Privacy Policy
Introduction
Last updated: 2026-10-23. Applies to the LightBites apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac and to the LightBites website, made by Elias Ruiz Monserrat (“we”).
Short version: LightBites needs no account with us to edit and organise photos, and has no advertising or tracking. Anonymous usage sharing in the apps is off until you turn it on, and crash reports are always on. Community Presets, in the app and on this website, which you can leave alone, is the one feature with an account (an email address or Sign in with Apple, and the presets you choose to share). Your photos and edits stay on your device unless you choose a sync server, or turn on iCloud sync (then your presets, settings and edits of Photos-library pictures go to your own iCloud, and your photos too if you keep them in iCloud Drive). The people who make LightBites receive something only when you write to us from Help & Feedback in the app, or from the support, feedback or changelog pages of this website (your email address and what you send), have a crash reported (always on in the app; no photos or email address), turn on anonymous usage sharing in the app (off by default), or the app checks our server for new camera and lens profiles (once a day by default, with a switch; nothing about you or your photos is sent). LightBites contacts the internet only for the things listed below.
What stays on your device
Your catalog (edits, ratings, keywords, albums), previews and thumbnails, face rectangles and face fingerprints (People), text found in photos (search), search vectors, and the places in your photos’ GPS tags are stored in LightBites’s library folder on your device. None of it is sent anywhere by LightBites, apart from the optional sync below.
LightBites reads your Photos library only when you ask it to (Local mode, Import). It copies a photo into its own library only when you edit, rate or flag it. Exporting to Photos adds the exported pictures to your Photos library.
The Hidden album is locked with Face ID, Touch ID or your device passcode. It hides photos from the grid; it does not encrypt them.
You can delete the face data with Forget All Faces or all LightBites data (delete the app, or the library folder on a Mac).
What LightBites sends over the internet
| When | Who receives it | What is sent |
|---|---|---|
| You sign in to a sync server (Settings ▸ Sync) | The server you typed in, run by you or someone you trust | Your username and password once, then a sign-in token. Your catalog changes, original photos and previews, presets and settings, so your devices stay in step. If the address starts with http:// (for example a server on your home network), this travels unencrypted. LightBites’s makers do not run or see any sync server. |
| You turn on Settings ▸ iCloud (off until you do) | Apple’s iCloud, in your own account’s private database: only you can read it, LightBites’s makers can’t | Your develop presets and other presets and sets, the settings your devices share (import defaults, the order of your preset groups, the Hidden password’s hash, Blur Sensitive Photos), the address and user name of the sync server you sign in to (never its password or token), and for each photo from your Photos library that you edit: its edits, rating, flag, colour label, title, caption and keywords, with a hash of the original file and its iCloud Photos identifier, so your other devices find the same picture; and what LightBites found in those photos (where the faces are, with the face vectors that tell people apart, the text read in them, their search vectors and sensitive-content scores; never the names you give people). Never the photos themselves (iCloud Photos already has them). The items’ names and contents are stored as encrypted fields. Turn it off in Settings ▸ iCloud; delete what is stored in iCloud from your device’s iCloud settings (Manage Storage ▸ LightBites). Apple’s own privacy terms apply. |
| You turn on Keep Photos in iCloud Drive in Settings ▸ iCloud (off until you do) | Apple’s iCloud Drive, in your own account | The photos you import into the library (and those you choose to move there), as files in LightBites’s folder of your iCloud Drive, which you can see in Files and the Finder. They count against your iCloud storage. Removing a photo from the library doesn’t delete its file there; delete it in Files or the Finder. Apple’s own privacy terms apply. |
| You open the Map with Load Map Tiles from the Internet on (the default) | OpenStreetMap tile servers (tile.openstreetmap.org) |
The map tiles you view (an area, not your photos’ positions), your IP address, and the app name and version. Turn it off in Settings ▸ Interface ▸ Map. |
| You download an AI model (search, text, faces, sensitive content, Remove, Lens Blur, Super Resolution, Generative Expand), after you agree to its licence | Hugging Face (huggingface.co) or GitHub (github.com) |
A request for the model file. No photo data. Models then run on your device. |
| Once a day with Update Automatically on in Settings ▸ Camera & Lens Profiles (the default), or when you tap Check for Updates there | LightBites’s own server (lightbites.app) |
A request for the list of camera and lens profiles, then for the profile files that changed. The server sees your IP address and the version of LightBites’s engine, as for any request. No photo data, nothing about your library, no identifier. Profiles then work on your device. Turn it off in Settings ▸ Camera & Lens Profiles. |
| You use Community Presets (in the app: Settings ▸ Community Presets, or Presets ▸ + ▸ Browse Community Presets… / Share to Community…; or on this website, /presets): make an account, browse, download, favourite, share or report presets | LightBites’s own server (lightbites.app) |
