Privacy policy

Gently keeps your recovery on your phone. This page says exactly what that means, and the one thing that can leave it if you say yes.

Last updated November 13, 2026

The short version

There’s no account. We never learn your name, email or phone number.
Your answers, check-ins, notes, photos and doctor visits stay on your phone. They’re kept out of iCloud and never uploaded.
Your report, a photo or a copy of your log leaves the phone only when you share it yourself.
Usage data and crash reports are sent only if you say yes. You can turn them off any time in Settings › Share usage.
We don’t sell data, show ads, or track you across other apps and websites.
Settings › Delete everything erases it all from your phone.

What stays on your phone

Everything you put into Gently:

your answers in setup, such as your procedure, your surgery date and how you’re feeling
your morning and evening check-ins, drain amounts and notes
the photos you take in the app
your doctor visits and your reminder times

It’s kept in Gently’s own storage on your iPhone and left out of your phone’s backups, to iCloud or to a computer. We have no server that holds it and no copy of it.

That has one cost. If you lose your phone or move to a new one, your record doesn’t come with you, and we can’t bring it back. Before you change phones, share your report, or use Settings › Save a copy to keep a file of your answers and your log. Gently can’t load that file back in.

You can lock Gently with Settings › Face ID or passcode and hide it in the app switcher. Face ID is handled by your iPhone; Gently never sees your face data.

Features that use Apple’s on-device model

On iPhones that support Apple Intelligence, Gently can use Apple’s on-device language model for two things: to pick which lines of your guide answer a question you type in “Ask your guide”, and to suggest questions for a doctor visit from your own notes. The model runs entirely on your iPhone. Your question, your notes and the results are not sent to us, to Apple or to anyone else, and they are not used to train any model. You can turn this off in Settings › Privacy › On-device AI; the features then keep working without it. No model ever sees your photos.

Photos

They’re taken inside the app. Gently never asks for your photo library and never reads it.
They’re saved only in Gently’s own folder, not in your Photos app, and left out of backups.
Nobody at Gently sees them, and no AI looks at them. They’re never uploaded.
A photo leaves your phone only if you share it yourself, on its own or inside your report.

Three things can leave your phone, and only through the iPhone’s share sheet, to the person or app you pick:

your report for your surgeon, as a PDF, an image or a short text (it can include your photos)
a single photo
a copy of your answers and your log, from Settings › Save a copy (no photos)

For the report and the copy, Gently makes the file only for that moment and deletes it when the share sheet closes. Once you send it, the person or app you sent it to holds that copy.

Reminders

Your check-in and doctor visit reminders are set on your phone by the app itself. They aren’t sent from a server, and we don’t know when they are. With Settings › Quiet reminders they don’t say what they’re for. You can turn them off in Settings.

Usage data, only if you say yes

During setup Gently asks once: “Can we count how the app is used?” Nothing is picked for you, and until you say yes, nothing is sent. You can change your answer any time in Settings › Share usage. Gently works the same either way, and nothing you pay for depends on it.

If you say yes, two services get data from the app.

PostHog: how the app is used

PostHog (PostHog, Inc.) gets short events that say which part of the app you used. This is the whole list:

each setup step you reach, and that you said yes to usage data
a morning, evening or drain check-in started or finished
that you logged your drains, and whether you have one drain or two
that you took a photo in the app
that you opened your report, or shared it, and in which format
that you opened your guide (this week, or “When can I”) or the help sheet
that you opened a reminder, and which reminder it was
that you added a doctor visit, and whether it has a time
on the payment screen: that you saw it, started or saved your free days, started a purchase, bought, or why a purchase didn’t go through (cancelled, pending, failed or unavailable); that you tapped Restore and whether a purchase was found; that you saw your free days end
that the app was installed, updated, opened or put away

Each event also carries your procedure, your stage (recovering, surgery booked, or planning) and your recovery week, plus the app’s version, your iPhone’s model and its iOS version.

An event never carries anything you logged (a pain, swelling or sleep score, a drain amount), a note, a photo, a date or time, a doctor visit, a name, or any text you typed. It doesn’t carry your time zone, language or location either.

Events come with a random ID that the app makes. It isn’t linked to you: there’s no name, email, phone number or account behind it. Delete everything throws that ID away.

