Grove privacy policy

Effective 27 October 2026. Grove is made by MTWABP In.

What Grove keeps on your phone

To work, Grove saves these in its own storage on your phone:

• Your habits, including any you have archived: their names, plants, schedules, goals and reminder times.
• Their history: the days you did them and how much, urges you resisted, slips, the days a habit was paused, and when each change happened.
• Notes you write: what set off an urge or a slip, and the reason for a pause, if you give one.
• Your tasks: their names, notes, steps, lists, days, times and reminders, the tasks you have finished, and how many you have finished in all.
• The notes you keep on the Notes page: their titles, words and lists.
• Your achievements, and what you have found in your valley.
• Your settings, such as sounds, reminders, your language, and your place for the sky.

Your week, the look back at each week, is worked out on your phone from this history.

Grove does not send any of this anywhere. The app does not even have permission to use the internet.

Your place

• Grove uses a place to show the sun and the moon where they really are, to pick your seasons, and to show money saved in that country's currency. Giving one is optional.
• You choose a city from a list built into the app, or type coordinates. If you skip it, Grove guesses from your phone's time zone.
• Grove does not have permission to read your location, and never knows where your phone is.
• The place you choose is stored and used on your phone only.

Motion sensors

In zen mode, the valley tilts a little as you move your phone. While zen mode is open, Grove reads your phone's motion sensors (the gyroscope, or the accelerometer on a phone without one) to do this. Each reading is used at once, on your phone, and is never kept or sent anywhere. Android needs no permission for this. To turn it off, go to Settings, Zen mode, Tilt the valley; then Grove does not read the sensors at all.

Notifications

Reminders, for habits and for tasks, are planned on your phone and come from your phone. They only come if you turn them on. If automatic backups stop working for a few days, Grove tells you once, with a quiet notification.

If you turn on Keep quit habits private in Settings, notifications and home-screen widgets don't show the names of the habits you are letting go of.

Locking a habit

You can lock a habit to keep it to yourself. Grove, its widgets and its notifications then call it "Private habit" until you unlock it. To unlock it, Grove asks Android to check your fingerprint, face or screen lock. Android does the check and tells Grove only whether it passed: Grove never sees your fingerprint, your face or your screen lock, and keeps nothing of them. Which habits are locked is kept on your phone and left out of backups; a locked habit's real name is still in them.

Backups

• When you choose Backup in Grove, it makes a file with your habits, their history, your tasks, your notes and your settings. You decide where the file goes: a folder on your phone, or another app you pick. Keep it somewhere private.
• When you choose Export notes, Grove makes a file with your notes, and you decide where it goes, as with a backup. Import notes reads a file you pick.
• If you turn on automatic backups, Grove saves a backup file now and then in a folder you choose, on your phone. It deletes only its own older automatic backups there. Android lets Grove use only that one folder. If a cloud app syncs that folder, it uploads the files as it does any file there; Grove itself sends nothing.
• If your phone's own backup is turned on, Android can include Grove's habits, tasks, notes and settings in your device backup to your Google account. Google handles that backup under its own privacy policy. You can turn it off in your phone's settings.

Sharing

Grove can make a picture of your progress or your valley. It leaves your phone only if you choose to share it, through your phone's share menu, to an app you pick. A picture of your progress has a QR code in its corner with the link to Grove on Google Play, so whoever sees it can find the app. The code is made on your phone and holds nothing but that link.

Wallpapers and colours

In zen mode, Grove can make a picture of your valley for your wallpaper. It is made on your phone. If you set it as your wallpaper, Grove hands it to your phone's own wallpaper screen, or to an app you pick, which sets it; Grove cannot change your wallpaper by itself. You can also save it to your photos.

If you choose your device's colours for Grove, Grove asks Android for the colours it takes from your wallpaper. It never sees the wallpaper itself, and keeps nothing but your choice.

Links

Settings has three links: Grove's page on Google Play, Grove's user guide, on this website, and Grove's Discord. A web address you write in a note can be opened too, with the Open button under it. When you open a link, the Play Store, your browser or the Discord app opens it. Grove itself still never goes online, and sends nothing with the link. What you do there is covered by those sites' own policies.

Permissions

• Notifications (optional): for reminders of habits and tasks, milestones, and the notice if automatic backups stop.
• Run at startup: to plan reminders, widget updates and automatic backups again after your phone restarts.
• Keep the screen on (optional): in zen mode, if you ask for it.
• Fingerprint, face or screen lock (optional): to unlock a habit you have locked. Android checks it and tells Grove only whether it passed.
• Storage, only on Android 10 and older: to save pictures to your gallery.

Children

Grove is meant for adults and is not directed at children. It collects no data from anyone.

Deleting your data

You can delete any habit, task or note in Grove. An archived habit keeps its history until you delete it from Settings, Valley and calendar, and a finished task stays in the Done list until you delete it or clear the list. To remove everything, uninstall Grove or clear its storage in your phone's settings. Backup files are yours to delete, automatic ones too: they stay in their folder after Grove is uninstalled.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be on this page with a new date. Grove will never start collecting data without saying so here first.

Contact

Questions? Write to mtwabpin@gmail.com.