brief

Privacy

Updated October 28, 2026

Automatic AI choices and local allowance

Automatic screenshot, text and voice processing and automatic Home summaries are off until you separately enable them. Your choices and daily/monthly automatic request allowance are stored for your Brief account on this device, separately from your account credit balance. The allowance counts attempted work, including failed or interrupted requests; manual requests use your account credits outside this automatic allowance. Brief keeps recent automatic results, including any prepared transcript, on this device to avoid processing unchanged captures again. Up to 30 results are cached; results older than seven days are removed when automatic work is read. Content-free request fingerprints and allowance counters are retained to prevent repeated automatic spending. Signing out, changing accounts or withdrawing AI permission turns off automatic capture and Home choices and clears cached automatic results while retaining those counters and fingerprints. Your saved notes and recordings remain available.

Age range checks

Where supported by your installed version and required by Apple, Brief asks Apple for the applicable age range and access requirements on your device. Brief does not save your age range, date of birth or guardian metadata, or send that information to its servers. Apple handles Apple Account age verification under its own policies. The app’s store content rating is separate from these regional checks.

AI content safety and reports

Brief checks generated notes, summaries, answers and drafts for unsafe content using the same selected AI provider before displaying or saving the result. The safety check uses the generated text and the same privacy settings, with no additional AI provider. It can add latency; managed requests retain their stated Brief credit cost. If the check cannot complete or flags a result, Brief keeps your originals and withholds the generated result. Automated checks can make mistakes. To report a concern, email support@withbrief.app or choose Email support in Privacy & support. Where available in your installed version, you can also choose Report AI content beside an answer, suggestion, summary or draft, or in Privacy & support. That report form starts on your device: you choose a reason, may add details, and separately choose whether to include an editable excerpt of the displayed text. Brief does not automatically attach source notes, account identifiers, screenshots or recordings. You can review the complete report before opening your email app; it is sent only when you send that email. Your email address, the text you keep in the email and any attachments you add reach Brief support through its Namecheap email service. Support uses that information to investigate and respond under its email retention policy.

Markdown and Obsidian exports

Markdown formatting and preview run on your device. Preview does not load images, embeds, or HTML; external links open only when you tap them. You can copy or export a selected note as a Markdown file, or hand it to Obsidian on the same device. Original text and transcripts are excluded unless you choose to include them, and recordings, screenshots, and notification identifiers are excluded from Markdown exports. Optional properties include the title, Brief note ID, category, completion state, creation time, and saved event and reminder dates. You can omit properties and the link back to Brief. The Obsidian vault name and folder are kept in local app storage. Brief does not read your vault or send these exports through its backend or AI services. Native file sharing creates a temporary cache copy and attempts to remove it after the share sheet closes, including failed sharing; interruption may leave it until the device clears its cache. Copies you save or send are independent and follow the destination’s storage and sync settings. Editing or deleting a note in Brief does not update or remove those copies, and task completion and reminders do not sync.

AI plans and purchases

Optional Brief Pro purchases are processed by Apple or Google and RevenueCat. RevenueCat receives your stable Brief account identifier and store purchase records to verify access and restore subscriptions. Brief does not receive payment card details. Its backend checks RevenueCat before admitting managed AI and stores per-account credit counters in Upstash. AI request identifiers, with no note content, expire after 24 hours to prevent repeat dispatch. Free credits are one-time; Pro credits reset monthly. Deleting your account immediately removes Brief’s account, shared notes, workspace credentials, and per-account credit counters from its active database. Deleted or expired records may remain in provider backups until the provider’s backup retention expires. RevenueCat customer deletion is attempted immediately. If RevenueCat is unavailable, Brief keeps only a random customer identifier and the deletion-request time in a retry queue until cleanup succeeds. The daily cleanup job normally completes this within 24 hours; a provider outage or permission error may delay it, and support can investigate. This does not cancel your app store subscription; cancel it in store settings first if desired. Store records may be retained under the store’s own policies.

Free AI credits and abuse prevention

Creating an account does not automatically grant AI credits. A supported iPhone or iPad can claim 10 one-time free credits after Apple DeviceCheck verifies eligibility. Brief sends an ephemeral DeviceCheck token to its server, which queries and marks a reserved Apple-managed device state. Apple stores that fraud-prevention state for the developer team, and it can remain after app reinstallation or account deletion. Brief does not save the raw token or a permanent device identifier, and the marker is not used for advertising. A new account cannot renew a used device’s trial. Account credits and paid access remain associated with your Brief account. If a second-hand device has already claimed credits or verification failed, contact support@withbrief.app for help. Signup and claim throttles use short-lived one-way IP/account identifiers. The ordinary service-budget and upload-byte counters expire within 48 hours. Notes and reminders remain available without a trial or Pro.

