In short
- AlertCue works on your phone. It has no account, no server, no advertising and no analytics, and the app does not have Android’s internet permission.
- With the notification access you give it, Android lets AlertCue see every notification on your phone. AlertCue uses only the notifications of the apps you choose, to decide whether to remind or alert you, and does not store message text, titles or sender names, except a name you pick from a notification and save in a rule.
- What AlertCue stores, such as your chosen apps, the people and words you add and short-lived alert records, stays in AlertCue’s private storage on your phone. It is left out of Android backups and phone-to-phone transfers.
- On your phone, AlertCue hands a few things to other apps: an app’s name to your phone’s speech engine when an alert includes the spoken step (“Say which app”), and a diagnostics report to the app you pick when you choose to share one. AlertCue itself sends nothing over the internet.
- Nothing reaches us unless you send it to us yourself. We do not sell personal information.
- If you join the founding-member list on this website, we keep your email address only to write to you about AlertCue’s founding membership. See Founding-member list.
Who we are
The AlertCue app and this website are published by Muhammad Iqbal (“we”, “us”), based in Lahore, Pakistan. We are responsible for how the app handles your data and for this policy. We have not appointed a data protection officer or a representative in another country.
For privacy questions or requests, email support@alertcue.si. More in Contact.
What this policy covers
This policy covers the AlertCue app for Android and this website, alertcue.si. It describes what the app can access on your phone, what it stores and for how long, what it passes to other apps, what can leave your phone, and the choices you have.
AlertCue works with other apps that each have their own privacy policies: the apps whose notifications you choose to watch, your phone’s speech engine, any app you share a report with, and Android and Google Play themselves. This policy does not cover how those apps or services handle data.
Notification access
What notification access allows
AlertCue needs Android’s notification access, which you turn on yourself in Android’s settings after AlertCue explains it. This access is broad: Android then gives AlertCue every notification that arrives on your phone, from every app. That includes message text, titles, and the names, and sometimes the email addresses or phone numbers, of the people messages come from. Recent Android versions may hide parts of some notifications, such as one-time codes, from apps like AlertCue.
How AlertCue handles each notification
- When a notification arrives, and for every notification already showing when AlertCue starts or reconnects, AlertCue reads its details into the phone’s working memory. For a message this can include the title, the text, the sender’s name and any address the app included, and the conversation’s name. It also reads technical details such as which app posted it, when, and its type.
- AlertCue reads every notification this way, checks whether it belongs to an alert already open, and then checks which app it came from. If the app is not one you chose to watch, AlertCue stops there and keeps only an anonymous count that a notification was skipped, with no app name and no content. In rare cases, such as a notification it cannot read properly, it keeps one technical entry instead, also with no app name and no content.
- For an app you watch, AlertCue compares the notification with the people, email addresses, email domains, words and conversations you added in AlertCue, decides whether and how to remind or alert you, and then lets go of the text.
- To follow up on an alert, AlertCue keeps a short record: which app, the times, the number of messages, and scrambled reference codes for the notification, one of them made from the newest message’s sender and text. See What AlertCue stores on your phone.
- AlertCue does not dismiss, change, reply to or forward other apps’ notifications.
Picking a conversation
When you add a conversation rule, AlertCue lists the conversations currently showing in your notifications from the apps you watch, by the name the notification shows, so that you can pick one. The name you pick is filled in as the rule’s label. You can change the label before saving, and the label you save is stored with the rule.
Turning it off
You can turn notification access off in Android’s settings at any time. AlertCue then cannot see any notifications and tells you that it cannot alert you.
What AlertCue stores on your phone
Everything AlertCue stores is kept in its private storage on your phone. None of it is sent to us. The times given are the longest each item is normally kept; for how deletion works, see How long data is kept.
