Privacy Policy

Last updated: 23 October 2026

Macrino ("the app") estimates the calories and nutrients of your meals and gives eating suggestions. It is made by an independent developer based in Taiwan. This policy explains what information the app handles.

No account

Macrino has no sign-up and no account. The app creates a random install ID on your device. It is used only to count your usage limits and to keep track of AI packs and rewarded-ad credits, and it contains no personal information.

Your diary stays on your iPhone

Your meals, photos, weight, goals, body details (such as age, height and sex), diet preferences, allergens and workouts are stored on your device (and in your iPhone backup). We do not keep copies.

AI analysis

• When you analyse a meal photo, log a meal or workout in one sentence, or ask the coach (menu, shelf, travel, fridge, weekly report, meal plan), the photo or text needed for that request is sent over an encrypted connection to our relay server, together with the context the request needs. Every request includes your diet preference, allergens, your latest weight and your sex, if set; coach requests also include, for example, today's meals and workouts, your targets and, for the weekly report, your recent weights. The relay forwards it to our AI processing provider, OpenAI, and returns the result to your device.
• Our relay does not store photos, meal text or results. It keeps only usage counters linked to your install ID or subscription, which expire after about 40 days; your remaining AI-pack credits linked to your install ID; the transaction IDs of credited AI packs (with the install ID they were credited to) and rewarded ads, so each is counted once; a cached copy of Apple's answer about an active subscription for about 1 hour; and, for free requests, a daily count per IP address that expires after about 26 hours. Under its API terms, OpenAI processes the data to provide the service and does not use it to train its models.
• If you speak a sentence instead of typing it, Apple's speech recognition turns your voice into text, on your iPhone when it supports your language and otherwise on Apple's servers. Only the resulting text is sent to our relay.
• Nutrition labels are read on your device. Barcodes are looked up in the free Open Food Facts database; only the barcode number is sent, and results are cached on your device.

Apple Health

If you allow it, Macrino reads your weight, steps, active energy and workouts, and writes the meals (dietary energy), weight and workouts you log. Health data is used only to show your budget and progress inside the app and to fit AI answers to you. It is never used for advertising and never sold. Your latest weight, which may come from Apple Health, is sent to our relay with each AI request (meal photo, one-sentence log or coach request), and coach requests include your daily budget, which can include activity from Apple Health. The relay passes this data only to our AI processing provider, OpenAI, to answer that request; Health data is not shared with any other third party. You can turn access off at any time in iPhone Settings.

Reminders

Trial-ending and weekly review reminders are local notifications scheduled on your device.

Advertising

The free version shows ads served by Google AdMob. Macrino only requests non-personalised ads and never asks to track you. To show and measure ads, Google may collect information such as your IP address, device model, operating system and how you interact with ads. Users in the EEA and UK are asked for consent through Google's consent message. When you choose to watch a rewarded ad, Google tells our relay that the reward was earned, together with your install ID. Your meals, photos and health data are never shared with advertisers. Learn more in How Google uses information from apps that use its services and the Google Privacy Policy. Macrino Pro removes ads.

Purchases

Purchases and subscriptions are processed by Apple. We do not receive your payment details. To apply your Pro limits, our relay asks Apple whether your subscription is active, using the transaction ID of your purchase. When you buy an AI pack, our relay checks the purchase with Apple in the same way before adding the credits.

Sharing

Share cards (for example a weekly report or a streak) are created on your device and are shared only when you choose to share them.

Deleting your data

Deleting a meal removes it and its photo from your device. Deleting the app removes everything. Entries written to Apple Health stay there until you delete them in the Health app. Since we store no diary data, there is nothing else to delete. Remaining AI-pack credits and the record of credited purchases do not expire on our relay.

Children

The app is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. Weight-loss targets are not offered to users under 18.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new date.

Contact

Questions: support@methodhelm.com