1. Privacy at a Glance
- No ads and no advertising tracking. Researchly does not display ads, sell personal data, or build advertising profiles.
- Local by default. Your core reference library, edited metadata, and local PDF attachments are stored on your device and protected with platform encryption.
- Cloud when you choose it. Account features can sync library records and encrypted PDFs across signed-in devices, subject to your plan and settings.
- Feature-specific online processing. Search, citation refresh, ORCID, Zotero, AI summaries, translation, purchase verification, and support may send only the data needed to provide that feature.
2. Contact and Privacy Requests
Researchly is developed by Tridib Banerjee in Germany. For privacy questions, rights requests, or complaints, email support@caliq.eu or use the contact page. Requests will be reviewed in line with applicable privacy law.
3. Scope of This Policy
This Privacy Policy applies to Researchly for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, Researchly services, Researchly website pages, and support interactions. It does not replace the privacy policies of third-party services you choose to use through Researchly, such as sign-in providers, scholarly metadata providers, ORCID, Zotero, translation providers, intelligence providers, cloud infrastructure providers, or app marketplace billing providers.
4. Information Researchly Processes
a. Local library content
Researchly can process references, titles, authors, venues, years, DOI or URL values, abstracts, citation counts, ownership labels, edits, import state, PDFs, profile images, settings, themes, widgets, local statistics, and local diagnostics.
b. Local storage and device features
Researchly stores your library locally in encrypted files. Local PDFs are saved as encrypted PDF boxes. Key material is stored through the operating system Keychain, including synchronizable Keychain items where cross-device decryption is needed. Widgets, Live Activities, Spotlight indexing, language settings, theme preferences, and local statistics may use device storage, app group storage, and platform indexing frameworks.
c. Account and sign-in data
If you create or sign into a Researchly account, Researchly may support Apple, Google, and email/password sign-in through account service providers. Your account record can include an account identifier, email address, display name, provider IDs, authentication state, last seen timestamp, and profile information supplied by your chosen sign-in provider.
d. Cloud library sync and encrypted PDFs
If you enable signed-in cloud sync, library metadata can be stored in Researchly cloud services under your user account. Paid plans can enable encrypted PDF cloud sync through Researchly cloud storage. PDFs are encrypted before upload, and Researchly stores the encryption metadata needed for your signed-in app instances to decrypt them. Cloud sync can also mirror ORCID and Zotero connection state so your signed-in devices can use the same connections.
e. Scholarly metadata and citation services
When you search, import, enrich authors, or refresh citation counts, Researchly may send search text, DOI values, paper metadata, abstracts, provider priorities, and request metadata to Researchly backend services. Those services can query scholarly metadata providers such as Crossref, DataCite, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, Unpaywall, ORCID, arXiv, DOI.org, Zenodo, and related public endpoints.
f. Intelligence and translation
Researchly may summarize papers with on-device Apple Intelligence where supported. Where supported, compatible requests may use Private Cloud Compute. For eligible paid features, Researchly can also use cloud intelligence or translation providers. Inputs can include the paper title, authors, venue, year, DOI, abstract, and text selected for translation.
g. Purchases and entitlements
Purchases are handled through StoreKit and the App Store. Researchly may process product identifiers, transaction status, signed transaction data, expiry timestamps, plan tier, entitlement source, and related account identifiers to unlock and sync Free, Pro, and Max access.
h. Support
If you contact support, Researchly processes the email address, message, files, screenshots, diagnostic details, and any other information you choose to include so the request can be answered.
5. How Researchly Uses Information
Researchly uses information to provide, secure, maintain, and improve the app and related services, including to:
- Save, load, search, sort, edit, and display your encrypted local library, PDFs, profile image, settings, widgets, and statistics.
- Search for papers, resolve DOI metadata, enrich incomplete author names, import BibTeX or BibLaTeX, and fetch citation counts.
- Sync your library and encrypted PDFs across signed-in devices, resolve conflicts, record sync timestamps, and delete cloud data when requested.
- Connect ORCID and Zotero accounts, import works or DOI lists, and keep connection state available to your signed-in devices.