| What | Why | Kept until |
|---|---|---|
| The apps you watch: each app’s name and Android package name, when you added it, and what you chose for it (alert style, every message or only the people and topics you add, timing, on or off, shared or own settings) | To know which notifications to act on and how | You remove the app, erase AlertCue’s data, or uninstall |
| Your shared settings: alert style, every message or only what you add, and timing | Used by the apps that follow the shared settings | You erase AlertCue’s data or uninstall |
| Your rules: the label you give each rule, and the people’s names, email addresses, email domains, words and phrases you typed or picked. For a conversation rule: its label, the app’s package name and a scrambled reference code for the conversation. Each rule also keeps when you made it and which apps it applies to | To decide which messages matter to you | You delete the rule, erase AlertCue’s data, or uninstall |
| A setup you have not finished: the apps you picked, the choices you made, and the people, addresses, domains and words you entered in it. Nothing in it alerts until you choose “Start alerts” | So you can continue the setup later | You finish or discard the setup, erase AlertCue’s data, or uninstall. There is no automatic time limit |
| Your ringing hours and the alert style you chose for matched messages | To decide when AlertCue may ring or speak | You change them, erase AlertCue’s data, or uninstall |
| Your role or roles, if you choose any in “Who are you?” when you first set up AlertCue | Only to suggest apps, keywords and timing on your phone. It is never sent anywhere and is not in the diagnostics report | You erase AlertCue’s data or uninstall |
| For each alert: the watched app’s package name, times (including when the newest message was sent), the number of messages, the step it reached and how it ended, and scrambled reference codes for the notification. One of these codes is made from the newest message’s sender and text, or from the notification’s title and text when it is not a message, only so AlertCue can tell whether the notification changed | To follow up, stop when you answer, and recover after a restart | 7 days after the alert ended. An alert still open 24 hours after its notification arrived is closed then |
| For each loud alert: when it rang, snoozes, and how you answered | To ring, snooze and stop correctly | 7 days after the loud alert ended |
| Why AlertCue alerted you or not, as short codes, with the app, the time and which of your rules matched | To show you AlertCue’s recent Activity | 7 days, and at most 5,000 entries after each housekeeping run |
| A technical record with no app names and no message content: for example that an alert was shown late, that a permission was turned off, or that Android stopped AlertCue. It also holds the missed-alert reports you make in the app (the reason you picked and roughly when) | To show what AlertCue can check on your phone, and for the diagnostics report | 14 days, and never more than 5,000 entries |
| The results of “Loud alert test” and “Real message test” (times, the steps reached, your answer to whether you heard it, AlertCue’s version and your phone’s Android build number) and the phone steps you confirmed | To show whether the test passed on this phone and version | You erase AlertCue’s data or uninstall |
| That you accepted the privacy policy and terms: the version and the time | So AlertCue asks again only when they change | You erase AlertCue’s data or uninstall |
| App settings and housekeeping: the theme you chose, whether you finished the introduction, which apps still need an alert style, a random identifier for this installation, a random value used to make the reference codes, when AlertCue last warned you about a problem, and timing information about restarts and app stops used to recover afterwards | To run the app and keep alerts working after restarts | You erase AlertCue’s data or uninstall |
What AlertCue does not store
AlertCue does not store the text, titles or sender names of your notifications, except for any name you keep as a rule’s label. It does not keep a copy of your contacts. The random identifier and random value above are created on your phone; AlertCue does not send them anywhere, and they are not part of the diagnostics report.
What AlertCue passes to other apps on your phone
AlertCue works with other apps on your phone in the ways below. These happen on the phone itself; AlertCue sends nothing over the internet.
Your phone’s speech engine
If an alert includes the spoken step (“Say which app”, part of the alert styles “Say it out loud” and “Say it out loud + Loud alert”), AlertCue asks the text-to-speech engine installed on your phone to say “Urgent message from” and the app’s name, then “Please check your phone.” If the app’s name cannot be read, it says “Urgent message. Please check your phone.” It never speaks message text or a sender’s name.
The speech engine is a separate app from its own publisher (on many phones Google’s or the phone maker’s). AlertCue gives it that line together with your phone’s language and the chosen voice. AlertCue only uses a voice that the engine reports as stored on the phone and not needing a network connection. If there is none, AlertCue does not speak: it goes on to the alert’s next step or, when speaking was the last step, shows a notice that it could not finish alerting you. How the speech engine itself handles data is set by its publisher’s privacy policy.
This is the only information AlertCue shares with another app on its own: the name of an app on your phone, passed to the speech engine on your phone so the alert can be spoken, only for apps whose alert includes the spoken step. AlertCue describes it before you give notification access. The line contains no message content and nothing about you or the sender, and AlertCue does not send it over the internet.
The line is played like an alarm, at your phone’s alarm volume, for at most 10 seconds once it starts. AlertCue does not change any volume or your Do Not Disturb settings.
Android’s contact picker
If you tap “Choose from contacts” or “Email from contacts” while adding a person, Android’s own contact picker opens. AlertCue receives only the one name, or the one email address with its contact name, that you pick. It puts it in the rule you are editing, using the contact’s name as the label if the label is empty, and stores it only when you save. AlertCue does not have permission to read your contacts and cannot browse them.
The list of apps on your phone
To let you choose which apps to watch, AlertCue reads the list of apps that appear in your phone’s app drawer, which on most phones is nearly every app you installed (their names and package names). This happens on your phone only, and only the apps you choose are saved. AlertCue also looks up which speech engines are installed.
Opening the app a message came from
When you tap an alert to open it, AlertCue uses the original notification’s own action, or opens that app’s main screen. It adds no data of its own.
AlertCue’s own notifications
AlertCue’s reminders and alerts show the name of the app a message is in, for example “Reminder from” or “Unread message in” and the app’s name. They never show message text or the sender. AlertCue sets its reminders and loud alerts to show in full on your lock screen, with the app’s name, even if you have chosen to hide sensitive notification content. Android may also show reminders on a connected watch, and other apps you have given notification access to can see AlertCue’s notifications.
