Privacy

The short version

• You can use Warbly without an account. Your progress is saved in your browser on this device.
• Your field journal (the birds you log, with the date, time and place you type) is kept the same way. Warbly never reads your device’s location, and photos you add have their location data removed before they’re saved.
• On the official site, your progress is also backed up to an anonymous account with no name or email.
• Flocks and classes are invite-only. The people in one see the name you choose for it and what the group shares, never your email, photos or places.
• If you use “Name it from a photo”, that photo is sent to Anthropic to be named. Warbly doesn’t keep it.
• No ads, no trackers, no analytics, and nothing is sold.
• You can save a copy of your progress, reset it, or delete your account from the Progress page at any time.

On this device

Warbly works without an account. Your progress (lessons, streak and settings) and your field journal are saved in your browser on this device. If you save birds for offline use, their photos and recordings are stored on this device too.

Online backup

If the app’s online backup is on (it is on the official site), the first time you open Warbly it creates an anonymous account so your progress is backed up. That account has no name or email. Your progress and field journal are stored in a database run by Supabase, on servers in Oregon, USA, and only your own account can read or change it.

If you add your email

Your email is used only to send you sign-in links and to let you use the same progress on your other devices. No newsletters, no marketing. Email sign-in is for people 13 and older.

Your field journal

When you log a bird, Warbly stores what you enter: the bird, whether you saw or heard it, how many, the date and time, the place you type and your notes. It never asks for or reads your device’s location, so a place is only ever the words you type. Your journal is saved and backed up like your progress, above. “Save for eBird” makes a file on your device; Warbly doesn’t send anything to eBird. If you upload that file, eBird’s own privacy policy applies. The printable field notebook and the field certificate are made on your device too; printing them sends nothing to Warbly, and the lines for names are left blank to fill in by hand.

You can add up to three photos to a sighting. Your device makes each one smaller before it’s saved, and that removes the details cameras hide in a photo file, including where it was taken. Photos are kept on this device. With an email account, they’re also backed up to a private folder in Supabase Storage (Oregon, USA) that only your account can open; there are no public links. Photos aren’t in a saved copy of your progress and aren’t sent to eBird. Deleting a sighting removes its photos here and from the backup. Signing out removes them from this device, and deleting your account removes them from both.

Donated photos and recordings

With an email account, you can donate your own photo or recording of a bird. Warbly stores the file, the bird, whether it’s a photo or recording, its size and length, the license you chose, the name to credit, and the place, date and notes if you add them, all linked to your account so you can see each one’s review status and so we can credit you. A donated photo is re-encoded on your device first, which removes where it was taken and the camera details. A recording has its hidden tags removed on your device too (titles, comments, pictures and any place your recorder saved in the file), whether it’s MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG or WebM; only the sound is sent. Files sit in a private folder in Supabase Storage (Oregon, USA) that only your account and Warbly’s reviewers can open, and nothing appears in the app unless a reviewer accepts it. Each account can have up to 50 donations waiting for review.

A donation is a gift under an open license that can’t be taken back, so deleting your account doesn’t delete your donations. The files and what you entered with them stay, but they’re no longer linked to any account. To ask for a donation to be removed, use “Send feedback” and say which bird, when you sent it and the name you gave.

Share cards

Share cards for the mystery bird, a sighting, last week, your year or a bird’s field card are drawn on your device. A sighting card shows the bird, the date and your photo, never the place. Warbly doesn’t post anything: your device’s share sheet sends the card where you choose, or it’s saved to your downloads.

Flocks and classes

A flock is a small group you start or join with a code: family, friends or a club, up to 12 people. A class is a group a teacher starts, up to 60 students. Nothing about groups is public: there’s no directory or search, and joining takes the code. Warbly stores the group’s name and code, who is in it, the name each person chose to show in it, and the cheers people send (short prewritten messages; there’s no chat).

In a flock, the others see your chosen name, which days you did a lesson in the last 100 days (for “days together”), your cheers, and the flock’s total XP this week. Your own XP this week is shown to them only if the flock’s starter turns the flock board on. The flock’s weekly total is always shown, so in a flock of just two people, the other person can work out yours from it. In a class, the teacher sees each student’s chosen name, their XP and days with a lesson this week, how many lessons of the assigned unit they’ve done, how many birds they know by sight and by ear, and their last lesson day. Classmates see the class total and how many are in the class, not each other’s names or progress. Nobody in a group sees your email, journal, photos or places.

These numbers are worked out on the server from your saved progress when someone opens the group; nothing extra is stored. If the person who started a group removes someone, Warbly remembers that account for that group so it can’t rejoin; the note goes when the group ends or the account is deleted. The starter can also make a new code, which stops the old code and links from working. Leave a group any time from its page. Deleting your account removes you from every group, and ends any class you started.

