Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 25, 2026

Overview

Distill is a read-later and knowledge base app for iOS. This policy explains what information Distill handles, where it goes, and the choices you have. It applies to the Distill iOS app, its Share Extension, and the small API proxy at distill-api.vercel.app that powers AI features.

Distill is designed to keep your library on your device. We do not require an account, we do not ask for your name or email, and we do not run analytics, advertising, or tracking SDKs of any kind.

Information You Provide

When you save an article to Distill — through the Share Extension from any browser (Safari, Chrome, Arc, Firefox, and others), or by pasting a URL directly into the app — Distill captures and stores the following on your device:

• The article's body text, title, publication name, and preview image URL
• The original source URL you shared
• The date you saved it
• Any messages you send in the in-app chat about that article

To extract the article's text, Distill loads the URL you provide in a hidden in-app web view (Apple's WKWebView) running locally on your device. This fetch is not routed through any Distill server. The publisher's website receives the request the same way it would receive any visit from a standard web browser, and responds with whatever content its servers decide to return for that request.

Information We Do Not Collect

Distill does not collect, and has no way to collect, the following:

• Your name, email address, phone number, or any account information (there are no Distill accounts)
• Your location, contacts, photos, camera, microphone, or health data
• Advertising identifiers (IDFA) or cross-app tracking data
• Crash reports, usage analytics, session replays, or behavioral events
• Payment details — Apple handles all payments; Distill never sees your card information
• Publisher credentials. When you sign in to a publisher's website to unlock a paywalled article, your username, password, one-time codes, and any other credentials you enter are submitted directly from your device to that publisher's own login page. Distill never reads, stores, logs, or transmits them.
• Publisher session cookies. Cookies set by a publisher after you sign in are stored in the app's local web view data store on your device. They are never uploaded to any Distill server, the Distill API proxy, or Anthropic.

Paywalled Articles and Publisher Sign-In

Some articles are behind a publisher's paywall. When Distill loads a URL and detects paywall metadata (for example, the isAccessibleForFree flag in the page's structured data), it pauses extraction and offers you the choice to continue by signing in to the publisher, or to cancel.

Continue (sign in to the publisher). Distill opens an in-app browser (Apple's WKWebView) that loads the publisher's own website, exactly as it exists on the public internet. You sign in directly on the publisher's login page, the same way you would in Safari or Chrome. Everything you type — your username, password, two-factor codes, and any other credentials — is submitted by your device straight to the publisher. Distill does not read, intercept, log, store, or transmit what you enter, and has no technical ability to do so. The sign-in interaction is strictly between you and the publisher.

After you sign in and tap Done, the publisher's session cookies — set by the publisher, the same way they would be set in any browser — are retained in the app's local web view data store on your device. Distill uses those cookies only to re-fetch the single article URL you originally shared, so it can extract the full content you now have access to as a logged-in subscriber. Specifically, these cookies:

• Are stored only on your device, inside the app's sandboxed storage
• Are never sent to the Distill API proxy, to Anthropic, or to any other server Distill operates
• Are scoped by the operating system to the publisher's domain and are not shared with other apps
• Remain under the publisher's control and can be invalidated by the publisher at any time (for example, when your session expires or you sign out)
• Can be removed by deleting Distill from your device, which clears the app's web view data store

Cancel. If you would rather not sign in, you can dismiss the prompt and the article will not be saved. No login occurs, no cookies are stored, and Distill does not interact further with the publisher.

Once an article's text has been extracted after sign-in, it is handled the same way as any other saved article: stored locally on your device and, if you have an active subscription, sent to the AI pipeline described in the "AI Processing" section to generate a distillation. Publisher cookies and credentials are not part of that pipeline.

You are responsible for ensuring that you have a legitimate subscription and the authority to access any paywalled article you unlock through Distill. See our Terms of Use for the rules that apply to this feature.

