Vistempo privacy policy
Updated on October 5, 2026.
Your timer and history work without a Vistempo account. Your history stays on your devices, and your Mac, iPhone and Apple Watch sync with each other directly, with encrypted messages. You can create an optional account with Sign in with Apple to keep a backup on Vistempo's server; Vistempo could technically read that backup, as explained below. No ads or tracking. To show the counter on a locked iPhone, Vistempo's server temporarily handles session details.
What Vistempo keeps
Your focus sessions, chosen and actual durations, categories and goals, intentions, pauses, extensions, distractions, closing reasons, ratings, notes, marked dates and settings. On the Mac, the app can also record which apps were in the foreground during focus: app names and duration, never window contents. These records support your history, statistics and reports. Optional features can be switched off in Settings; switching them off does not erase earlier records.
Where it lives
Your history is stored in a database on each device, inside the app's own space. Vistempo does not use iCloud to store or sync your data. You can export your history as CSV and your reports as PDF and keep them wherever you like; those copies stay outside the app.
How your Mac, your iPhone and your Apple Watch talk to each other
Nearby devices exchange encrypted messages over Bluetooth and the local network. These messages carry the state of the session, your categories and, when the devices meet, the history records each one is missing. They go directly between your devices, not through Vistempo's server. The Apple Watch talks to the iPhone. On first contact, you accept the new device on the Mac; if you use the same account on both, they recognize each other on their own. Devices that are far apart do not talk: each keeps the session it already knows, and records are merged when they meet again. Turning sync off in Settings stops these exchanges, but does not delete records already copied.
The optional account and the backup
Creating an account is optional and separate from your App Store subscription. The only way to sign in is Sign in with Apple; Vistempo asks for no email or password and does not store your email. If you sign in, Vistempo's server, hosted by Cloudflare, stores your account identifier (a code derived from the one Apple gives the app, plus what Apple requires to end your sign-in if you delete the account), the logins open on your devices, the list of your devices (name, type and the codes they use to recognize each other) and a compressed backup of your history and notes, within size and frequency limits. The backup is encrypted on the server with a key that belongs to Vistempo, not a key that is yours alone. That is what lets you recover everything just by signing in on a new device. The consequence is that it is not end-to-end encrypted: whoever operates the service could technically read it, including your notes. Vistempo does not read these backups, does not use them for any other purpose and does not share them, but you should decide with this in mind. If you prefer to send nothing to the server, choose “Not now”; your history then stays only on your devices and depends on the device's own backup or Time Machine.
The backup for the locked iPhone
When you start or change a session on the Mac and the iPhone does not answer directly within a few seconds, the Mac sends the session to Vistempo's server so the locked iPhone can show the counter and ring at the planned end. This includes the iPhone's notification address (a code from Apple that only works for this app), the session times, whether it is paused or extended, and the intention and category shown on the lock screen. The server passes it to Apple's notification service and deletes it when the session is cancelled or ends, or at the latest 15 minutes after the session's maximum time. The Mac can also use the same address to ask the app to update when a session ends, and the iPhone can ask the server to start the counter for a session it already has; in both cases the alarm is still scheduled on the iPhone itself. Vistempo keeps no record of these requests, and Cloudflare and Apple handle them under their own policies. iOS may delay or skip these notifications. Your full history, notes and reports never travel this way. You can switch this off in Settings on either device.
What Vistempo does not do
Vistempo does not track your activity for advertising or analytics and does not sell your data. Your timed activity is recorded for your own history and reports. Apple services used for sign-in and purchases process data under Apple's policies.
Usage statistics and diagnostics
Vistempo has no telemetry: it does not send analytics or diagnostic logs to its developer. Apple may share App Store and TestFlight statistics and diagnostics according to your sharing settings and its policies. If you join a beta, information you provide as a tester, feedback and screenshots may be shared through TestFlight. The temporary use of session data on the server and the optional account are described above.
The diary that stays on the device
When the link between the Mac and the iPhone or the lock screen counter goes wrong, the app writes a few technical lines to a file on the device: the time, what connected, what the system answered. Never a key, never what you wrote, never the content of a session. The file keeps only the most recent lines and is never sent anywhere. It is not shown in the app; it exists so that it can be read from the device, or sent along if you ask for help.
Permissions and why
Notifications: the warnings near the end, at the end and for the break. Alarms (iPhone): the counter on the lock screen that rings even on silent. Local network and Bluetooth: so the Mac, the iPhone and the Watch show the same session and merge the history; the messages stay between your devices. Push notifications and background updates: so a locked iPhone can show the counter and warn at the end. Any permission can be denied; the matching feature then stays off.
Other apps
If you choose to send your note to Todoist, Vistempo opens Todoist with the text you typed; from there Todoist's rules apply.
Your focus report
The PDF report is produced on your device and leaves it only when you share it. It describes focus time you timed yourself; it is not a clinical instrument.
This is not a health product
Vistempo is a timer. It does not diagnose, does not treat and does not measure attention. The numbers it shows describe the use of a stopwatch and exist to support a conversation about your routine — with yourself or with a professional. No clinical decision should rest on them alone.
Vistempo Pro, and what the store tells us
Vistempo Pro is a monthly or yearly subscription that may include a free trial. Apple processes purchases, renewals and refund requests under the applicable App Store terms. The App Store provides prices, purchase confirmations and subscription status so Vistempo can grant access. Vistempo does not receive your card, bank details or billing address, and does not send purchase records to the developer. Apple retains purchase records according to its own policies.
Without a subscription, every session is kept
When a subscription ends, or when you never had one, Vistempo stops starting new sessions — it never keeps less. The history stays in full on your device and readable in the app, and everything opens again the day you subscribe. Nothing is deleted, moved or sent anywhere because of a payment.
Your data is yours
You can export your history as CSV and your reports as PDF and copy them wherever you like. To remove your data, first delete your account and backup in Settings, if you created one. This erases what the server holds about you (sessions, device list and backup) and ends your sign-in with Apple; the host's recovery copies can remain for up to 30 days. You can also just sign out or remove a device from the list. Local records must be removed separately on each device. On Mac, moving the app to the Trash does not guarantee that its database is removed. For help removing local records, contact contact@vistempo.com. Deleting the account does not delete the history on your devices, files you exported or purchases held by Apple. An account and its backup that go 12 months without use are deleted. Signing in, renewing your session or sending a backup counts as use and starts the 12 months again. Device backups, Time Machine and files you exported or shared stay where you put them and must be removed separately. Deleting the app or its data does not cancel a subscription or remove Apple's purchase records.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, the date above changes and the new version appears here. Questions, or requests about your data such as access, correction or deletion under the law that applies to you: contact@vistempo.com.