On the App Store this is listed as “Data Not Linked to You”: Health, Identifiers, Usage Data and Diagnostics.

Like any message sent over the internet, an event reaches PostHog from your connection’s IP address. PostHog is set to discard it, so it isn’t stored or used to guess where you are. Events go to PostHog’s servers in the United States.

Sentry: crashes and slow screens

If Gently crashes or runs slowly, Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.) gets a report: where in the code it happened, the name of the screen that was open (not what was on it), how long the app took to start, whether the session ended in a crash, the app’s version, your iPhone’s model and its iOS version. Speed is measured for about one in ten screen changes.

A report never includes a screenshot, the layout of your screen, a recording, anything you logged, or who you are. Sentry is set not to store IP addresses.

What we don’t do

We don’t use this data for advertising, we don’t sell or rent it, and we don’t give it to data brokers. Gently doesn’t track you across other companies’ apps or websites, so it never asks for Apple’s tracking permission. PostHog and Sentry handle the data for us, under contract, only to provide their service to us.

Turning it off

Turn off Settings › Share usage. Sending stops at once, and anything still waiting on your phone to be sent is cleared.

How long it’s kept

On your phone, until you delete it. Usage events are kept by PostHog for up to 12 months, and crash reports by Sentry for up to 90 days; then they’re deleted.

Deleting everything

Settings › Delete everything erases your answers, your record, your notes, your photos and your reminders from your phone. It can’t be undone. Deleting the app does the same. It also stops usage data and throws away the random ID.

Usage events already sent carry no name or account, so we can’t tell which ones are yours. They’re deleted on the schedule above. If you’d like us to try anyway, write to us.

Age

Gently is for people 18 and older, and setup asks you to confirm it. We don’t knowingly collect data from anyone younger.

Not medical advice

Gently is a tracker and a guide to what’s typical, from named sources you can open in Settings › Sources. It isn’t medical advice. It can’t examine you, and it can’t tell you if something is normal. Your surgeon’s instructions come first. In an emergency, call 911.

Gently isn’t a healthcare provider, and what you log in it isn’t covered by HIPAA. This policy is what applies to it.

This website and the links in the app

This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics, ads or third-party scripts. Its fonts are served from this site. It is served by Cloudflare, which handles each visit’s IP address and request details to deliver the site and keep it secure, and may keep them in short-lived logs.

The sources in the app open in your browser. Those websites have their own privacy policies.

Changes to this policy

If Gently starts collecting anything new, we’ll update this page and its date first, and the app will ask you again before sending it.

Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy

This section is our consumer health data privacy policy under Washington’s My Health My Data Act. We follow it wherever you live.

What we collect, and why

We collect consumer health data only if you say yes to usage data. It is:

your procedure, your stage and your recovery week, carried by each usage event
which health features you use (check-ins, drain logs, photos, your report, your guide, the help sheet, doctor visits), and whether you have one drain or two
the name of the screen that was open when the app crashed or slowed down
the fact that you use an app for recovery after cosmetic surgery

We use it to see which parts of Gently help at each point of a recovery, and to fix what crashes or is hard to use. Nothing you log in the app (your values, notes, photos, dates or visits) is collected; it stays on your phone.

Where it comes from

From the Gently app on your iPhone, and only after you say yes.

Who it’s shared with

We don’t sell consumer health data and we don’t share it with third parties. PostHog and Sentry process it on our behalf, under contracts that limit them to providing their service to us. Gently never uses your location.

Your rights

Withdraw your consent: turn off Settings › Share usage. Sending stops at once.
Delete: Settings › Delete everything erases what’s on your phone and the random ID. To ask us to delete data we hold, write to us.
Know and see: write to us to ask whether we hold your consumer health data, and for a copy and a list of who received it.

We answer within 45 days. Because the data isn’t tied to a name, email or account, we may not be able to find the events from your phone. If so, we’ll tell you, and they’re deleted on the schedule above.

If we turn down your request, you can appeal: reply with “Appeal” in the subject line, and we’ll answer within 45 days. If we still say no, you can file a complaint with the Washington State Attorney General.

Who we are

Gently is made by Samet Birlik.

Questions about privacy, or a request: [email protected].