At a glance
Your food log, saved foods, saved meals, nutrition goals, and preferences are stored locally on your device. Tally does not sell your information, show third-party advertising, or include a general-purpose analytics SDK. Barcode lookup, AI estimates, and photo analysis are optional and only run after you choose to use them.
Barcode lookups
If you scan or enter a product barcode, Tally sends the barcode digits and anonymous installation identifier to Tally's service hosted on Cloudflare. After verifying the request with Apple App Attest, the service looks up public product and nutrition information from Open Food Facts.
Tally's service may cache the returned product record with its barcode for up to 30 days to reduce repeated requests. The cache does not contain your food log or identify whether you saved or ate the product. Open Food Facts data is contributed by its community and may be incomplete or inaccurate.
Information stored on your device
Tally stores information you enter or save so it can provide food logging, daily totals, goals, history, and reusable foods and meals. This can include:
- Food names, brands, portions, serving units, quantities, meal categories, dates, and notes associated with a meal.
- Calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat, fibre, and whether a value was estimated.
- Saved foods, saved meals, custom foods, and nutrition goals.
- Preferences such as your food market, units, appearance, and onboarding status.
This information is stored by the app using Apple's on-device storage technologies. Tally does not currently provide an account or upload your food log to a Tally-operated cloud database.
AI food estimates
If you choose Estimate with AI, Tally sends the food description you entered, any clarification answer, your language or locale, regional food context, and a random anonymous installation identifier to Tally's service hosted on Cloudflare. The service sends the description and a hashed safety identifier to DeepSeek to generate an estimate.
Tally's database stores anonymous usage counters and timestamps associated with the installation identifier so it can enforce request limits and prevent abuse. It is not designed to store the food description or generated nutrition result.
Do not enter names, contact details, medical records, or other sensitive personal information into an AI food description. DeepSeek processes submitted content under its Privacy Policy.
Meal, menu, and receipt photos
Tally only uploads a photo after you select or take it and tap Analyse photo. Before upload, the app resizes the image and re-renders it as a new JPEG to remove embedded metadata. A photo taken with Tally's camera is not saved to your photo library.
The prepared image, scan type, language or locale, regional food context, and anonymous installation identifier are sent through Tally's Cloudflare service to OpenAI for analysis. Tally sets the OpenAI Responses API request to store: false. OpenAI may still retain limited API abuse-monitoring data according to its platform data controls. See OpenAI's API data controls and Privacy Policy.
For receipts or menus, avoid submitting names, addresses, loyalty numbers, payment information, or other personal details. Crop the image to the food items when practical.
Regional context
To improve regional food estimates, Tally may send your selected food market, device region, language or locale, and the country inferred from the network request by Cloudflare. Tally does not request precise GPS location for nutrition estimates.
App verification and service limits
Tally uses Apple's App Attest to help verify that online nutrition requests come from a genuine installation of the app. The service stores an anonymous installation identifier, App Attest key information, signature counters, environment, and created or last-seen timestamps. It also stores short-lived verification challenges and anonymous daily or monthly usage counts.
Cloudflare provides hosting, network protection, and regional request context and may process network information such as IP address as part of operating the service. See Cloudflare's Privacy Policy.
Camera and photo-library access
Camera and photo-library access are optional. Tally asks for access only when you choose the relevant feature. You can change these permissions at any time in iOS Settings. Choosing an existing image does not give Tally access to your full photo library beyond the items you select through Apple's picker.
Subscriptions and purchases
Apple processes App Store purchases. Tally uses RevenueCat to load products, manage subscription status, restore purchases, and determine whether Tally Pro is active. RevenueCat may process an anonymous app user identifier, purchase and receipt information, subscription status, and limited app or device information for those purposes.
These services operate under their own policies. See Apple's Privacy Policy and RevenueCat's Privacy Policy.
Analytics, advertising, and sale of information
Tally does not currently include third-party advertising or a general-purpose analytics SDK. Tally does not sell personal information or use your food log for targeted advertising.
Retention and deletion
You can delete food entries, saved foods, and saved meals using Tally's controls. Removing Tally from your device deletes its local app data, subject to copies contained in device backups managed by Apple.
Anonymous usage, security, and App Attest records may remain on Tally's service for as long as reasonably needed to enforce limits, protect the service, diagnose failures, and meet legal obligations. AI providers, Apple, RevenueCat, and Cloudflare retain information according to their own policies and legal requirements.
Children's privacy
Tally is not directed to children under 13, and the developer does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. A parent or guardian who believes a child has submitted personal information can contact support.
Security
Tally limits data collection, keeps provider credentials on the server, uses encrypted HTTPS connections, and requires Apple App Attest for protected nutrition requests. No storage or transmission method can be guaranteed completely secure, so protect access to your device and Apple ID and avoid submitting sensitive information for AI analysis.
International processing
Online services may process information in countries outside your own. In particular, Tally's service providers operate internationally, and DeepSeek states that information it processes may be stored in the People's Republic of China. Review the linked provider policies before using optional AI features.
Changes to this policy
This policy may be updated when Tally's features, providers, or data practices change. The effective date at the top of this page identifies the latest version.
Contact
For privacy questions or deletion requests, email tallysupport@dylan.so or visit the Tally support page. Do not include food logs, health information, receipts, photographs, purchase records, or other sensitive information in a public GitHub issue.