Optional usage reporting

Optional usage reporting helps us understand how Brief is used. If you allow it, requests from this device contribute monthly counts of account signups, active accounts, AI requests, credit units and blocked requests. While you are signed in and Brief is in the foreground, it also sends a brief check-in about every 20 seconds so the private owner dashboard can show how many opted-in accounts are currently using the app. The live count uses a one-way account marker, not your username. It stops counting after about 45 seconds without a check-in, and the temporary live marker expires from storage within two minutes after the last check-in. Brief stores these content-free monthly totals in Upstash for up to 400 days and a separate one-way account marker for up to 40 days to count monthly active accounts. Reports never include notes, recordings, prompts or API keys. This is separate from AI sharing. You can turn reporting off in Settings → Optional usage reporting at any time; new requests then stop contributing. Earlier monthly totals cannot be separated by person. Necessary account, billing and abuse-prevention records still operate. All features work with reporting off.

Personal keys from earlier versions

This version does not accept personal provider API keys. Saved keys from earlier versions are removed when Brief checks AI settings or access and are never sent by this version. If personal-key mode was selected, Brief asks before switching to credit-based AI. Removing a saved key does not revoke it at its provider; use the provider’s account controls to revoke it. Older versions may still support personal-key requests where enabled. In those versions, a selected key passes through Brief’s HTTPS backend to OpenAI or Anthropic only for the request and is not saved on Brief’s servers. The provider account’s billing, retention and data-sharing settings apply. OpenAI API abuse-monitoring logs can ordinarily last up to 30 days, and Anthropic ordinarily deletes API inputs and outputs within 30 days, subject to policy, legal and agreement exceptions. Brief does not change those provider settings.

Your notes and recordings

Brief stores your notes, reminders, screenshots, and original voice recordings in local app storage. An optional Brief account lets you share selected note copies to the cloud and download notes created through a connected AI app. This is not a full backup of your device’s notes or media. Your device’s backup settings may include app data. Reminders are scheduled on your device; they do not require sending note content to a push notification service.

Brief accounts and cloud sharing

If you create a Brief account, its username, salted password hash, recovery-key hash, selected note copies, active connection permissions, and recent security activity are stored in Brief’s Upstash database. Brief never stores your account password in plain text. Your account recovery key is shown after signup or password reset and stays in protected device storage until you confirm you saved it. Account sessions also use protected device storage. Shared copies include a note’s title, category, summary, next step, completion state, and reminder time; original source text, recordings, screenshots, and device notification identifiers are excluded. Shared copies remain until you remove them, turn off cloud sharing, or delete your account. Edits to a local note do not update its cloud copy until you choose Update shared copy. This service is not end-to-end encrypted; Brief and its hosting providers process the shared content.

App Review account activity

For the dedicated Brief account supplied to Apple App Review, Brief records successful device sign-ins, the time of the last authenticated backend contact, sign-outs, and whether a session is still valid. Only the owner can see these records in the private admin dashboard. Backend contacts are recorded at most once every five minutes, with at most 40 recent sessions kept for up to 40 days after their last update. The records do not contain notes, prompts, recordings, IP addresses, or raw session tokens. Brief deletes these records if that account is deleted or the owner stops tracking it. This view does not identify the person using the account or show use that stays on the device.

ChatGPT and Claude connectors

You can add Brief as a custom connector inside ChatGPT or Claude and approve access in Brief using a short-lived connection code. Depending on the permissions you approve, the AI app can read your shared copies and create new notes or reminders. Connecting does not import your other conversations. New connector notes download when Brief opens or you refresh shared notes. Device reminders are scheduled after that download; Brief does not send server push alerts for these notes. A missed reminder is saved as a note without an invented new alert. Remove a connection in Brief to block future access. Content already received by an AI app follows that service’s retention terms and cannot be recalled by Brief. Sign out ends this device’s account session; existing AI connections remain active until you revoke them.

