The short version
Plant Journal is a small plant care journal that a few households use, by invitation. It stores what you put into it (plants, pictures, care records, notes) and your email address so you can sign in. It does not show ads, does not track you, and does not sell or share your information. This page explains what is stored, where, who can see it, and how to have it removed.
Who runs it
Plant Journal is run by its owner, a private person, as a hobby project. You can reach the owner at iiro.heinala@gmail.com about anything on this page.
What is stored
- Your account: your email address, and when you last signed in. If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your email address (and name and picture, which are not kept or shown).
- Your household: the household you belong to and its members' email addresses. Members of the same household can see each other's addresses.
- What you add: plants, their pictures, care records (watering, feeding and so on), pot and repotting history, health notes, reminders, guides and settings. A health note can have a picture.
- Feedback you send: if you use "Give feedback" in Settings, your message, its category, your email address and your household's name are kept for the owner. Only the owner can read it, and it stays until the owner deletes it.
- Access keys: if a member makes an access key in Settings, the household keeps its name, kind, who made it and when it was last used. The key itself is never stored, only a one-way fingerprint of it. A record of what the keys did (things marked done, refused and slowed-down calls) is kept for 30 days and can be read by the household.
- Records of changes: invitations, joins, removals and moves between households are logged for the owner, and when a plant is offered to another household the offer is recorded.
- Weather: the app logs public weather data for one shared location. It contains no personal information.
Who can see it
- Your household sees your household's plants, pictures, records and notes. Other households cannot.
- Guides are different: a guide you write can be read by every household that uses Plant Journal, unless you mark it private in the guide editor. Other households can read a shared guide, use its steps for their own reminders and see it on their plants of the same genus, but only your household can change or delete it. Pictures in a guide can be opened by anyone with their link, even after the guide is made private.
- Care suggestions use other households' plants, without names: to suggest how often to water, the app looks at plants of the same genus in other households. It receives anonymous records only: the genus and species, pot size and material, height, potting day, care intervals and the days a plant was watered in the last 120 days. It never receives plant names, notes, pictures, email addresses or which household a plant belongs to. Your household's plants are offered to other households in the same way. The owner can switch this off, and can turn on safeguards: then a genus is used only when at least 3 other households grow it, and each household adds at most 5 plants per genus.
- Apps you connect: anyone who holds one of your household's access keys can use it to read your household's plants, care records, reminders and notes (a calendar link shows only what is due, with reminder notes), and, if the key allows it, mark tasks done. That is the point of a key, so share one only with apps and people you trust, and revoke it in Settings when you no longer need it. Such an app is not run by Plant Journal and has its own privacy practices.
- Webhooks: if a member adds a webhook to a key, Plant Journal sends messages to the web address they chose: what is due, and which plant task or reminder was marked done (plant name, kind of task, date). The address belongs to the member's own app or service, which is not run by Plant Journal. The address is kept with the key, the messages of the last 7 days are kept to show whether they arrived, and what the other side answers is not stored.
- The owner (administrator) sees the households, who belongs to each, when each person last signed in, and how many plants each household has. The owner's Admin page does not show other households' plant names or notes. The owner can technically reach the database, and will only look at the contents to keep the service running, fix a problem, or when you ask.
- Pictures are kept in a storage area that anyone who has the exact web address of a picture can open. The addresses are long and are not listed or searchable, but treat a picture as visible to anyone you share its link with.
- When you give a plant away, the receiving household sees your offer (the plant, a note you may add, your household's name and your email address). If they accept, the plant and everything recorded about it, including its pictures and health notes, moves to them and leaves your household.
- When you give a cutting away, the receiving household sees the same offer. If they accept, a new plant starts in their household with the name, genus, species, light and care intervals of your plant, and a link to your plant's picture. Your plant, its records and its notes stay with you and are not shared.
Services that help run it
These providers handle data on the owner's behalf, only to run Plant Journal:
| Service | What it does | What it receives |
|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in and picture storage (servers in the USA, East) | Everything stored, as above |
| Netlify | Hosts the website at plantjournal.eu | Normal web visit information, such as your IP address |
| Google | "Continue with Google" sign-in, and the fonts the pages use | Your Google email address when you sign in; your IP address when fonts load |
| Resend | Sends emails: the optional daily digest and invitations | The email address and the content of the email |
| Pl@ntNet | Suggests a plant's name from a picture, only when you press "Identify from photo" | That one picture (shrunk), not your name or email. It is not stored by Plant Journal |
Some of these providers are outside the European Union. They state that they protect personal data with recognised safeguards. Nothing is sold, and nothing is shared for advertising.
Cookies and tracking
Plant Journal uses no advertising or analytics cookies and no tracking. Your browser keeps your sign-in session and a few preferences (such as dark mode) on your own device, because the app needs them to work.
How long it is kept
- Your plants and records stay until you delete them. Deleting a plant also deletes its pictures and records.
- When a person is removed from a household, a copy of the membership is kept for 30 days so a mistake can be undone, then it is cleared.
- Unused invitations expire after 30 days. Plant offers expire after 14 days; offers that were declined, cancelled or expired are deleted 90 days after they ended. When a plant is given away and accepted, a record of the gift (who gave it and when) stays with the plant.
- The record of what access keys did is deleted after 30 days, and the record of webhook messages after 7 days. A revoked key stops working at once and its name stays in the list of keys until the household is deleted.
- The log of changes for the owner is kept for as long as the service runs.
Your choices
You can ask the owner to show you what is stored about you, correct it, or delete your account and your household's data. Write to iiro.heinala@gmail.com and expect an answer within a month. You can delete plants and notes yourself at any time in the app. If you live in the EU or EEA you also have the right to complain to your national data protection authority; in Finland that is the Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman (tietosuoja.fi).
Children
Plant Journal is not meant for children under 13, and people can only join by invitation.
Changes
If this page changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes too, and the owner will tell the people who use Plant Journal.