Privacy Policy

Data stored on your device

Your preferences, saved artwork identifiers, and image cache are stored locally in the app’s sandbox container. The Mac app also stores the currently applied wallpaper file.

The direct-download Mac app also stores its license key in the macOS Keychain. Files you export, wallpapers you save, and images added to Photos remain in the locations you choose and can be deleted there.

Photos and notifications on iPhone and iPad

Art4 asks for add-only Photos permission when you choose to save an artwork for wallpaper. It adds only the image you selected and does not read your photo library. If you enable the optional daily artwork reminder, its time and notification are stored and scheduled on your device. Art4 does not receive your photos or notification activity.

Network access

Art4 downloads artwork images through our image delivery service, hosted on Cloudflare, and from museums and other public image providers. These services receive information needed to deliver the image, including the requested artwork and image size, your IP address, and app information such as the Mac app’s version. Art4 does not attach a user identifier or tracking token to image requests.

Cloudflare retains sampled image-request logs, including IP addresses, approximate country, requested images, and app version information, for service operation, security, and technical diagnostics. These logs retain the IP address alongside the request details and are not anonymous. Other hosting providers may retain connection logs under their own policies. This also applies when Cloudflare serves the Art4 website and software updates. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy. Other image hosts apply their own privacy policies.

Purchases and license verification

Purchases of the direct-download Mac app are processed by Polar. Polar processes the contact, billing, and payment information you provide at checkout. UNV Studio can access customer and order information, such as your email address, purchase, and license status, to provide access and handle purchase support. Payment card details are entered with the payment provider, not in the Art4 app.

When the direct-download app verifies a license, it sends the license key and our organization identifier to Polar over HTTPS. Polar also receives standard connection information such as your IP address. See Polar’s privacy policy for its processing and retention practices.

If you create a page for your member card from the direct-download app, share the card to X or Threads, or copy its link, the app sends the license key, your time zone, the app language, and what you chose to print on the card (a name, and one of your saved artworks with the part of it you framed, if any) to art4.app over HTTPS. The website checks the key with Polar, then stores in Cloudflare D1 a fingerprint that cannot be turned back into the key (the first 8 bytes of its SHA-256 hash, which also draws the card’s pattern), the purchase date, the language, the name, which artwork and which part of it is printed, and when the page was published and last changed, and keeps the drawn card images in Cloudflare R2. The key itself is not stored. The card, its purchase date, the name, and a detail of the artwork are then shown at art4.app/license/(card ID) and in its link preview. The page contains no email address or license key and asks search engines not to index it, but anyone with the link can view it, including the name you entered. Nothing is sent until you choose one of these options. Once a page exists, changing or clearing the name or the artwork in the app updates it.

The Mac App Store version does not use Polar license verification or require a license key. App Store purchases and payments are handled by Apple under Apple’s privacy policy.

Maps and external links

Where Art4 displays maps of places associated with artworks, it uses Apple Maps. These maps show artwork locations, not your current location. Apple processes requests for map content under its Maps privacy notice. If you open a museum, source, purchase, or sharing link, the destination website processes your visit under its own privacy policy.

Software updates

The direct-download Mac version checks updates.art4.app over HTTPS for software updates, by default about once every 24 hours. The server receives standard connection information such as your IP address, and the request identifies the Art4 and Sparkle versions. Art4 does not attach an account, advertising identifier, hardware profile, operating system profile, memory information, or language profile to these checks. You can turn off automatic checks in Art4 Settings under General and still check manually. The Mac App Store and iOS versions receive updates through Apple’s update service instead.

Anonymous usage data from the apps

The Art4 apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad count how their features are used so we can see what to improve. Each count names a moment in the app, such as the app launching, a wallpaper being set, an artwork being saved or unsaved, a tab being opened, or a guided look being finished, together with the app version, the platform, the distribution channel (direct download, App Store, or TestFlight), the operating system version, and the interface language. Our server adds the two-letter country that Cloudflare derives from the connection.