AI is optional

Before AI sharing starts, Brief asks for your permission. If you allow it, captures and saved note titles, summaries, next steps, and reminder times are sent through Brief’s backend and Vercel AI Gateway to the selected AI model: OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), or Google (Gemini). Voice recordings are sent to OpenAI for transcription. AI Gateway may use its hosting partners to serve the selected model. Your date, device time zone, and the content needed for the request are also sent. Your Default reminder time setting is sent only with organize requests to choose alerts for events captured without a time. Saved notes are summarized automatically only if you separately enable Home summaries and the automatic spending allowance permits it. Sharing permission alone does not enable automatic processing. You can save, edit, and schedule notes without using AI.

Ask Brief

When you choose Ask Brief, your question and text from a bounded selection of saved notes are sent through Brief and Vercel AI Gateway to your chosen provider. This includes titles, summaries, next steps, completion state and saved reminder times, plus the device’s current date and time zone to interpret questions about today. Original text and voice transcript excerpts are excluded unless you turn on Include original text and voice transcripts for that question. Recordings, screenshots, and calendar caches are not sent by Ask Brief. Answers show supporting quotes and links to the selected notes; matching a quote does not guarantee the AI’s interpretation is correct. Questions and answers are kept only in the current screen’s memory, not saved as chat history. Provider-held service records follow the retention terms described below. Declining AI sharing keeps this feature off.

Temporary uploads

AI screenshots and recordings are temporarily uploaded to private Vercel storage. Brief’s backend attempts to delete each uploaded copy after processing, including failed AI requests. Abandoned uploads and failed deletions become eligible for cleanup after one hour and are removed on the next daily cleanup run. A cleanup failure may extend retention. Your local original is kept. Deleting this temporary copy does not delete records retained by Vercel, an AI provider, or a hosting partner under their service terms.

Support messages

If you email support@withbrief.app, Namecheap hosts the mailbox and processes your email address, message, attachments, and mail-delivery metadata. Send only the information needed for help; never send passwords, recovery keys, or API keys. Resolved conversations are kept for 90 days after resolution, then manually deleted from the live mailbox, including Trash and related sent copies. Unresolved issues and records needed for billing, security or legal obligations may be kept longer while needed. Namecheap does not automatically enforce this schedule. Deleted mail may remain in provider backups for up to four additional weeks. Deleting a Brief account does not automatically delete support mail; contact support to request removal. Copies in your own mailbox or other recipients’ mailboxes follow their settings.

Service records and retention

Brief-managed text and image AI requests ask Vercel AI Gateway to route only through providers covered by its zero-data-retention and no-prompt-training policies, and disable reusable response storage. Voice transcription is a separate exception: OpenAI Whisper requests use Gateway’s no-prompt-training filter without its zero-data-retention filter, which Gateway does not support for this model. OpenAI’s applicable transcription retention policies apply; Brief does not promise zero retention for voice requests. Brief asks you to review the updated AI sharing notice before this voice exception is available. If the required filters leave no eligible route, the request fails without retrying under weaker settings. These controls do not promise that every service record disappears immediately: provider safety or legal exceptions, transient processing caches, and content-free billing and request metadata can remain. Vercel says Gateway does not retain prompts or outputs and keeps detailed routing logs for 30 days; older request summaries may remain. Brief uses Upstash to keep temporary request counts linked to a one-way identifier derived from private beta access. AI counters expire within 24 hours. Connector sign-in and request counters expire within an hour, with signup and registration counters retained for up to 24 hours. Recent account activity is bounded to 50 entries. Device sessions expire after 30 days; connector access tokens expire after 30 minutes and refresh credentials expire after 30 days. Connection codes expire within 10 minutes, and automatically registered client records expire after 90 days. Removing an account immediately makes its remaining credentials unusable; hashed credential records disappear when their expiry is reached. Hosting services may process network details such as an IP address. Brief does not include advertising, sell your notes, or use an advertising tracking SDK.

Sharing and connections

When you choose Share, your device lets you select the destination. Copy & open AI places the prompt on your clipboard; you choose whether to paste and submit it in the other app. Original source text is excluded by default. Sending a note to the device’s Calendar opens a system review screen. Optional account connections use the service’s own sign-in and permission flow. Brief does not import personal AI conversation history or use a personal AI subscription for its own AI requests. Choosing a model in Settings does not link that provider account. Device account sessions, Google profile details, and beta access are kept in protected device storage.

