Privacy Policy

S-Pen Notes

Effective date: October 22, 2026

Introduction

S-Pen Notes is a note and sketch app for Samsung Galaxy S Ultra phones and the S Pen. It is made by Taha Sardar ("we", "us"). This policy explains what the app does with your information, where it is kept, and the choices you have.

In short:

  • Your notes are saved privately on your phone.
  • You need no account with us, and S-Pen Notes has no server of its own.
  • No ads, no analytics, no tracking.
  • Google Drive backup is optional. If you turn it on, your notes go to your own Google Drive. We never receive them.

Information the app handles

S-Pen Notes does not collect information for us. What it handles stays on your phone, unless you use Google Drive backup or send a note or its text to another app.

On your phone

  • Your notes: drawings (where your pen moved and how hard you pressed), typed text and titles, shapes, pictures you add, and each note's page style.
  • Labels you create (name and colour).
  • A small database with each note's title, typed text, label, colours, size, and the dates it was created and changed.
  • Note wallpaper, if you choose one.
  • App settings: your tool and page choices, the app language, backup settings, the time of the last backup and, if you connect Google Drive, your Google account's email address.
  • Temporary files, such as copies of pictures you pick or share.

All of this is kept in the app's private storage, which other apps cannot open. Nothing is saved to shared storage or a memory card. Notes and files get random IDs; the app uses no device ID or advertising ID.

No Android device backup

The app opts out of Android's own device backup and of device-to-device transfer, so Android copies none of its data to your Google account or to a new phone, even if backup is turned on in your phone's settings. Google Drive backup, which you can turn on in the app (see below), is the only backup. Without it, if you uninstall the app or move to a new phone, the app starts empty.

Google sign-in (optional, only for Drive backup)

  • Sign-in uses Google's own sign-in sheet, run by Google Play services on your phone. It appears only when you tap "Connect", "Back up now", "Get" or "Get latest from Drive", never when the app starts.
  • When you sign in, Google gives the app your email address, name, profile picture link, account ID and an ID token. The app keeps only your email address: it shows it on the Backup screen and saves it in the app's settings on your phone. It does not use or save the rest.
  • Google then asks you separately to allow Drive access, for one scope only: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file. This lets the app create files in your Google Drive, and see, change and delete only the files it created. It cannot see or open any other file in your Drive.
  • For Drive, the app gets a short-lived access token. It is kept only in memory and never saved. The app asks for no long-term (offline) access and gets no refresh token.
  • To show whether Drive is connected, the app asks Google Play services on your phone whether you gave it Drive access. It does this when you open Settings or the Backup screen, and before an automatic backup or sync. This check shows nothing on screen and sends none of your notes.

What the app does not collect

  • No access to your location, contacts, phone calls, microphone or camera.
  • No device IDs, advertising ID or usage analytics, and no crash reporting of its own.
  • No reading of your screen or of other apps' content.

Google Drive backup

Drive backup is optional. Nothing is uploaded until you connect Google Drive, either on the Backup screen in Settings or with the cloud button ("Get latest from Drive") on the main notes screen. Connecting alone uploads nothing. An upload happens only when you tap "Back up now", confirm one in "Get latest from Drive", or turn on "Back up automatically".

Where your backup goes

  • One file, spen-notes-backup.zip, in a folder named "S-Pen Notes" in your Google Drive (My Drive).
  • Each backup replaces that file. Google Drive may keep earlier versions of it for a while (usually up to 30 days) in its version history (Manage versions).
  • It travels directly between your phone and Google over an encrypted connection (HTTPS). It never passes through us.
  • The app does not encrypt the zip file itself. Anyone who can open your Google Drive can open it.

What is in the backup

  • A copy of the notes database (titles, typed text, labels, colours and dates).
  • Every note file: drawings and their pen data, typed notes, and the pictures you added.
  • Your note wallpaper, if you set one and "Keep in Google Drive backup" is on (it is on by default). If you turn it off, later backups leave it out; the copy in your current backup stays until the next backup replaces the file.
  • A small index file with the backup format version, the time it was made, the number of files and the wallpaper's file name.

Not in the backup: your app settings, the app language, your Google email address and temporary files.