A teacher can run a class game, “Name it together”, where everyone names the same bird on their own device. While it’s on, Warbly stores who has the game open (and when they last checked in, so someone who left doesn’t hold the class up) and, for each bird, whether each student has named it and in how many tries. Everyone, the teacher included, sees only totals, such as “14 of 22 have it” and how many named each bird on the first try; nobody sees who answered what. With only one or two students playing, though, the totals can show how each did. About a day after the game starts, all of it is deleted.

Feedback and flags

When you send feedback or flag a photo, recording or question, Warbly stores your message, what it was about (for example, which photo or question), and the app version. It isn’t linked to your account or your email, so please leave out anything personal.

So one account can’t flood the inbox, Warbly counts how many notes and error reports each account sends in an hour, and stops taking them past a limit. The count holds only the account, the hour and a number, never what was sent, and it’s cleared after a day.

After the welcome tour, the app asks one optional question: what brings you here (birds around home, hikes and trips, learning songs, or a class or merit badge)? The answer is kept with your progress, on this device and in your account if you have one, only to set your daily goal and suggest practice for your first week. Choosing “Not now” stores nothing.

After a finished lesson, the app may ask one optional question, once: how did you hear about Warbly? If you pick an answer, Warbly stores only that answer (one of six choices) and the app version, the same way as feedback. It isn’t linked to your account, and skipping it sends nothing.

“Why? Ask Claude”

When you ask why, the app sends the two birds’ IDs and the skill you were practicing to Warbly’s server. The server asks Anthropic’s Claude to explain the difference, using only Warbly’s own facts about those two birds. Nothing about you is sent to Anthropic. Answers are stored and reused for everyone who asks the same question. Each account can ask a limited number of questions a day.

“Name it from a photo”

When you name a bird from a photo, your device first makes the photo smaller, which removes the details cameras hide in a photo file, including where it was taken. It then sends the photo to Warbly’s server with the list of birds Warbly teaches in your area. The server passes it to Anthropic’s Claude to be named and sends back only which of those birds match, up to three, or the name of a bird that isn’t on the list. Warbly doesn’t store the photo or what Claude said about it, and nothing about you or your account goes to Anthropic with it; Anthropic’s own privacy policy covers how it handles the photo. Your guess stays on your device. To keep a daily limit, Warbly counts how many photos each account sends a day (only the account, the day and two numbers); the counts are deleted after a week. Please photograph birds, not people. If you then log the bird, the photo is saved with that sighting like any other photo you add, as described under “Your field journal”.

Error reports

When something breaks, the app may send a short technical report so it can be fixed: the error message, the part of the app where it happened, the app version and your browser type. It doesn’t include your account ID, email or progress.

Read aloud and reminders

Read aloud uses only the voices built into your device, so the text doesn’t leave it. A calendar reminder is a file your device creates. Nothing is sent.

If you turn on reminders, your browser asks your permission, then gives Warbly an address its push service uses for this device (Apple’s, Google’s or Mozilla’s, depending on your browser). Warbly stores that address with the hour you chose and your time zone. Once a day at that hour, if you haven’t done a lesson yet, Warbly’s server sends one short message through that service. The message is encrypted so only your device can read it; it’s about birds or your flock and says nothing about you. Turning reminders off, signing out or deleting your account removes the address.

Hosting, fonts and media

The site is served by Vercel, which keeps standard server logs (such as IP address and browser type) for security and reliability. Fonts are served from Warbly itself. Photos and recordings are copies served by Warbly. Links out to iNaturalist, Wikipedia, xeno-canto and All About Birds take you to those sites, which have their own privacy policies.

What Warbly doesn’t do

No ads, no trackers, no analytics. Nothing about you is sold.

Your controls

In the app, open Progress. From there you can:

• save a copy of your progress and field journal as a file, and load it back later
• turn reminders off, and leave a flock or class
• sign out
• reset your progress (your field journal stays; delete sightings one at a time in the Journal tab)
• delete your account. This deletes your account and its saved progress, journal and photos from the server. Photos and recordings you donated stay, under the license you gave them, and feedback you sent stays, because it isn’t linked to you.

Children

Warbly is made to be safe for young birders. Email sign-in is for people 13 and older. Younger learners can use Warbly without adding an email, and can join a class with a code from their teacher. Classes ask students to use a first name or a nickname, and classmates never see each other’s names or progress.

Changes and questions

When this page changes, the date at the top changes too. If you have a question, send it through “Send feedback” on the app’s Progress page.