The Mac app sold on art4.app also counts three moments around its license: the end-of-trial screen appearing, the purchase page being opened from the app, and a license key being activated. Its launch count notes which stage the app was in, as one of five fixed values: the first day of the trial, days two to four, later in the trial, after the trial, or licensed. The license key, the purchase, and the date the trial began are never part of a count.

These counts are anonymous. They carry no account, no device or install identifier, and no cookie, and nothing links one report to the next. Your IP address is used only to determine the country when a report arrives and is not stored. The counts do not include which artwork you looked at, what you searched for, or anything you wrote. The events and values the apps can send are a fixed list, and the server rejects anything outside it.

Reports travel over HTTPS to art4.app and are stored in Cloudflare Workers Analytics Engine, where they are kept for about three months and read only in aggregate. Cloudflare processes the connection under its privacy policy, linked above.

Sharing is on by default and can be switched off at any time: on Mac under Settings › General › Privacy, and on iPhone and iPad under Settings › Privacy. Switching it off stops reporting immediately and discards anything not yet sent. Because the counts hold no identifier, we cannot find or delete the ones that came from your device.

Website analytics with Google Analytics

The art4.app website uses Google Analytics to understand which pages people visit and where visitors arrive from. Google receives standard information such as your IP address, browser, approximate location, and the pages you open, and stores cookies in your browser to recognize repeat visits (named starting with _ga, lasting up to two years). Art4 uses this only in aggregate and never links it to an account or to anything inside the apps.

Visitors from the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland are asked for consent before Google Analytics loads, and no analytics cookie is set until they agree. Elsewhere it is on by default. From any region, you can allow or decline it at any time with “Cookie settings” at the bottom of each page or the button below. Declining deletes the Google Analytics cookies and stops it from loading. Your choice is kept in your browser’s localStorage and is not sent to our servers. To tell which rule applies, the server uses the country Cloudflare derives from the connection and returns only the result; it does not store the country or your IP address.

You can also opt out with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on or by blocking cookies for this site. See Google’s privacy policy for how Google handles this data. This website analytics service is separate from the apps’ anonymous usage counts described above.

When you start a Mac download, art4.app also counts it in Cloudflare Workers Analytics Engine so Art4 knows how many people download each release. That count records the release version, the website you arrived from, a two-letter country code, whether your browser reports a Mac, iOS, or Windows device, and, only when the download starts from a page on art4.app, that page’s path (for example, /en/blog/article-name). This download count sets no cookie and records no IP address, full user agent, or user identifier. Hosting logs and Google Analytics are separate from this counter.

Early access waitlist

If you join the Art4 waitlist, Art4 stores the email address you submit, your display language, the location of the signup button, and the signup time in Cloudflare D1. This information is used only to send Art4 early access information. It is not used for a newsletter, advertising, or tracking, and it is not sold or shared with other companies for their own use.

The waitlist database does not store your IP address, user agent, device identifier, or analytics identifier. Cloudflare processes standard network information when it provides the Worker, D1, and Turnstile bot protection. You can remove your email at any time by reopening the waitlist form and choosing “Remove my email.”

Support and privacy requests

If you contact us, we receive your email address and the message, attachments, and purchase details you choose to provide. We use this information to respond, investigate the issue, and handle your request. Email and support service providers process the correspondence to deliver and store it. Please do not send payment card details or information that is unnecessary for your request.

Purposes and legal bases

UNV Studio uses personal information for the purposes below. The legal basis that applies under the GDPR is shown in parentheses.