To make an account, your email address and a password you choose, or what Sign in with Apple gives us: an identifier that is only ours and, if you let Apple share them, your name and email address. Then what you do there: the presets you share (their settings, a name, a description and tags, and a picture of one of your photos with the preset on it, which you see before it is sent; they are public and shown with your account name), your favourites, the presets you download and the reports you make. Nothing else about your photos or your library. A session token is kept in your device’s Keychain. Delete Account (Settings ▸ Community Presets ▸ the account button ▸ Delete Account) erases your account, the presets you shared and your favourites from the server; Sign in with Apple’s own link can be removed in your Apple Account settings. |
| You use Generative Expand ▸ Apple Image Playground (iOS 27 and later) | Apple | The part of the photo inside the crop (up to 1024 px) and a fixed prompt, after you confirm “Send this photo to Apple?” each time. Apple’s own privacy terms apply. |
| You use Help & Feedback (Settings ▸ Help & Feedback, or Help ▸ Send Feedback… on a Mac) | HelpBites, the support service run by the maker of LightBites (help.eliasruiz.com) |
Your email address, and the name if you give one. Then what you write: messages, ideas, comments and votes, and a picture if you attach one. A bug report can include diagnostics you can read before sending: the app and system versions, your device model, and the last lines of LightBites’s log, with your home folder name removed. Never your photos, their names or your library. A 6-digit code is emailed to you to confirm your address. This is linked to your email address. Sign out in Help & Feedback to forget the session on your device; Delete my data erases everything the service holds for you. |
| The app crashes | The same HelpBites service, through its error tracker | A report when the app crashes: the crash, the app and system versions, your device model, and a random id that is not your email address. No screenshots, no photos. Your IP address is visible to the server as for any request. The id is added only once you have used Help & Feedback; before that the report carries no id. Crash reports are always on and have no switch. |
| You turn on Settings ▸ General ▸ Share Anonymous Usage in the app (off until you do; the welcome asks once) | Microsoft Clarity (clarity.ms) on iPhone and iPad, and the HelpBites error tracker’s session count on every platform |
Anonymous usage: how many times the app is opened, on which version and platform, and on iPhone and iPad how it is used: the screens you visit, taps and scrolls, session length, app and system versions, device model, country, and a random id that is not your email address. Nothing is sent until you turn it on. Microsoft’s own privacy terms apply for Clarity. Turn it off in Settings ▸ General ▸ Share Anonymous Usage; the app counts sessions from the next launch. |
| You start the free trial, buy LightBites Pro or tap Restore Purchases in an App Store app | Apple, through the App Store | Apple handles the payment and your Apple Account; we receive no payment or account details. The app reads from the App Store, on your device, only whether this Apple Account owns LightBites Pro and when its trial started. |
| You activate or deactivate a LightBites Pro licence key in the Mac app from this website (and, while it is activated, when the app starts every few days) | Lemon Squeezy (api.lemonsqueezy.com), which sells it for us |
The licence key and this Mac’s name (so you can tell your activations apart), to check the key. |
| You share LightBites for the trial’s extra days | The app you choose in the share sheet | A line of text and a link to LightBites, which you can read and change before sending. LightBites keeps only the date of the share, on your device. |
| You tap a link (a model’s page) | Your web browser | Nothing from LightBites. |
Nothing else is sent. LightBites contains no advertising or tracking code and does not share data with third parties. The only crash-reporting and usage code is the one described in the table.
Your photos and a sync server
If you use a sync server, the server’s owner controls the copy of your library stored there and is responsible for securing it. A server keeps what the app sends it (the catalog, previews, and original photos if you choose to sync them), as listed in the table above.
This website
The website does not use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies, and it does not set cookies. It remembers your light or dark choice in your browser.
The Support, Feedback and Changelog pages are provided by HelpBites, the support service run by the maker of
LightBites (help.eliasruiz.com). Reading the feedback board and the changelog needs no sign-in. To chat or to post,
vote or comment you enter your email address (and a name if you like). If the address is new, you are signed in at once;
if the service already knows it, it emails you a 6-digit code to confirm it is you. We then keep your email address, your
name if you gave one, and what you write (messages, ideas, comments, votes and any picture you attach), and use them only
to answer you and to run the feedback board. A sign-in token is kept in your browser’s local storage so you do not have
to enter your address again; “Use another email” or “Sign out” on those pages removes it. Posts and comments on the
public feedback board are visible to everyone; your email address is not.
The website’s server passes your email address and name to HelpBites to sign you in, and does not keep them. Like any web server, it and HelpBites see your IP address and browser details when you load a page.
To have the data HelpBites holds about you erased, write to the address below.
If you buy the Mac app on this website, the checkout is Lemon Squeezy’s, the merchant of record: it collects your payment details, which we never see, and its own privacy policy applies. It gives us what an order needs (your name, email address, country, the order and its licence key), which we use for the licence, receipts and support.
Children
LightBites is not directed at children. Its only personal information is what you send from Help & Feedback or the website’s support pages and, if you use Community Presets, your account there.
Changes
Changes to this policy are published at this address with a new date. Material changes are noted in the app’s What’s New.
Contact
Questions and requests: elrumo97@me.com. More help is on the support page.