Is Roamwell private? What stays on your devices, in plain words

A travel app sees a lot: your photos, where you’ve been, and who you went with. Here is what Roamwell does with all of it. The legal version is our privacy policy.

Your photos stay on your devices

Roamwell reads photos from your trip’s dates on your device to suggest each day’s card. Your photos stay in your library. Roamwell doesn’t upload your photo library to its servers, and a day’s card keeps only a pointer to each photo in your library.

Board images are the exception. After you Sign in and add your trips and Boards to your account, an image you save to a Board, such as a card’s picture, is stored with your account so the Board can show it on the web and your other devices. It is only the image you saved to the Board, not your photo library.

A card is made from evidence you can edit

Roamwell doesn’t guess where you went, and it doesn’t invent a story. A card is made from photos from the trip’s dates and stops Roamwell noticed that you kept. You choose which photos and places go on it, and you can rewrite every word.

Location is only on during a trip

If you allow Location, Roamwell notices the places you stop, and only while a trip is live. It stops when you tap End trip. There’s no GPS trail of your whole day, and nothing runs between trips. Saving to a Board never turns on Location.

To show place names, Roamwell asks Apple Maps to turn coordinates into names. Your photos and your writing are never sent. It’s on by default; turn off Look up place names in Settings under Places. Around Me on Trips opens Apple Maps directly, and Apple handles that search.

Nothing is shared unless you share it

There’s no feed, no followers, no public profile, and no ads. A card or a Board leaves your phone only when you send it to someone yourself.

Signing in, and what it’s for

You can use Roamwell without an account. Until you sign in, trips and boards stay on this iPhone. When you first sign in, Roamwell keeps an account ID and the email you sign in with, then asks Add these trips and boards to this account? Cancel leaves your trips and boards only on this device; they don’t upload until you confirm. Once you add them:

• Your Boards and Plan are saved to your Roamwell account, so they stay available across your devices.
• Days and the cards on a trip’s Board (check-ins, the places you stopped, which photos belong to each day) sync between your own iPhone and iPad through your private iCloud on the same Apple ID. They are not stored on Roamwell’s servers.
• Photos on Days and trip cards stay in your library. Their bytes never sync through iCloud records or Roamwell servers. Only references (time, place tag, and the photo’s identifier) sync, so your other device can find the photo in iCloud Photos.

If you sign out, Days and trip cards stop syncing. What’s already on this device stays here.

Help with the words is off until you turn it on

Writing intelligence in Settings is Off by default:

Off

You write everything yourself.

On this device

Suggestions come from Apple Intelligence on your iPhone or iPad, where available. Nothing leaves your device.

Cloud

Roamwell sends the day’s text (titles, place names, times, and captions) to its writing service to suggest lines. Text only, never photos or video.

Live Debrief, if you use it on a card, sends your voice, the card’s text, and short descriptions of its photos and their places to Gemini for the conversation. Never the photos. The card changes only when you apply the draft. While Roamwell is in testing, Live Debrief runs on Google’s free tier, and Google may use those conversations to improve its models. Use it only with trip details you’re comfortable sharing with Google.

Diagnostics are optional

Diagnostics is Off by default. If you turn it on, Roamwell sends crash and performance reports with the app version and a random install identifier. Reports never include photos, coordinates, place names, Plan details, or your writing. They are kept up to 90 days and never linked to your account.

What Roamwell doesn’t do

• No ads, no behavioral tracking, no third-party analytics.
• No social feed, public profiles, or followers.
• No upload of your photo library to Roamwell servers.
• No Apple Health or Fitness data. Roamwell doesn’t ask for it.
• We don’t sell or rent personal information.

Questions? Write to info@roamwellapp.com. The legal details are in our privacy policy.