; the app keeps only your Google account's email address, on the phone, to show it and to ask for the same account next time. Anchor Word's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. To take the access back, remove Anchor Word under Third-party apps & services in your Google Account. To delete its folder, open Google Drive on the web, then Settings, then Manage apps.
  • Your sync phrase is kept on the phone, so you can see it again when setting up another device. It is never included in a backup.

Backups, exports and files you send

Back up now, Export and Send a file each save a file wherever you choose. These files aren't locked, so they are as private as the place you put them.

Android's own backup. If your phone backs up to your Google account, that backup includes the one file holding your notes, folders, highlights, bookmarks, settings and recent places, so a new phone can restore them. It doesn't include translations, imported texts, your sync phrase or any password. That backup belongs to your Google account, and you turn it on or off in your phone's settings.

Feedback and crash reports

Send feedback opens your email app with a message to feedback@anchorword.app. It already contains the app's version, your phone's make, model and Android version, and which translation you were reading. Nothing is sent until you send it, and you can change or remove any of it first.

If the app stops unexpectedly, it keeps a note of the error on your phone for two weeks and offers to add it to an email. It never sends it by itself.

We use what you send only to answer you and to fix the app. We keep it only as long as it is useful for that. Ask, and we'll delete it.

You can also report a problem on GitHub. What you write there is public, and GitHub's privacy statement applies.

Some things in the app open a website in your browser: a source's own page in Sources & licences, this page, and your Nextcloud's sign-in page. Those sites have privacy policies of their own.

This website

anchorword.app counts, for each day, how many times its front page is opened and how many times Download is tapped. Each count is a number and nothing more. It keeps no internet address, no browser details and no cookie, so nothing in it can tell one visitor from another, or say who downloaded the app. The site loads nothing from any other website.

Testing on Google Play

To test Anchor Word on Google Play, you join a Google Group, anchor-word-testers. The group shows us the email address of the Google account you join with, and we can see who is a member. We use it only to run the test, never to write to you unasked, and we share it with no one. You can leave the group whenever you like, from its page, and your address goes with you. Google runs Google Groups and Google Play, and Google's privacy policy covers what they keep.

Children

Anchor Word collects nothing from anyone, children included.

Your choices, and deleting

  • Anything you delete in the app is gone from the phone.
  • Uninstalling the app deletes everything it kept on the phone. Back up first if you want to keep your notes.
  • Synced copies are in your folder or on your server. Delete the Anchor Word folder there to remove them.
  • Anything you have emailed us: ask for a copy, or for it to be deleted, at feedback@anchorword.app.

Changes to this policy

If what the app does with your information changes, this page changes with it, under a new date, and the app's changelog says so.

Who we are

Anchor Word is made by Oscar Obianenue at Lightspun Creative. Write to feedback@anchorword.app about anything on this page.