GardenerPro privacy policy

Last updated: November 3, 2026

GardenerPro is a gardening planner that works on your phone. It has no ads, no analytics and no tracking. An account is optional: only if you choose to sign in is a copy of your garden kept in your own account, to back it up and sync it between your phones.

What stays on your phone

Everything you enter — beds, plants, tasks, harvests, seed packets, expenses, goals, custom varieties, your garden map, pest sightings, treatment records, seed trays, soil tests, compost piles, larder, supplies, variety ratings, wishlist, your crop notes and prices, checklist ticks, journal notes (with the day's weather, if you had a forecast) and journal photos — is stored in the app's private storage on your device. Unless you turn on account sync (below), it stays there, and we (the developer) never receive it. Uninstalling the app deletes the copy on the phone.

Once a day the app also keeps an automatic snapshot of your garden in the same private storage, so you can roll back if something goes wrong. The last 7 are kept and the oldest deleted. Snapshots never leave the phone, aren't included in Android's cloud backup, and are removed when you uninstall.

Backups are files you create yourself and save wherever you choose. Backups include your notes but not journal photos. You can lock a backup with a password: the file is then encrypted on your phone (scrypt key derivation and XChaCha20-Poly1305) and can't be read without the password. The password is never stored or sent anywhere, so it can't be recovered if you forget it.

App lock

If you turn on app lock, GardenerPro asks for your phone's own fingerprint, face or screen-lock PIN when it opens. The check is done by your phone's operating system; the app never sees or stores your fingerprint, face data or PIN.

Sun meter

The sun meter reads your phone's ambient light sensor only while that screen is open. Readings are shown, not stored or sent, and no permission is needed.

Printing

A printed or PDF garden plan is made on your phone and handed to the system print or share service; nothing is uploaded unless you choose where to send it.

Location

If you choose "Use my location", the app asks Android for your approximate location once. It is rounded to about 1 km (two decimal places) and saved on your phone to look up your weather, growing zone and frost dates. You can instead type a city or postal code. The app never requests precise or background location.

More than one garden

If you add a second garden (an allotment, say), its location and beds are stored on your phone like everything else. Weather is only requested for the garden you're looking at, using the same approximate location rules below.

Weather requests

To show weather and soil temperature, the app sends your rounded location to Open-Meteo (weather data licensed under CC BY 4.0). Requests contain no name, account or device identifier (paid builds add an app-wide subscription key that is the same for every user). If frost alerts are on, the phone repeats this forecast check a few times a day in the background, using the same rounded location. As with any internet request, Open-Meteo's servers can see your IP address; see their privacy policy for how they handle it. Place searches you type are sent to Open-Meteo's geocoding service.

Frost dates, frost odds and the zone estimate come from NOAA's U.S. Climate Normals (1991–2020), a table built into the app: looking them up happens on the phone and sends nothing. Recent daily highs and lows from the forecast are kept on the phone (about 13 months, for one rounded location) so season features work; "Erase all data" deletes them.

Photos

Journal photos are chosen through Android's system photo picker, which gives the app only the photos you pick — no access to your other photos and no camera or storage permission. Picked photos are copied into the app's private storage.

The pest, disease and crop photos are built into the app (openly licensed photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each page and in About). Viewing them makes no network request. Tapping a photo's license or source link opens that page in your browser.

Sharing a bed picture or season report creates the image or text on your phone and hands it to the share sheet; nothing is uploaded unless you choose where to send it. Shared bed images and Garden Wrapped cards never include your location.

"Send this layout" creates a small file holding only the bed's name, size, shape, sun and which crop (and how many plants) is in each square — no notes, dates, harvests, history or location. Bed files you open are treated as untrusted: they are size-limited, checked against the app's data rules and added as a new planned bed; they can never change your existing beds or settings.

Ask GardenerPro

Questions you type into Ask GardenerPro are answered on your phone from the app's built-in guides and your frost dates. They are not sent anywhere and are not saved.

The optional widget shows a short weather and task summary, stored in the app's private storage on your phone.

Account and sync (optional)

You can use GardenerPro without an account. If you choose Sign in with Google (Settings → Account & sync):

What is stored: your email address and Google account ID (to sign you in), and a copy of your garden — beds, plantings, tasks, harvests, notes and settings, including the rounded garden location you set. Journal photos are not uploaded; they stay on your phone.
Where: Google Firebase (Cloud Firestore and Firebase Authentication), in the United States. Encrypted in transit and at rest. Security rules let only your signed-in account read or change your copy, and the app checks with Google Play Integrity that requests come from the genuine app.
Why: to back up your garden and keep it the same on your phones. It is not used for advertising, analytics or anything else, and not sold or shared.
Pro: if you are signed in when Pro is bought or restored, the purchase is checked with Google Play by our server and recorded on your account (the purchase token only as a one-way hash, plus the Google Play order ID), so Pro works on all your phones and refunds are honored.
Keeping and deleting: the copy is kept until you delete it. Settings → Account & sync → Delete account and cloud copy deletes the account, the garden copy and the Pro record straight away (the garden on your phone is kept). Signing out stops syncing without deleting anything.

Deleting your account

In the app: Settings → Account & sync → Delete account and cloud copy. If you no longer have the app, email the support address below from the email address of your Google account and ask for deletion; it is done within 30 days and confirmed by email.

Pro purchase

GardenerPro is free to download; Pro is a one-time in-app purchase handled entirely by Google Play. GardenerPro never sees your card or payment details. To know whether Pro is unlocked, the app asks Google Play on the phone for your Pro purchase and checks Google's signature on the receipt; a copy of that receipt is kept on the phone so Pro works offline. Without an account, nothing about the purchase is sent to the developer; with an account, see "Account and sync" above. Google's own handling of payments is covered by the Google Play terms and Google's privacy policy.

Notifications

Reminders, frost alerts and the weekly digest are scheduled on the phone. No push server or notification token is used.

Children

GardenerPro does not knowingly collect any personal information from anyone, including children.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be published here with a new date.

Contact

Questions, and requests to delete an account: gardenerprosupport@gmail.com