Google Calendar data

Connecting Google Calendar is optional. Brief uses Google Sign-In only for this connection, not to sign in to Brief. Google shares the connected account’s name, email address, and account ID; Brief keeps them in protected storage on this device to show which account is connected. Brief requests read-only access to your calendar list (calendar names and your access level) and to events (title, description, location, start and end time, status, event link, and Google Meet link). It cannot create, change, or delete Google events. You choose up to six calendars. Brief uses this data only for features you see in the app: calendar and agenda views that combine your reminders with selected events, today’s meetings in Morning Brief when you turn that on, matching meetings with related saved notes, and calendar-aware reminder suggestions. Matching and suggestions run on your device. Brief stores a seven-day agenda, your calendar selection, and up to three viewed month grids in local app storage. Google Sign-In manages access tokens on this device; Brief’s servers never receive your Google tokens and do not keep a copy of your calendar. Month caches are tied to your account, selection, and device time zone; opening or returning to a month reuses data for up to five minutes, and pull to refresh forces an update. Unvisited months may have no Google data offline, and changing calendar selection clears month caches. The agenda refreshes when you open it, or when you open, refresh, or return to Morning Brief with meetings enabled. A failed refresh keeps the last complete agenda.

How Brief protects Google Calendar data

Brief requests Calendar data directly from Google over HTTPS, which encrypts the data in transit. Google Sign-In manages OAuth access tokens on your device. Brief keeps the connected Google profile in operating-system protected storage: the iOS Keychain or Android Keystore-backed storage. Calendar selections and event caches are kept in Brief’s app-private storage on the device and associated with the connected Google account. Brief’s backend does not receive your Google OAuth tokens or a copy of your calendar. If you separately allow AI sharing and turn on meeting prep or follow-up drafts, only the selected meeting’s title, start and end time, and location travel over HTTPS through Brief’s backend to the selected AI provider, as described below; Brief does not send the meeting description or join link in that flow. A successful Google disconnect revokes Brief’s access and removes its local connected profile and calendar caches. Saved meeting notes are separate copies that remain until you delete them.

Google data sharing and Limited Use

Google Calendar data is not sent to Brief’s AI or cloud services, and Morning Brief’s AI summary does not include calendar events, with one exception: if you allow AI sharing and turn on meeting prep or follow-up drafts in Profile → Automations, then while Brief is open those features send a selected meeting’s title, start and end time, and location (never its description or join links) through Brief’s backend and Vercel AI Gateway to your selected AI model from OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), or Google (Gemini), to prepare the work shown in Brief. If you save a meeting, Brief creates an ordinary note with its title, time, location, and description, plus a local reminder for a future timed event. That note then follows your choices for AI use, cloud sharing, and exports; repeated saves keep the same note, and later Google changes do not modify it. Brief does not sell Google user data, use it for advertising, or transfer it to anyone except as described here, to protect against abuse, or to comply with law. Brief does not use Google user data to develop, improve, or train generalized AI or machine-learning models. People at Brief do not read your Google data unless you ask for help with specific content, it is needed for security, or the law requires it. A successful Google disconnect in Brief revokes Brief’s access and removes the connected profile, cached agenda, and month grids; connecting a different Google account also clears the old caches. Saved notes remain until you delete them. You can also remove Brief’s access in your Google Account at myaccount.google.com/connections. Brief’s use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Apple Calendar on iPhone and iPad

Apple Calendar is optional and uses your device’s full calendar permission to read events from up to six calendars you choose. Brief does not edit or delete those events. Selected calendars, the Morning Brief display choice, and up to three viewed month grids are stored locally, with five-minute cache reuse and explicit refresh. Cached events can include a title, time, calendar name, location, description, and event link. Meeting-to-note matching happens locally. Calendar caches are not sent to Brief’s AI or cloud service unless you turn on AI meeting prep or follow-up drafts, which send a selected meeting’s title, start and end time, and location as described under Opt-in automations. Saving a meeting creates an ordinary local Brief note; that copy follows your choices for AI use, cloud sharing, and export. Disconnect removes Brief’s selection and caches while keeping saved notes. Revoke the system permission in your device’s Settings to block future calendar access; Brief purges its cached data when it next detects revocation. Calendars already connected through Google may appear twice if selected through both connections.