Your phone’s settings
When you tap a fix-it step, AlertCue opens the matching page in Android’s settings or, where the phone has one, the phone maker’s own startup page: Autostart in the Security app on Xiaomi phones, the startup settings on Oppo and Vivo phones, or Auto-start in Phone Master on Tecno, Infinix and itel phones. It passes only AlertCue’s own name.
The share sheet
If you share a diagnostics report, Android’s share sheet passes it to the app you pick. See What can leave your phone.
What can leave your phone
AlertCue sends nothing by itself
AlertCue does not have Android’s internet permission. It contains no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting code, and no third-party code that sends data off your phone. It has no account and no server, and it does not send us anything.
Backups and new phones
AlertCue tells Android to leave its data out of cloud backup and phone-to-phone transfer, so a phone restored or set up from another phone starts with no AlertCue data.
A diagnostics report you choose to share
In Settings, under Diagnostics, you can build a plain-text report and share it with an app or person you choose. AlertCue does not send it anywhere itself and keeps no copy. The report contains:
- when it was made and your phone’s time-zone offset;
- AlertCue’s version;
- your phone’s maker and model, Android version and security patch level;
- AlertCue’s status, and the state of the phone settings it relies on, such as notification access, notifications, alarms, Do Not Disturb, alarm volume and battery settings;
- your watched apps, numbered, each with whether it is on and its alert style. Their names are included only if you turn on that option before sharing;
- the missed-alert reports you made;
- up to 14 days of AlertCue’s technical record, with times.
The report contains no message text, titles or sender names, and none of the people, addresses or words in your rules. Once shared, the copy is handled by the app and the people you sent it to.
Android and Google Play
Android and Google Play may collect information about apps on your phone, such as installs and crash reports, under Google’s own privacy policy. AlertCue does not add to or control that collection. Google Play shows us install numbers and crash reports for AlertCue, which do not name you, and any review you write, with the name your review shows.
Payments
This version of AlertCue has no purchase or payment features and handles no payment information.
Data you send us
We receive personal information only if you send it to us, for example by emailing us, sharing a diagnostics report with us or writing a Google Play review. We then receive what you send, such as your email address, your message, and the report’s contents.
- We use it only to answer you and to look into the problem you report.
- We keep it until your request is resolved, and then delete it within 90 days.
- We keep it only in our email account, which only we can access, and do not copy it into other systems.
- We do not sell it or share it with anyone else, except the email service that delivers it and where the law requires.
- We handle it in Pakistan. If you write to us from another country, your message is transferred to Pakistan.
Sending us information is never required to use AlertCue. Where data protection law applies, we handle such messages in our legitimate interest in answering you, and you have the rights described in Your choices and rights.
Founding-member list
If you sign up as a founding member on this website, we receive the name and email address you type, the time you agreed and the version of the sentence you agreed to, and where on the website you signed up. We then record the state of your sign-up: whether our emails to you were accepted for sending, whether you opened the link we sent you, and when. We do not keep your IP address, and signing up puts nothing on your device.
- We use your name and address only to send you the email that confirms your address, the steps of the founding-member test, and other emails about AlertCue. We do not use them for anything else and do not send you other marketing.
- We rely on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
- We keep this record in a private Google Sheet in our Google Workspace, which only we can open, and we send the emails through our Google Workspace mailbox, info@alertcue.si. Google LLC runs both for us. We may add our own notes to your row, for example that we saw you in the Google Group or in the test. When you confirm your address, that mailbox also gets an email from the website with your name, your address and the time. The website host, Vercel Inc., carries your request.
- The founding-member Google Group, alertcue@googlegroups.com, is run by Google Groups. Its member list is visible only to the people who manage the group. When you join it, Google handles your Google Account under Google’s own privacy policy.
- Google Play handles the test invitation, your choice to join the test and the installation of AlertCue, under Google’s own privacy policy.
- We keep your record, and the emails about it in our mailbox, while the founding-member test runs, and no longer than 12 months after you signed up.
- To see, correct or delete your record and those emails, or to stop our emails, reply to any email we send you or email info@alertcue.si. We do it within 30 days. You can leave the Google Group from its page, and leave the test on Google Play’s testing page.
- We are based in Pakistan, and Google and Vercel may process your data in other countries. Where data protection law applies, those transfers rely on their standard safeguards.
We never sell this record or share it with anyone else, except as described here and where the law requires.
