MiniRead

MiniRead Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 17, 2026

MiniRead is a local-first reading app. We care about your privacy, and handling as little data as possible is a principle of the product.

Data collection

MiniRead does not collect, upload, sell or share your personal data with third parties, and does not use advertising identifiers or cross-app tracking. The app contains no analytics or crash-reporting tools.

Your reading data

The books you import, your reading progress, bookmarks, highlights, notes, shelf and reading statistics are stored on your device. MiniRead does not upload them to the developer’s servers, and the developer has no server that receives them.

Deleting the app may also delete the books and reading data it keeps on your device. Please keep your own backups of the original book files and of important notes. You can also export your whole library to a single file, saved where you choose, under Settings › Backup & Restore.

Purchases

Purchasing and restoring MiniRead Pro is handled by the Apple App Store. MiniRead only reads the purchase status the App Store has verified, and never receives or stores your payment card details.

Network access

MiniRead’s core reading features work offline. The app goes online only:

  • to reach the App Store, to load product information, make a purchase or restore one;
  • the first time you choose a Chinese typeface such as Song or Kai, to download it from Apple through the system;
  • when you use book sources, to reach the sources you have added (see the next section).

Book sources

MiniRead ships with no book sources, and does not operate any source or content server. The app connects to a source only after you add it yourself and use it to search, browse, read, download or update books.

  • These requests go directly from your device to the source you added, not through the developer’s servers. They contain the search terms you enter and the addresses of the pages visited; as with any website, the source can see your IP address.
  • When you add a book from a source to your shelf, the app loads the chapter you are reading and a few after it while you read (the number is set under Preload Chapters; at 0, only the chapter you are reading is loaded), and checks the table of contents for new chapters each time you open the book. The app never checks for updates in the background.
  • Book sources are run independently by third parties, who are responsible for their content and how they handle data. MiniRead does not review or endorse them. Please add only sources you have the right to use.
  • The list of sources you add, the links you used to add them and your recent search terms are stored on your device. A downloaded book becomes a local book in your library, and reading it no longer needs a connection.
  • So that books from sources can be updated, the app records on your device which source and address a book came from, and its list of chapters. If you export a library backup, these records are written into the backup with the book; the backup file is kept only where you choose.
  • When MiniRead is opened by a one-tap import link on a web page, or by a source file sent from another app, it first shows where the source came from and asks; nothing is added until you confirm.
  • Sources can contain scripts. These run only on your device, to read that source’s own pages; they cannot reach your library, notes or other app data.
  • Some sources’ pages only show their content when run in a browser, or ask you to pass a human check or sign in first; content a source offers such as paragraph comments also opens as a web page. For this the app opens web pages on your device: usually in the background, shown when you need to act or look. These pages are provided by the sites themselves, as they would be in a browser.
  • Cookies those sites set for this (for example “check passed” or a signed-in state) are kept on your device separately for each source, are used only for that source’s later requests, are not shared with other sources or the system browser, and are not included in backups. You can clear them on the source’s page; removing a source deletes them too.
  • Some sources have their own sign-in. What you enter on a source’s sign-in page (such as a username and password) is handed to that source’s own script, which sends it where it decides — usually the source’s website, but the app cannot verify that or vouch for the source. Sign in only to sources you trust, and don’t reuse a password you use elsewhere.
  • What you enter to sign in, and the credentials a source receives after sign-in (such as tokens), are stored in this device’s keychain, separately for each source, and used only for that source’s requests. They are not uploaded to the developer, not synced with iCloud and not included in backups. They are deleted when you sign out on the source’s sign-in page or remove the source; after the app is deleted and reinstalled, it first clears anything the previous installation left in the keychain.
  • Once a source is removed, the app no longer connects to it.

Diagnostics

Only when you choose Settings › Help & Feedback › Share Diagnostics does the app create a diagnostic text and hand it to the app you pick (Mail, for example). Diagnostics don’t include book content, titles, notes or reading history. Whether to send them, and to whom, is up to you.

Children’s privacy

MiniRead does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children.

This website

This website (miniread.zhaohe.org) is a static site. It sets no cookies and loads no analytics or advertising scripts. Our host, Cloudflare, keeps routine access logs for security and operation.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially, we will update this page and its effective date.

Contact

In MiniRead, Settings › Help & Feedback creates diagnostics that contain no book content or reading history. You can reach us through the channels listed on the support page.