Privacy Policy

Throwback: Old Phone Camera · last updated 20 October 2026

The short version

The app collects no data about you. There's no account, no ads, no analytics and no tracking, and the app has no servers. Your photos and videos stay on your phone, and in your own iCloud if you use iCloud Photos or iCloud Backup, unless you share them.

What the app asks for, and why

• Camera: to take photos and videos. Every picture is developed on your phone.
• Microphone: only while the camera is in video mode, to record your videos' sound (slow motion and time-lapse are silent). Without it, videos are silent.
• Photos (add only): to save what you take to your photo library. The app can't see the rest of your library.
• Location (while using the app, optional): to tag photos and videos with where they were taken, as phones did from 2008. The app asks the first time you shoot with one of those phones on the classic camera screens. That first shot isn't tagged. The 2007 phone and Expert mode never tag.

What is kept on your phone

• The roll: every photo and video is also kept inside the app, with a small note of which phone look it used, front or back camera, the kind of shot and, if tagged, where it was taken. Your albums, favourites, hidden items and edits are kept there too. An edited photo keeps its original so you can revert.
• What the roll works out by itself: with a phone from 2016 or later, the roll recognises what's in your photos (like "beach" or "dog") for search, and finds faces to group photos of the same person under People. For that it keeps a numeric summary of each face. This is done on your phone by Apple's built-in image analysis. It is never sent anywhere and is used for nothing else.
• Your settings: the phone you picked, Creative or Technical, and the other switches, plus whether you're subscribed, so the app opens offline.
• The free-photo counter: how many of your 4 free photos or videos you've used, and whether the subscription screen has appeared. It's kept in your phone's Keychain, which iOS keeps after an app is deleted, so reinstalling doesn't restart the free photos. It holds only those two numbers.

What leaves your phone

Only these, and only to Apple:

• Place names: for tagged photos, the roll sends the location, rounded to about a kilometre, to Apple's map service to get the town's name for Places, Memories and search.
• The Places map is drawn by Apple Maps.
• Purchases go through the App Store. The app only asks the App Store whether your subscription is active. We never see your payment details or your Apple Account.

Apple handles this under Apple's Privacy Policy. No other company gets anything: the app contains no third-party code.

Things you do yourself

• Sharing or copying a photo sends it where you choose, with its location tag if it has one.
• QR codes (phones from 2017): tapping a code's web address opens it in your browser.
• iCloud Photos: copies saved to your photo library sync to your iCloud if you've turned iCloud Photos on. That's Apple's service; we never see it.
• Backups: like any app's files, the roll is part of your iPhone backups (iCloud Backup or your computer), if you use them.
• Emailing us: if you write to throwback.help@icloud.com, we get your email address and what you send. We use it only to answer you, never share it, and delete it when it's no longer needed to help you, or sooner if you ask.

Changing your mind

Turn any permission off at any time in Settings › Throwback. Without Location, new photos aren't tagged. Without Photos, new pictures are kept only in the app's roll, which comes with All Phones. Photos already in your library keep their location tag; you can change it in the Photos app.

How long things are kept, and deleting them

• The app sends us nothing, so we keep nothing from it.
• On your phone, everything stays until you delete it. With the phones up to 2013, deleting in the roll removes an item at once. From the 2014 phone on, it goes to Recently Deleted first and is removed for good after 30 days (the next time you open the roll), or straight away if you delete it there.
• When a photo is removed for good, its content labels and face summary are removed too, and so is its place name unless another photo was taken there.
• Deleting in the roll leaves the copy in your photo library. Delete that in the Photos app.
• Without an active subscription the roll can't be opened, so the way to delete what's in it is to delete the app.
• Deleting the app deletes the roll, everything the roll worked out (place names, labels, face summaries) and your settings. Only the free-photo counter stays, in the Keychain, until the phone is erased (it also comes back if you restore the phone from a backup).

Subscription

Your first 4 photos or videos are free. After that, "All Phones" costs $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year in the US; the app shows the price in your country. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm. It renews automatically at the same price unless you turn it off at least 24 hours before the end of the current month or year. Cancel or change plan in Settings › your name › Subscriptions › Throwback, or with Manage Subscription in the app's phone list. Restore Purchases is in the phone list and on the subscription screen. Terms of Use.

Children

The app collects no data from anyone, including children.

Changes

If the app ever handles data differently, this page and its date will change first.

Contact

Questions about privacy: throwback.help@icloud.com.