Mobile app privacy policy

The app has no accounts

Manuscript TM has no sign-in, no registration and no user accounts. You do not give us your name, email address or any other contact detail to use it. Everything in the app is public, read-only journal content.

Journals, issues, articles and search results are fetched live from our publishing platform each time you open a screen. No reader profile is created, and nothing you read is linked to your identity.

What stays on your device

Your bookmarks, the journals you follow, your recent searches, your recently viewed articles and your appearance and notification preferences are stored only on your device, in the operating system’s local storage. We cannot see them and they are not uploaded to us.

The one exception is the list of journals you follow, which is sent to our server with your notification registration if you turn notifications on — see below.

Uninstalling the app, or clearing its storage in your device settings, deletes all of this.

Push notifications, only if you turn them on

If you enable notifications, the app requests a push token from the operating system — an identifier that lets a message reach this one installation of the app. The token is issued by Expo’s push service and delivered through Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) on Android or Apple (Apple Push Notification service) on iOS.

We send that token, with the list of journals you follow, to our own server so we can alert you when one of those journals publishes a new issue. The token identifies a device installation, not a person. Turn notifications off, or uninstall the app, and the token stops working; we remove tokens that fail to deliver.

Technical logs

When the app contacts our server, our hosting provider keeps short-lived technical logs — IP address, request path, timestamp, app version and platform. We use them to keep the service running, diagnose faults and detect abuse. They are not used to build a profile of you.

The app also checks Expo’s servers for over-the-air updates to its own code. That request carries your IP address, the app version, your platform and a random installation identifier. Expo acts as our service provider for this.

Files you download

When you download an article PDF it is saved to your device. It is shared — by email, messaging or any other app — only when you choose to, through your device’s own share sheet. We are not involved in and cannot see what you share.

No advertising, no tracking

The app shows no adverts. It contains no advertising SDKs, no third-party analytics SDKs and no cross-app or cross-site tracking. We do not sell or rent any data, and we do not use what the app collects for advertising or profiling.

Who else is involved

Each of these receives only what it needs for its function, and none is given data for its own advertising or profiling:

• Our publishing platform and its hosting provider — serves all journal content and stores notification registrations.
• Expo (Expo Application Services) — issues push tokens and serves over-the-air app updates.
• Google Firebase Cloud Messaging — delivers notifications to Android devices.
• Apple Push Notification service — delivers notifications to iOS devices.

Children

The app is intended for a general and academic audience. It is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect data from them.

Your choices and rights

You can turn notifications on or off at any time, from the app’s settings or your device settings. You can clear your bookmarks, follows and history from within the app, or by clearing its storage. Uninstalling removes everything held on the device.

You can ask what data we hold in connection with your notification registration, ask us to correct it, and ask us to delete it. Contact us through the details on our contact page and we will respond.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that materially affects what the app collects or why, we will update this page and its effective date before that change ships in a released version of the app.

This policy is effective from 7 September 2026.