Your information, considered.

Last updated October 25, 2026

Coaching happens on your device.

Pauseway uses authored questions and rules to offer screen-time coaching. Coaching decisions are made on your device. The current app does not use advertising, third-party analytics SDKs, or an external coaching service, and it does not send information to a Slow Blink Software server. No Pauseway account is required.

Screen Time access

With your permission, Pauseway uses Apple’s Screen Time frameworks to coach the apps you choose. You pick those apps in Apple’s own picker. iOS gives Pauseway a private token for each one and draws the app’s name and icon itself, so Pauseway does not receive the names of the apps you pick.

For the apps you choose, iOS tells Pauseway when your use reaches certain minute marks, and Pauseway records when you continue past one of its pause screens. Pauseway does not receive usage for apps you haven’t chosen, and it cannot see what you do inside any app.

Some screens show Apple’s own Screen Time report, which can cover your other apps. iOS draws that report in a protected view. Pauseway cannot read, store, or sync what it shows.

What Pauseway stores

Pauseway keeps its coaching records on your device. They include the tokens for your chosen apps, daily times and their history, work schedules, preferences, any alternatives you write for yourself, and weekly check-in decisions. For each chosen app they also include daily usage minutes, counts of opens, and hour-by-hour patterns. Usage figures come from those minute marks, so they are approximate.

Reflection records include the answers you choose, feeling check-ins, the usage durations you pick, and records used to coordinate pauses and skips. If you use the Long reflection style, the answers you write are saved on the device where you write them. They are never synced, exported, or sent anywhere. This version has no screen for reviewing them; deleting the app, or the reset described below, removes them.

Pauseway also keeps a technical event log and a random identifier for the installation. The identifier is not your device’s name or a hardware ID.

Optional iCloud sync

iCloud sync is part of Pauseway Pro and has its own switch. When it is on, Pauseway uses Apple’s private CloudKit storage in your iCloud account to keep your own devices in step. This means some information leaves your device for Apple’s infrastructure. It is not sent to a Slow Blink Software server.

For each chosen app, the synced records hold a one-way hash of its token, your daily time, daily usage totals and opens, hour-by-hour patterns, and counts of how pauses ended. Each record also carries a device type, such as iPhone or iPad, and the random installation identifier. Your reflection answers, written answers, and feelings are not synced.

When sync is off or your plan does not include it, Pauseway writes nothing to iCloud and removes the records that device had published. Removal and sync can both be delayed, and devices may temporarily show different information. Separately, Apple’s Share Across Devices setting in Screen Time counts time on all your devices toward each app, with or without Pauseway’s sync.

Feelings and Apple Health

Some pauses require a feeling check-in before you continue; at other times you can choose whether to record one. Check-ins are stored with your reflections on your device. Saving a feeling to Apple Health as a State of Mind entry is a separate, optional choice that requires your permission.

The current Health integration requests write permission only; Pauseway does not request access to read your Health records. Health entries are stored separately, and Apple’s Health storage and sharing settings apply to them.

Purchases

Pauseway Pro is bought through Apple’s in-app purchase system. Apple handles the payment, and we do not receive your payment details. Pauseway receives your purchase status from Apple and keeps it on your device to turn Pro features on or off.

Reminders

Pauseway’s reminders are scheduled on your device. When iCloud sync is on, Apple may also send the app silent notifications to tell it that synced records have changed.

Diagnostics you choose to share

TestFlight builds of Pauseway have a Diagnostics page with local logs that help us investigate problems; App Store builds do not show it. Its export action opens the system share sheet. Nothing is automatically sent to us through that action.

If you send us an export, it may include usage information for your chosen apps, coaching state, daily times, the answers you chose in pauses, event details, synced records, and technical identifiers. It leaves out the text of written answers and the specific feelings you selected. Check files before sharing them. Our website privacy notice explains how we handle email and attachments you send us.

If you install Pauseway through TestFlight, Apple may share crash reports and any feedback you choose to send with us.

Permissions and data management

You can manage Screen Time and Health permissions through your device’s settings, and iCloud sync from Pauseway’s settings. Changing a permission does not by itself delete records already stored in Pauseway, iCloud, or Health.

Starting over. Settings ▸ About has “Delete all data & start over”. After you confirm, it stops coaching, removes Pauseway’s records from that device, deletes the synced records that device published to your iCloud, and returns to setup. It does not touch State of Mind entries already saved in Health; manage those in the Health app. Records published by your other devices stay until those devices are reset or their sync is turned off.

Deleting the app removes everything Pauseway stored on that device. Records already in your private iCloud stay until another device with sync on removes them, or you delete Pauseway’s data in your iCloud settings. Pauseway keeps nothing anywhere else, so there is no copy for us to delete. If you have questions, contact us.

Talk to us

For questions about Pauseway’s privacy or information you have shared with us, email privacy@slowblinksoftware.com.

Slow Blink Software LLC
Austin, Texas