Reminders and notification actions

You can complete, snooze for 15 minutes, or reschedule a reminder from Brief or its notification. Notification actions open Brief and may require unlocking your device. Repeating reminders retain one current occurrence: completing advances to the next future date in the series’ original time zone, and snoozing affects only the current occurrence. Completing a one-off reminder cancels its pending alert. Rescheduling can change or remove a repeat schedule. Notification previews follow your saved privacy setting. No reminder actions or repeat schedules are automatically sent to an external calendar or workspace.

Linear and Notion exports

When configured, you can authorize Linear or Notion through a Brief account. Brief stores the connected workspace name and encrypted provider access and refresh credentials in its Upstash database. The encryption key is held on Brief’s server; this is not end-to-end encryption. Brief reads available teams or pages and sends only the text you review when creating an issue or page. Original text requires an explicit choice; screenshots and recordings are excluded. The reviewed text passes through Brief’s backend to the chosen provider. Export receipts retain a fingerprint and the created item’s ID, title, and URL, rather than its body. Server receipts are bounded to 500 and entries older than seven days are removed when another export is submitted. Account-scoped receipts also remain in local app storage to prevent duplicate retries. Browser connection tickets expire after two minutes and authorization state after ten minutes. Disconnecting removes the saved credentials after provider revocation succeeds. Password recovery removes saved workspace connections. Deleting a Brief account removes its server credentials and receipts and blocks further Brief access; revocation is attempted even if the provider is unreachable. Items already exported remain in that workspace under its retention terms until removed there.

Your choices and deletion

Withdraw AI permission in Settings → AI sharing to stop future AI requests; Brief also cancels active requests from this device where possible. Cancellation cannot recall content already received by a service. To delete a note, open it and choose Delete note; its saved attachment and scheduled reminder are removed from Brief. Copies you exported, device backups, and provider-held records are outside that deletion. Delete your Brief cloud account in Profile → Account → Delete account, or remove selected cloud copies in AI connector. Manage subscription is also in Account; account deletion does not cancel store billing. Account deletion removes the cloud account and shared notes and blocks its existing AI and workspace connections; notes on this device remain. Local deletion alone does not remove a previously shared cloud copy. Remove beta access in Settings, disconnect any optional accounts in Connections, and contact support for questions about service-held data or deletion requests. You can hide note details in notifications and keep reminder titles hidden in lock screen widgets.

Permissions

Photos are chosen using the system picker. Brief asks for microphone access when you start recording and visibly shows recording status; recording stops when the app goes into the background. Notification permission is requested when you schedule an alert. Apple Calendar requests full calendar access only when you choose to connect it. You can change these permissions in your device’s Settings. Brief does not require location or contact access.

Opt-in automations

Meeting prep, follow-up drafts, and capture workflow rules are off until enabled in Profile → Automations. While Brief is open, enabled flows can send relevant saved titles, summaries and next steps plus selected meeting titles, times and locations or rule directions through the existing AI service. Original text and transcript excerpts require a separate choice; recordings, screenshots, meeting descriptions and join links are excluded. These meeting and workflow flows prepare up to three automatic generations per UTC day, additionally bounded by your shared automatic spending allowance, counting attempts even if a request fails. Each generation uses one managed AI credit from your Brief AI allowance. Manual retries can use additional credits. Rules prepare Linear or Notion text drafts and do not send them automatically. Generated work and edited drafts use account-scoped storage on this device, capped at 30 records. They expire after seven days and are removed on the next storage read. Turning off a flow removes its prepared work; withdrawing AI permission clears prepared work and turns off AI automations for all local account scopes. Source notes stay as saved. Calendar-aware reminder suggestions are calculated locally from selected calendars and weekday working hours. Calendar availability must be freshly confirmed before approval. Moving a reminder or saving a proposed follow-up commitment requires an explicit review action. Repeating reminders keep their schedule. These automations do not promise background AI generation when Brief is closed.

AI capture suggestions and review

AI may make mistakes. Screenshot, text and voice processing are separate opt-ins; they prepare editable suggestions rather than automatically saving or scheduling them. Review and choose Save to commit notes and reminders. Exact relative dates such as in six weeks are interpreted from the capture’s local reference date; a dated event without a clock uses your chosen default reminder time. Recordings and other originals can be saved without AI. Always check names, dates, times and next steps. Organized voice thoughts without a date or time remain notes without an automatic alert.

Service privacy information

Contact Brief

For help or a service data deletion request, email support@withbrief.app.