What we do with the data you share
If you turned on the anonymous session summary and audio samples, what those records come to us for, what happens to each one, and what becomes of them in the end.
6 min read
There are four separate switches in Settings → Privacy: anonymous session summary, anonymous audio samples, anonymous usage summary and, if you have an Apple Watch, anonymous heart rate summary. They all start off, each one is asked about separately, and you can turn any of them off whenever you like. If you haven't turned them on, nothing in this article happens on your device.
If you did, here is what becomes of a record, step by step.
What arrives
With the anonymous summary on, this is what comes when a session ends: the technique, the length, the score and the report's numerical values — exhales heard, average exhale length, rhythm match, peak sound level, noise floor and so on. Alongside them, the device type and the app version. Records arrive with an anonymous identifier generated at random on your device: it lets us see records from the same device together, but it isn't tied to anything that identifies you.
What doesn't come: your name, your email address, your identity, your location, your health answers from the intake, and your age. These are never sent to us.
The audio sample is a separate permission. With it on, the audio of at most ten sessions a day is sent in compressed form and deleted from the device the moment it is sent. With the permission off, no audio is written to disk in any session. If you marked your age as under 13, this option never appears.
If the usage summary is on, a single count arrives when the app goes to the background or closes: which screens were opened and how often, how long they stayed open and which features were used (quick start or starting a program, for example). The order you moved between screens, anything you wrote and what was on the screen don't arrive. It shows us which parts really earn their place.
Where the app was opened from (icon shortcuts, a widget, a notification or Siri) and which settings were changed are counted too. Only the name of the changed setting arrives, not the value you picked. The session sound theme and the appearance are the exception: whichever is selected at the moment arrives by its name from a fixed list.
The summary also carries the app's current state. On the streak side, that's the length of your streak, your best streak, the shields you have left and what you chose on the streak repair page. How long you've been using the app and how many sessions you've done arrive as broad ranges, not exact numbers. Whether notifications are allowed, whether you've set a daily reminder, how many notifications of each kind were planned for that day, whether a widget and an Apple Watch are set up, how many techniques are unlocked and which day of a running program you're on are part of it too.
From the intro questions, how far you got and whether you skipped them arrive. Your answers, meaning your goal, your experience, your age and your health note, don't. How soon the first session was started also arrives as a broad range, together with whether that first session was completed.
To improve detection, the microphone permission state, how often the "Your breath isn't being heard" sheet appeared and what was chosen there, how often a call interrupted a session, the device model and the operating system version arrive. How many times the app was opened, how many of those opens led to a session and roughly how long it took from opening to starting are counted as well. The state of text size, the screen reader (VoiceOver), Reduce Motion and dark mode arrives too. Finally, the country code from your device's region setting arrives. This isn't location, it's the country selected in Settings.
While the usage summary is on, the session summary gets three more pieces of information: where the session was started from, whether the suggested length was kept, shortened or lengthened, and, if the session was ended early, the round where it stopped.
If you found the app through an App Store ad, which ad you came from arrives too: the ID of the campaign and the keyword. That is the ad's ID, not yours.
If the heart rate summary is on, three more numbers arrive for sessions done with the watch: the average, starting and ending heart rate. Individual heart rate readings don't arrive.
The feedback question that comes up now and then
With anonymous sharing on, a short question appears at the end of a session now and then: a score out of ten, followed by one more question — depending on your score, "what didn't you like", "what could we improve" or "what did you like most".
You can close it without giving a score. You can also give the score and, without writing anything, tap Send the rating only.
What is sent: the score you gave, the text you wrote, the technique, the length, the session score, whether the session was completed, whether the microphone was used, the app version and the date. Alongside them, the anonymous identifier above. What isn't sent is the same here: name, email address, identity, location, health answers, age.
We read what you write — it is the only place that says what the numbers can't. So don't put your name, your email address or anything identifying in the box; if you want a reply, the right address is the support page.
The more you skip it, the less often it is asked, and in the end it isn't asked at all. You are also asked once when you finish or abandon a program — the abandon question asks for no score, only the reason.
If you didn't turn anonymous sharing on, this question never appears.
What we do
As records build up we ask one question: is what the app says true?
We look for contradictions. Numbers that don't agree within the same session are the quickest clue. A report saying "every exhale was heard" while the same session shows an average exhale length of zero means something is wrong somewhere. We scan for these inconsistencies between measurements.
We look at the distribution. When a value clusters outside what we expect, that is usually a threshold error. A real example: exhale peak levels were coming out systematically low on one family of devices — it turned out that on tablets the microphone sits on the device's far edge.
We compare against the audio sample. When we have both the sound itself and the numbers the app produced for it, we can measure whether the detection is genuinely right: is there really an exhale where the app said "exhale", and did it miss any breaths. That is the audio sample's only job.
We read the feedback by hand. Scores on their own don't get past "good/bad"; what is useful is the sentence next to them. When the same complaint comes from several people, it goes on the list.
We fix it and test again. For every error we find, a test is written first — one that reproduces the error, based on the real recording we have. Then the fix is made. If the test passes, the change goes into the next release; if it doesn't, the fix was wrong.
What we don't do
No ads, no tracking, no third-party analytics tools. The records aren't sold, aren't handed to an ad network, and aren't transferred to another company. They aren't matched to an identity: we hold no link showing who sent which record.
The records don't sit in your iCloud but in the app's shared database, and they are used only for the work described above.
Changing your mind
All four switches can be turned off under Settings → Privacy. From the moment you turn them off, nothing more is sent.
If you want what you sent earlier deleted, write to [email protected]. Because the records aren't tied to an identity, we may ask for the dates you sent them so we can find yours.