Where Your Data Lives

Your library of saved articles, distillations, and chat history is stored locally on your device using Apple's SwiftData framework, inside a shared app container so that the main Distill app and its Share Extension can access the same data. This storage is protected by iOS device-level encryption.

If you have enabled iCloud backup for your device, your Distill data may be included in that backup under your personal iCloud account, subject to Apple's Privacy Policy. Distill does not operate its own cloud sync or servers that store your library.

AI Processing

To generate the distillation — a plain-English summary of the article, a set of key highlights, and a "why it matters" section — and to power the in-app chat, Distill sends content to a small API proxy we operate at distill-api.vercel.app, which forwards the request to Anthropic's Claude API.

Specifically:

• When you save an article: the article title and body text (truncated to 10,000 words) are sent to the proxy and forwarded to Anthropic to generate the distillation.
• When you chat about an article: the article text and distillation, your message, and up to the last 20 messages of that chat are sent to the proxy and forwarded to Anthropic to generate the response.
• When you use the Distill agent tab: your message, up to the last 20 agent messages, the list of publication names in your library, and any article distillations or library metadata retrieved during the agent's search are sent to the proxy and forwarded to Anthropic to generate the response. This feature counts against the same daily chat limit as article chat.

The proxy does not store article text, chat messages, or device identifiers in any database. Vercel, which hosts the proxy, may retain short-lived server logs (such as error traces) for operational purposes. Anthropic processes requests under its own policies — see Anthropic's Privacy Policy and Commercial Terms. Under Anthropic's API terms, prompts and outputs are not used to train their models.

Subscriptions and Payments

Distill offers an optional monthly subscription processed entirely through Apple's App Store using StoreKit 2. Apple handles the transaction, including payment method, billing, and renewal. Distill receives only a signed receipt from Apple confirming your subscription status — we do not see your payment method, full name, or billing address.

Apple's handling of your purchase is governed by the Apple Privacy Policy. You can manage or cancel your subscription at any time in Settings → [Your Name] → Subscriptions on your device.

Third-Party Services

Distill relies on the following third parties solely for the features described above:

• Anthropic, PBC — processes article text and chat messages to generate distillations and chat responses. Privacy Policy
• Vercel Inc. — hosts the distill-api.vercel.app proxy that routes requests to Anthropic. Privacy Policy
• Apple Inc. — distributes the app through the App Store and handles subscription payments via StoreKit. Privacy Policy
• Publisher websites — when you save an article, the app fetches the page directly from the publisher's website, which will see that request as it would any web browser visit.

Data Security

All network requests between the app and the Distill API proxy, and between the proxy and Anthropic, use HTTPS with TLS encryption. On-device data is protected by iOS standard file-level encryption, which is active whenever your device is locked with a passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID. Because Distill does not operate servers that store your library, there is no central database that could be breached.

Your Choices and Rights

Because your library lives on your device, you are in full control of it:

• Delete an item: swipe to delete any article or chat inside the app.
• Delete everything: delete the Distill app from your device. This removes your entire library, chat history, any publisher session cookies, and all locally stored data.
• Clear publisher sign-ins: publisher session cookies live only inside Distill's local web view storage. Deleting the app clears them. You can also sign out directly on any publisher's website from inside the in-app sign-in browser.
• Stop AI processing: simply stop saving articles or using the chat feature. No requests are sent to the proxy except when you take one of those actions.
• Subscription: cancel at any time in your device's Subscriptions settings.

If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, California, or another jurisdiction that grants statutory privacy rights (such as access, correction, deletion, or portability), you may contact us using the email below. Because Distill does not maintain accounts or servers that store user libraries, most requests are fulfilled by uninstalling the app.

Children's Privacy

Distill is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided information to Distill, please contact us and we will take appropriate steps.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes to the app or to clarify our practices. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Material changes will also be noted in the app's release notes on the App Store.

Contact

Questions about this policy or Distill's privacy practices can be sent to support@jaimequezada.com.