- Generate AI summaries, key highlights, limitations, and translations when you choose eligible intelligence features.
- Process purchases, restore plans, apply entitlements, and enforce fair-use quotas.
- Authenticate users, run service-integrity checks, prevent abuse, rate limit providers, debug failures, and respond to support requests.
6. Legal Bases for Processing
For users in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or other jurisdictions requiring a lawful basis, Researchly relies on:
- Performance of a contract: to provide app features, account functionality, subscriptions, sync, import, search, summary, translation, and support features you request.
- Legitimate interests: to secure the service, prevent misuse, debug failures, maintain reliability, and understand whether requested features work correctly.
- Consent: where required, including optional permissions, connected services, account sign-in, and features that you choose to enable.
- Legal obligation: where processing is necessary to comply with applicable law, billing, tax, dispute, or lawful request requirements.
7. Third-Party Services and Processors
Depending on which features you use, Researchly may rely on third-party providers that process limited personal data on Researchly's behalf or at your direction:
- Platform and account providers: sign-in, marketplace billing, operating-system storage, widgets, search indexing, and activity features.
- Cloud infrastructure: cloud database, cloud storage, hosting, serverless processing, security, and routing services used to operate Researchly services.
- Scholarly metadata providers: Crossref, DataCite, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, Unpaywall, ORCID, Zotero, arXiv, DOI.org, Zenodo, publisher URLs, and similar public research data sources.
- Intelligence and language providers: on-device Apple Intelligence where available, Private Cloud Compute where supported, and cloud intelligence or translation providers used for eligible features.
- Support providers: email, website contact handling, and developer support tools used to receive and answer your request.
8. Data Retention
- Local library data remains on your device until you delete items, remove PDFs, reset the app, or uninstall it.
- Cloud library records, user profile records, ORCID or Zotero connection data, entitlement snapshots, and encrypted PDF objects remain while your account and cloud sync data are active.
- When you delete your Researchly account through the app, Researchly attempts to delete cloud library documents, encrypted cloud PDFs, and the user document associated with the signed-in account. Local encrypted data on that device is not automatically deleted by account deletion.
- Quota counters, entitlement records, provider caches, and technical logs may be retained as needed for reliability, abuse prevention, billing reconciliation, debugging, and legal compliance.
- Support messages may be retained as needed to handle your request and maintain a support record.
9. International Transfers
Researchly is operated from Germany, but providers used for authentication, cloud infrastructure, model processing, translation, metadata lookup, support, and billing may process data in other countries. Where required, Researchly relies on provider commitments, contractual safeguards, and other lawful transfer mechanisms.
10. Security Measures
Researchly uses reasonable technical and organizational safeguards, including transport encryption, platform Keychain storage, AES-GCM encryption for local and cloud PDF storage, account authentication, service-integrity checks, provider rate limiting, access rules, and limited-purpose service endpoints. No system can be guaranteed perfectly secure. Keep your devices updated, protect your sign-in accounts, and be careful with exported citations, PDFs, and backups.
11. Children's Privacy
Researchly is not directed to children under 13. Children should use it only with appropriate parent, guardian, school, or institutional supervision. If you believe a child has provided personal data through Researchly, contact support so the issue can be reviewed.
12. Your Rights and Choices
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, object to, or port personal data, and to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent. You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.
- You can edit or delete papers, PDFs, profile images, and settings in the app.
- You can disconnect ORCID or Zotero from the app.
- You can manage or cancel subscriptions through your App Store account settings.
- You can delete your Researchly account and cloud data from the account screen.
- You can contact support for privacy requests that cannot be completed directly in the app.
13. No Advertising or Third-Party Analytics Profiling
Researchly does not use your data for ad targeting, sell personal data, or run behavioral profiling for marketing purposes. The app and website are intended to support research-library workflows and support operations, not advertising networks.
14. Changes to This Policy
Researchly may update this Privacy Policy as the app, backend, plans, providers, or legal requirements change. When material changes are made, the updated policy will be posted here with a new date and may also be communicated in-app where appropriate.
15. Contact
For privacy questions, rights requests, or complaints, email support@caliq.eu or visit the Researchly Support page.