Last updated on October 27, 2026
Neither the developers ("We") of Clew nor the app collects or stores any of your personal information, and your highlights and notes are private to your devices and your iCloud account.
We don't gather or share any information about you as a user of Clew. When you use our Services, your data is private to you.
If you have allowed Apple to collect information from your device and share it with developers, we may receive some limited and anonymous analytics information.
There is no tracking technology in Clew.
Your Clew data is stored in your private iCloud database, which means it exists within your Apple account, on your device(s), and nowhere else.
Any machine learning (ML)–powered capabilities, such as intelligent tag suggestions, use on-device frameworks.
If you choose to connect your Readwise account to Clew, Clew sends your Readwise access token to Readwise to import highlights. Cover art for imported items is downloaded from the image addresses Readwise provides. Clew doesn't upload any data.
When you search for sources, import items, save from web links, or fill in missing artwork, Clew looks up details such as titles, authors, and ISBNs using the external data sources described below. Clew doesn't send any of your highlights, notes, tags, or personal information.
For more information about external data sources, see the "External Data Sources" section of this Privacy Policy.
If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at help@getclew.com.
If you send us an email at help@getclew.com, we will see the email address you used to communicate with us along with any personal information you might include, such as your name or an email signature. We will not share this information with anyone.
We are committed to privacy, trust, and your ownership of your data.
Songs: song and album titles, artists, release dates, and artwork. Clew asks for Apple Music access only to search its catalog. None of your personal data is read, sent, or stored, and you don't need an Apple Music subscription.
Without access, song search still works through the iTunes Search API, but explicit tracks won't appear in the results.
Books and podcasts. Apple's iTunes Search API supplies:
Books: titles, authors, publication years, page counts, descriptions, and cover art, from Google Books.
Books and cover art: book cover art (when Clew has an ISBN) and book details. Open Library is run by the Internet Archive, and its catalog is contributed by the public.
Podcast episodes: a show's episode list and artwork come from the show's own RSS feed, published by whoever makes it—not from Clew or from Apple.
Movies and TV shows: titles, release years, posters, and the people who wrote and directed them. TMDB is also what the episode picker browses: the season list for a show, and the episodes inside a season.
This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.
Clew contacts a website directly only to get the title and icon of a link you've saved: when you save it, or later if that link's icon is missing (for example, after an import or restore). Like any web request, the site can see your IP address. Clew sends no other information about you or your collection.
When a site doesn't publish an icon, Clew tries to get one from Google's favicon service, which is sent only the site's address.