Permissions AlertCue uses
Android lists these permissions and special access in AlertCue’s app settings, and Google Play lists them on AlertCue’s page. Each one is used only as described.
| Permission | What AlertCue uses it for |
|---|---|
| Notification access | To see notifications from the apps you choose. You turn it on in Android’s settings. See Notification access. |
| Notifications | To show reminders, alerts and warnings when AlertCue cannot alert you. |
| Alarms and reminders | To schedule each reminder step at its time. Without it, alerts can come late. |
| Full-screen notifications | To show a ringing alert over the lock screen. On Android 14 and later, you choose whether to allow it. |
| Foreground services (system-exempted and media playback) | To keep a loud alert or the spoken line playing while it is active. Android shows a notification while either runs, and a loud alert has a Stop button. |
| Run at startup | To restore scheduled alerts after the phone restarts, the time changes or AlertCue updates. |
| Vibration | To vibrate during alerts. |
| Battery optimization exemption | To ask Android, through its own one-tap dialog, to set AlertCue’s battery use to Unrestricted, so that Android is less likely to pause it. |
| Prevent phone from sleeping | To keep the phone awake briefly while an alert is processed or plays. |
AlertCue does not ask for internet access, contacts, location, camera, microphone, phone, SMS, call logs, files and media, accounts, the advertising ID, accessibility services or the list of all apps on your phone. Apart from the notifications you let it see, the only apps it can look up are the apps in your app drawer and the installed speech engines.
How your data is protected
- AlertCue’s data is kept in its private app storage, which Android keeps separate from other apps. On phones that support it, Android’s own storage encryption also applies. AlertCue does not add its own encryption.
- The reference codes are made with a random value created on your phone, so the same notification gives different codes on different phones, and a code cannot in practice be turned back into the original. As with any such code, someone who already had full access to AlertCue’s data on your phone could check whether a guessed value matches.
- AlertCue does not write notification content or your rules to Android’s system log.
- AlertCue does not send your data anywhere, so there is no copy of it on any server of ours unless you send it to us yourself.
No method of storing data is perfect. Keep your phone locked and its software up to date, and give notification access only to apps you trust.
How long data is kept and how to delete it
The table in What AlertCue stores on your phone gives how long each item is kept. AlertCue deletes expired items during its housekeeping, which Android runs about every six hours but can postpone, for example when battery saving restricts AlertCue. Alert records are also cleared each time AlertCue starts. An item can stay past its time until the next run.
Ways to delete
- Remove a watched app or delete a rule in AlertCue. Its settings are deleted at once. The alert records and Activity entries that mention it are deleted at their usual time, within 7 days.
- Discard a setup you have not finished.
- “Erase all data” in Settings deletes everything AlertCue stored on your phone, including that you accepted this policy, and stops its alerts. Only the internal records of the Android task scheduler that AlertCue uses for housekeeping remain; AlertCue puts none of your apps, rules or message details in them. AlertCue then starts again empty and records only that an erase happened, and when. Android keeps the permissions you gave AlertCue, including notification access, and your notification settings for it; turn them off in Android’s settings if you want to.
- Uninstalling AlertCue deletes everything AlertCue stored on your phone. Copies of a report you shared stay with the app or people you shared it with.
We hold none of this data, so there is nothing for us to look up, correct, export or delete on your behalf. For data you sent us, see Data you send us.
Your choices and rights
- Choose which apps AlertCue watches, and turn each one off or remove it at any time.
- Choose alert styles without “Say it out loud” for your apps, in your shared settings and for messages that match the people, words and conversations you added, so that no app name is passed to the speech engine.
- Turn notification access or any other permission off in Android’s settings.
- Decide whether to share a diagnostics report, with whom, and whether it includes app names.
- Erase all of AlertCue’s data, or uninstall it.
If data protection law gives you rights over personal information we hold about you, such as access, correction, deletion, restriction, objection or portability, you can use them for anything you sent us by emailing support@alertcue.si. You can also complain to the data protection authority where you live or work.
We make no decisions about you by automated means. AlertCue’s matching of notifications against your rules runs only on your phone, under your control.
Children
AlertCue is intended for adults aged 18 and over and is not directed at children. AlertCue does not send us data, so we do not knowingly receive information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
This website
This website has no cookies, no analytics, no advertising and no third-party scripts or fonts, and it does not put cookies or other data on your device; your browser may keep its usual cached copy of the pages. It is hosted by Vercel Inc. (Vercel’s privacy policy), which, like any web host, receives the technical details of each visit, such as your IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time, to deliver the site and protect it from abuse. The host keeps them under its own privacy policy.
If you join the founding-member list, see Founding-member list.
Changes to this policy
We will update this page when AlertCue changes what it reads, stores or shares, and change the effective date at the top. The app also contains its own shorter privacy text. When we change that text, the app shows you the new version and asks you to accept it again before you can use its screens. The alerts you already set up keep working while you decide.
Contact
Muhammad Iqbal
Lahore, Pakistan
Email: support@alertcue.si
AlertCue is a best-effort reminder tool and not an emergency service. See the AlertCue home page for what it does.