Privacy policy

Last updated November 8, 2026.

Who we are

Commonplace Study is a desktop app for Mac and Windows made by Noah Cunningham ("we", "us"). We don't run any server that receives your notes or your information. Questions about this policy: .

Your notes and books

Everything you write in Commonplace Study is saved as ordinary files in the notes folder you choose, on your own computer (or in a cloud folder such as iCloud Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox if you choose one; that service's own terms then apply). Books you add are kept there too. Commonplace Study keeps a few settings of its own on your computer and in your notes folder. None of this is sent to us or to anyone else.

When Commonplace Study goes online

Only in these cases, and each one is something you add or ask for:

Your calendar (Google, Microsoft, Apple iCloud)

If you add a calendar account in Settings › Calendar, Commonplace Study connects directly from your computer to that provider, after you sign in on the provider's own page (or, for iCloud, with an app-specific password you create at Apple).

• What it accesses: your calendars and their events, to show them in Commonplace Study and to add or change events when you ask it to (for example, a to-do with a date). It also reads your account's email address, only to label the account in Settings.
• Where it's kept: the sign-in is kept in your computer's own password store (Keychain on a Mac, Credential Manager on Windows). Events are shown in the app on your computer.
• Who receives it: nobody else. Your calendar data goes only between your computer and your calendar provider; it never passes through us.
• Removing it: remove the account in Settings › Calendar, which deletes the stored sign-in from your computer and tells Google or Microsoft to cancel it. You can also withdraw access at any time from your Google or Microsoft account's security settings, or by deleting the app-specific password at Apple.

Google user data

Commonplace Study's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. In particular, Google calendar data and your Google email address:

• are used only to show and change your calendar in Commonplace Study on your computer, as described above;
• are not sent to us, sold, used for advertising, or transferred to anyone;
• are not used to train AI or machine-learning models;
• are never read by a person, since they never leave your computer except to go back to Google.

Updates

Commonplace Study checks every few hours whether a newer version exists, by downloading a small file from GitHub, where its releases are published; when you choose to update, it downloads the new version from there too. Like any download, GitHub sees your computer's internet address. Nothing about you or your notes is sent. See GitHub's privacy statement.

The natural reading voice (optional)

If you choose to download the natural voice for Listen (reading aloud), Commonplace Study downloads it once from Hugging Face, which sees your internet address as with any download. Reading aloud then happens entirely on your computer.

Saving a web page

If you ask Commonplace Study to save an article from the web, it fetches that page from its website, as your browser would, and saves it as a note.

Claude (optional)

If you connect Commonplace Study to the Claude app, Claude can read and write in your notes folder when you ask it to, using a connector that runs on your computer. What Claude reads is handled by Anthropic, under Anthropic's privacy policy and your Claude account's settings. Commonplace Study itself sends nothing to Anthropic, and you can disconnect in Settings › AI at any time.

Links and files you open

Links you click open in your web browser, and files you open (a PDF page, for example) open in their own app.

Send feedback

Send feedback starts an email in your own mail app. It includes the version of Commonplace Study, your computer's operating system and how many notes and books are in your folder, never their names or contents. You see the whole email before you send it, and nothing is sent unless you send it. We use what you send only to answer you and improve Commonplace Study.

This website

This website has no cookies, no analytics and no tracking, and its fonts are served from the site itself. The company hosting it keeps the usual technical logs (such as internet addresses) to run and protect the site.

Children

Commonplace Study is made for adults, especially pastors, and isn't directed at children under 13.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. If a change affects what Commonplace Study does with your information, the app will tell you before it takes effect.

Contact

Noah Cunningham, .