• Providing the apps’ features, such as delivering images, setting wallpapers, checking for updates, and publishing a member card you share (legitimate interests: providing the features you ask for)
• Providing and verifying licenses and supporting purchases (performance of a contract)
• Replying to messages and investigating problems (performance of a contract, or legitimate interests: handling your request)
• Operating the service, keeping it secure, and diagnosing technical problems (legitimate interests)
• Counting anonymous usage to improve the apps (legitimate interests: improving the apps through counts that identify no one)
• Understanding website visits and downloads (consent for Google Analytics; legitimate interests for the download count)
• Sending early access information (consent)
• Handling disputes and other legal claims (legitimate interests: defending our rights)

You may object at any time to processing based on legitimate interests. A purchase requires the contact and payment details Polar asks for; providing any other information is optional.

International transfers

Art4 uses services from Google LLC, Cloudflare, Inc., and Polar Software, Inc., which are based in the United States, so information is processed in the United States and other countries through these providers. Artwork images come from museums and other providers around the world, and connection information for an image request is processed in the provider’s country.

The United States has no comprehensive federal privacy law; privacy is governed by sector-specific federal laws and by state laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act. For details, see the Personal Information Protection Commission of Japan’s overview of U.S. privacy law (in Japanese). We use these services after reviewing each provider’s privacy policy and data processing terms.

If you live in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, your information is transferred to Japan and the United States. Japan is recognized by the European Commission and the UK as providing an adequate level of data protection. Transfers to U.S. providers rely on their participation in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework or on the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses.

Your rights and requests

You can ask us to do the following with your information:

• tell you how it is used and disclose what we hold, including records of disclosures to third parties
• correct, add to, or delete it
• stop using it, erase it, or stop disclosing it to third parties

If you live in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, you also have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and objection to processing based on legitimate interests. Where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.

Send requests to support@art4.app. To confirm your identity, we may ask you to verify information we already hold, such as the email address used for a purchase. There is no fee. We aim to respond within one month, and if the law prevents us from fulfilling a request, we will explain why.

Complaints and questions go to the same address. If you live in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, you may also lodge a complaint with the data protection supervisory authority where you live. We do not make automated decisions, including profiling, that have legal or similarly significant effects.

Security measures

UNV Studio takes the following measures to prevent leaks, loss, and other harm to the personal data it handles:

• collecting only what is needed, and storing no IP address or device identifier in the app usage counts, the download count, or the waitlist database
• encrypting connections with HTTPS
• limiting access to services that hold personal data to those who need it to run Art4
• before having a provider abroad handle personal data, understanding the privacy framework of its country and taking measures accordingly

We will describe other measures without delay on request, except where doing so could undermine security.

Retention and deletion

Saved artwork selections and preferences remain on your device until you change or remove the app’s stored data. You can clear downloaded image caches in the Mac app’s Settings. Deleting a cache does not delete images exported elsewhere, saved wallpapers, or purchase records.

Information in the services we use is kept as follows:

• Anonymous app usage counts and download counts: about three months
• Google Analytics cookies: up to two years. Data held by Google is deleted under the property’s retention setting, at most 14 months
• Waitlist entries: until you remove them with “Remove my email” in the waitlist form
• Support emails: after your request is resolved, for as long as needed to handle follow-up questions, refunds, or disputes about the same matter
• Purchase and license records (email address, purchase, license key and status): kept by Polar, where UNV Studio views them in Polar’s dashboard, for as long as Polar’s policies provide
• Member card pages (license fingerprint, purchase date, language, printed name and artwork, publication and update times, and the drawn card images): until you ask us to remove the page

We will delete information earlier on request. If the law requires us to keep some records, we will explain the limitation when responding.

Apple, Polar, Cloudflare, Google, and external image hosts have their own retention practices for information they process. Removing local app data or a waitlist entry does not automatically remove records held by those providers. Their linked policies describe applicable privacy choices.

Changes

If Art4’s data practices change, this policy and the App Store privacy disclosure will be updated before the change is released.

Operator and contact

Art4 is operated by UNV Studio, which is responsible for the handling of personal information described in this policy (the controller under the GDPR). We will provide the operator’s name and address without delay on request.

For privacy questions, requests, or complaints, email support@art4.app. You can also find help on the Art4 support page.