When it backs up

  • By hand: "Back up now" uploads right away. "Get" downloads a backup and merges it into your notes. On the main notes screen, "Get latest from Drive" asks you before it uploads, downloads or merges.
  • Automatically: only if you turn on "Back up automatically" (off by default). Then, each time the app starts and its main notes screen opens, it syncs with Drive without asking. If your notes or labels changed since the last backup (deleting a note or a label counts too), it uploads a new backup of all your notes, whatever the daily or weekly setting. If Drive holds a newer backup (for example, from another phone), it merges that backup into your notes. If both changed, it merges first and then uploads. When you return to the app, it also backs up if your notes or labels changed and the last backup is at least a day old (the default) or a week old; with "Back up after each change" on, any change is enough.
  • After each change: only if you also turn on "Back up after each change" (an option under "Back up automatically", off by default). It uploads shortly after you save, delete, rename or label a note, or edit or delete a label. Changes made close together go up as one upload, so normally there is at most one upload every 2 minutes; a quick note from the S Pen is uploaded straight away. After a quick note, the app may keep running in the background for up to 90 seconds to finish the upload.
  • Automatic backups need Drive to be connected, and they never show a sign-in screen.

Getting a backup back

  • Getting a backup merges it into your notes. It never wipes your phone's notes or deletes any of them.
  • A note that is only in the backup is added. A note that is only on your phone stays. A note in both places is replaced only if the backup's copy was edited more recently; if both are equally recent, your phone's copy stays.
  • Labels are merged too: if the same label is in both places, the copy edited more recently stays; a label with the same name as one of yours is joined to it; other labels are added.
  • A wallpaper from the backup is used only if your phone has none.
  • The backup is unpacked into a temporary folder inside the app, and that folder is deleted afterwards.

Deleting and your backup

  • Deleting a note on your phone does not remove it from Drive at once. It leaves Drive the next time a backup replaces the file. With "Back up automatically" on, a deletion on its own counts as a change, so this happens without you doing anything: the app uploads a fresh backup without the note the next time it starts and its main notes screen opens, or when you return to the app once the last backup is at least a day old (the default) or a week old, whichever comes first. If "Back up after each change" is on as well, it uploads shortly after the delete, normally within 2 minutes; if that upload did not go through (for example, because the app was closed first or you were offline), it tries again the next time you return to the app or it starts. Without automatic backup, tap "Back up now" on the Backup screen.
  • A backup made before the delete still contains the note, and getting a backup merges it into your notes. A merge can add and update notes but cannot delete any, so getting such an older backup by hand ("Get" on the Backup screen) brings the deleted note back. So does merging with a newer backup from another phone that still has the note: the automatic sync does that on its own when the app starts, and "Get latest from Drive" does it when you confirm. If that happens, delete the note again on each phone that still has it, then back up.
  • Earlier versions in Drive's version history may still contain it.
  • Cleaning up old files: earlier versions of the app saved backups with names like spen-notes-backup-<timestamp>.zip. After an automatic upload, or an upload you confirm in "Get latest from Drive", the app moves such old files into the "S-Pen Notes" folder and deletes all but the 10 newest. It never deletes your current backup.

Photos and pictures

  • You can add a picture to a note ("Add picture" or "Insert image") or choose one as your note wallpaper.
  • Pictures are chosen with Android's own picker: the Android Photo Picker on Android 16 and later; on older versions, Android's standard "choose a picture" request, which opens the system's picker or a gallery app you choose. The app receives only the picture you pick. It cannot browse your photos.
  • The picture is resized and copied into the app's private storage, where it becomes part of your note (and of your Drive backup, if you use it).
  • The app asks for no storage, photos or camera permission, and it has no camera feature.
  • Photos can carry hidden details (metadata), such as the camera model or the place where the photo was taken. The app keeps these details as the picker hands them over, so they may remain in the copy in your note and in your Drive backup. The app itself never reads them.
  • Your wallpaper is kept as one copy in the app's storage. Choosing a new one replaces it, and "Remove" (Settings → Note wallpaper) deletes that copy. Temporary copies the picture picker made stay in the app's cache until it is cleared. A copy in your Drive backup stays until the next backup replaces the file. Until then, getting that backup by hand brings the wallpaper back, because a wallpaper from a backup is used when your phone has none. The automatic sync does the same when it merges a newer backup from another phone that has a wallpaper.

