Privacy policy
Last changed 23 October 2026
In short: your files and everything about them stay on your own devices. Iceblock has no accounts, no analytics and no advertising, and no company server sits in the middle. The only things recorded are how many times each download is downloaded, and what you choose to email us.
The app
Your files stay yours. Files, comments and everything else in Iceblock are kept only on your own devices, encrypted, and travel only between them. Nobody else, not even the Iceblock developers, can read them, unless you share them.
It sends nothing to us. The app has no analytics, crash reports, advertising or tracking, and doesn’t check for updates by itself. It never contacts a server of ours.
Android™’s backups are off, so the app’s files and keys aren’t copied to Google Drive.
What your devices tell others. To find and reach each other, your devices share a little about themselves:
- Your own devices exchange their names, their addresses, when they last reached each other, and when you last used Iceblock or an app built on it: to the nearest five minutes, kept only in memory, forgotten after two hours. They also note which of them run on the same phone or computer. If an app you’ve let know when you’re at your computer is in your network, your computers also check whether you’re at them (recent typing or mouse movement, unlocked), never what you’re doing, and pass that on the same way.
- Anyone on the same local network (your Wi-Fi, say) can see that a device runs Iceblock, with short identifiers (fingerprints) for the device and its network. A new device waiting to join a network also shows its name, so that a device nearby can invite it.
- Your router is asked to forward a port to the device, so that your other devices can reach it from elsewhere.
- A relay passes on connections between devices that can’t reach each other directly. It’s one of your own devices, or one you set up yourself. It sees which devices connect, when, and how much they send, but only encrypted data, never what’s in it.
- People you share with, or whose space you use, learn where your devices can be reached, and their fingerprints. A device lending you space keeps your files’ encrypted pieces, so knows how many there are and how large, but can’t read them. A public link gives the same to anyone who has it, so share it only with the people it’s for.
- Other members of a group see your network’s name, your name and its role in the group. If you agree, for each group and app, they also see when the group last heard from your network and whether you’re around.
Apps built on Iceblock
Other apps can be built on Iceblock. Each is made by its own developer, with its own privacy policy. When one joins your Iceblock, it gets only what you give it: the Collections you choose and, if you agree, your devices’ names, whether you’re around, which of your devices you’re using, when you’re at your computer, or what a group shares. An app on its own, before it joins your Iceblock, can check when you’re at your computer only once you’ve agreed, and when it joins, Iceblock asks whether to keep that. Iceblock asks you first, and you can take any of it back or remove the app.
The website
The website, iceblock.tricauda.com, keeps no logs, sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. Everything it does happens in your browser, and it loads nothing from anywhere else.
Links stay private. An invitation, share or storage link has its details after the #, which browsers never send to a server. Opening one shows it to you, and to nobody else.
Downloads
Apart from Google Play, the app is downloaded from git.tricauda.com, whether from its releases page, by Obtainium or by apt. That server counts how many times each file is downloaded: a number, with nothing about who downloaded it. It doesn’t keep a log of requests.
Google Play. Installing Iceblock from the Play Store, where it’s in closed testing, is covered by Google’s privacy policy too, as Google, not us, runs the store and the test. Installing it any other way involves Google in nothing.
Obtainium and apt are programs of their own, and contact git.tricauda.com themselves, to download Iceblock and to see whether there’s an update.
Emails sent to iceblock@temporary.nz are read by the core Iceblock developers.
Changes
This policy changes when Iceblock changes what it records or shares, and the date at its top says when it last did. Questions about it are welcome at iceblock@temporary.nz.