Last updated: October 14, 2026
Haystack is a photo organizing app for iPhone. This page explains, in plain language, what Haystack does and does not do with your data.
With your explicit permission, Haystack reads your iPhone's Photos library so it can group similar photos together, let you pick the best one from each group, and help you clear out the rest. Haystack cannot access your photos without you first granting this through Apple's own system permission prompt, and you can revoke that permission at any time in Settings.
Your photos, and anything Haystack figures out from them (like which ones it has grouped together), stay entirely on your device. They are never uploaded, transmitted, sold, or shared with anyone — including us. There is no account, and there is nothing about your photos to sync.
Haystack can make four kinds of change to your photo library. Every one of them happens because you asked for it, and every one is listed here.
Haystack only ever deletes an album it created and still recognises as its own. An album of yours that happens to share the name is never touched.
Everything else Haystack knows is kept privately inside the app and changes nothing in your library. That includes which photos you have "swept", which it remembers so it can keep them out of its own view. With the "Haystack - Swept" album switched off, sweeping a photo changes nothing at all in your Photos library.
Haystack can share a photo using Apple's own system share sheet — the same one every app on your phone uses. You choose where a shared photo goes; Haystack does not see, record, or keep any copy of what you share or where it went.
Each time Haystack launches, it briefly checks a small file we host on our own web server to see if any of the app's help text or on-screen wording has an update. This check does not include your photos, your identity, or any device identifier — it's a one-way request for a static file, no different from loading a plain web page, and it reveals nothing more than any web request inherently does (like your IP address, visible to any server you connect to). If Haystack can't reach this file, or you're offline, the app works exactly as before using its own built-in wording.
Haystack does not require or offer any account or sign-in. It does not use analytics, advertising, or tracking software of any kind, and does not collect any information about you or how you use the app.
Haystack does not share data with third parties, because Haystack does not collect or transmit any data about you or your photos in the first place.
If this policy ever changes, the updated version will be posted at this same page.
Questions about this policy can be sent via our support contact form.