The S Pen quick note

The quick note is a see-through window that opens over whatever is on your screen, so you can sketch on top of it.

  • You draw on the window itself. Android shows the app underneath, but S-Pen Notes never reads, captures or records it.
  • The app takes no screenshots and does not record the screen. It uses no accessibility service, no "display over other apps" permission, and not the screenshot feature that Android offers to notes apps.
  • Saved notes and thumbnails are drawn from your own strokes and text, not taken from the screen.
  • When Android opens the quick note, the app reads only one thing from that request: whether it was opened with the stylus. It reads no text, pictures or other content from the app you were using, and sends nothing back to it.
  • For Android's stylus and lock-screen note shortcut to open it, Android asks you to make S-Pen Notes your default notes app ("Set as notes app"). This is a system setting, not a permission, and you can change it in your phone's settings. The quick note can also be opened from its own "S-Pen Notes (Quick)" icon, which does not need this setting.
  • The quick note can also open over the lock screen. There it always starts with a blank page and cannot open your list of notes or any saved note. It does show your label names, so you can label the new note, and it lets you create a label. A note saved there is kept, and backed up, like any other note.

Sharing

  • Apart from backups, a note leaves the app only when you send it yourself. When you tap "Share", the app makes a picture (PNG) of the note and hands it, with the note's title, to the app you choose in Android's share menu. Text you select in a note can also be copied, or sent to another app from the text-selection menu (for example Translate). What happens next is up to that app.
  • A copy of the last picture you shared stays in the app's private cache until your next share.
  • Links on the About screen (website, email, Instagram, LinkedIn and this policy) open in other apps, such as your browser or email app, only when you tap them. Those apps and websites have their own privacy policies.

Notifications

  • The app shows only local notifications about backups. It uses no push-notification service, and no notification comes from a server.
  • They appear in one channel, "Backup progress", with no sound and no vibration.
  • They show status only, such as "Backing up your notes…" or "Notes backed up", never the content of your notes. If Drive access is gone when an automatic backup is due, a notification tells you that Drive is not connected.
  • On Android 13 and later, the app asks for notification permission only when you turn on "Back up automatically" or tap "Allow". If you say no, only the progress is hidden; backups still work.

Permissions

Some permissions are requested by the app itself; others are added automatically by the libraries it uses. Here is the full list:

  • Internet (android.permission.INTERNET): to talk to Google Drive when you use Drive backup.
  • Notifications (android.permission.POST_NOTIFICATIONS): to show backup progress. Optional; on Android 13 and later it is asked for only when you turn on automatic backup or tap "Allow".
  • Vibrate (android.permission.VIBRATE): added by the notifications library. Backup notifications never vibrate, and the light tap you may feel while drawing needs no permission.
  • Network state (android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE): added by the video player library that plays the built-in tutorial video. The library may use it to check the network type while the video plays. The app's own code does not use it, and the video is part of the app and needs no internet.
  • Keep awake (android.permission.WAKE_LOCK): added by the same video player library, for keeping playback going while the screen is off, which this app does not use. Neither the tutorial video nor the app's own code uses it.
  • Biometrics (android.permission.USE_BIOMETRIC, android.permission.USE_FINGERPRINT): added by the Google sign-in library. S-Pen Notes does not use fingerprint or face unlock and never accesses biometric data.
  • Internal permission (com.spens.notes.android.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION): added by an Android library so that only the app itself can send messages to its own parts. It gives no access to anything else.

The app does not ask for access to storage, photos and media, camera, microphone, location, contacts, phone calls, "display over other apps", the list of installed apps, or the accounts on your phone.

How we use information

The information the app handles is used only to make the app work for you:

  • To save, show, search and edit your notes, labels and pictures on your phone.
  • To back up your notes to your own Google Drive and bring them back, only if you turn this on.
  • To show which Google account is connected (your email address on the Backup screen).
  • To show backup progress, if you allow notifications.
  • To share a note, only when you tap "Share".

It is never used for ads, profiling or analytics.

Sharing of information

  • We do not sell your information, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.
  • S-Pen Notes has no server of its own, so your notes, pictures and Google account details never reach us. Apart from what Google Play reports (below), the only information that can reach us is what you choose to send us by email.
  • Google Play gives developers anonymous, aggregated statistics, such as install counts by country and device model, and, if you let your phone share usage and diagnostics data with Google, anonymous crash reports. These do not include your notes or your email address.
  • The app itself sends your notes and pictures to Google only when you use Drive backup: your backup goes to your own Google Drive, and Google Play services handles the sign-in. Google handles this data under the Google Privacy Policy.
  • When you tap "Share" or send selected text to another app, you decide which app receives it.

Google API Services

S-Pen Notes' use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

In practice: your Google account's email address is used only to show which account is connected, and your Google Drive only to back up and restore your notes on your phone. This data never reaches us, is not used for ads, and is not sold or given to anyone.

Data security and retention

  • Your data is kept in the app's private storage, protected by Android's app sandbox and your phone's own encryption. The app adds no encryption of its own to your notes or to the backup file.
  • The app's Drive traffic uses encrypted connections (HTTPS); unencrypted connections are turned off.
  • On your phone, your data stays until you delete it in the app, clear the app's storage or uninstall the app.
  • Your Google email address stays in the app's settings until you tap "Sign out", clear the app's storage or uninstall. Tap "Sign out" before you remove the app's access in your Google Account: once access is gone, the Backup screen shows "Connect" instead.
  • Drive access tokens live only in memory and expire. None are saved.
  • Your Drive backup stays in your Drive until you delete it. The app never deletes your current backup.
  • Temporary restore folders are deleted right after a restore. Copies of pictures you picked stay in the app's cache until Android clears it to free space, you clear the app's cache or storage, or you uninstall. A copy of the last picture you shared is kept there too, but only until your next share.
  • Apart from emails you send us, we keep no copy of your data.

Your choices and how to delete your data

You are in control. Apart from emails you send us, we hold none of your data, so deleting it is in your hands.

In the app

  • Delete a note, or select several notes and delete them. This removes the note, its drawing data and its pictures from the app's notes, and cannot be undone. Temporary copies the picture picker made stay in the app's cache until it is cleared. Your Drive backup keeps the note until the next backup replaces the file (tap "Back up now" to update it).
  • Delete a label. The notes stay; they just lose the label.
  • Remove the note wallpaper: Settings → Note wallpaper → "Remove", then tap "Back up now" so your Drive backup no longer has it.
  • Stop automatic backups: turn off "Back up automatically" in Settings. This stops automatic uploads and syncs; an upload already queued or under way may still finish.
  • "Sign out" on the Backup screen signs you out, tries to remove the app's Drive access, and forgets your email address on this phone. It deletes nothing on your phone or in Drive. To be sure the access is gone, also turn off "Back up automatically" and remove the access in your Google Account (see below).

On your phone

  • Uninstall the app, or clear its storage (Settings → Apps → S-Pen Notes → Storage → Clear data; on some phones "Clear storage")⁠. This removes all of the app's data from your phone. Your Drive backup stays.

In your Google Account

  • Remove the app's access: open myaccount.google.com/connections, choose S-Pen Notes and delete its connection. Automatic backups then stop; the next time one is due, a notification tells you that Drive is not connected (if notifications are allowed).
  • Delete your backup: first turn off "Back up automatically" on every phone where you use the app, or remove the app's access as described above. Otherwise the next automatic backup creates the folder and a new backup again. Then, in Google Drive, delete the "S-Pen Notes" folder (with spen-notes-backup.zip and its earlier versions) and any older spen-notes-backup-<timestamp>.zip files elsewhere in your Drive, then empty Drive's trash. The app has no button for this.

Apart from emails you send us, we hold no copy of your data. If you need help, or want an email you sent us deleted, email taha@tahasardar.com.

Children's privacy

S-Pen Notes is not directed at children under 13. We collect no personal information from anyone, children included: there is no account with us, no ads and no analytics, and notes stay on the phone unless the user backs them up to their own Google Drive.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will post the new version on this page and change the effective date at the top. Please check this page now and then.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Contact the developer, Taha Sardar:

taha@tahasardar.com tahasardar.com