My Cards AI is owned by My Cards AI LLC and built and run by one person. This page
describes exactly what the software does with your information — in plain language,
without the boilerplate.
Where your collection lives
Your cards, photos, values, sets, wishlist, and financial records live in a folder on your
own Mac and in the app on your own iPhone. You can use the Mac app without an account, and
when you do, none of your collection is stored on any server run by My Cards AI.
If you sign in to a My Cards AI account, which syncing between devices, the
web app, share links, and paid plans need, a copy is kept on our server so your other
devices can show it. That copy includes:
your cards, including values, purchase and sale prices, and notes
a smaller copy of each card photo, clear enough to see the card (the full-resolution
original stays on your device)
the Mac app's other records: sets, sales ledger, expenses, invoices, purchase lots,
wish list, eBay listings, and value history
It is stored with our hosting provider (Render) and kept until you delete it or delete
your account.
What gets sent off your device, and why
Card images go to an AI service (Anthropic's Claude API), through our
server, when you ask the app to identify a card or estimate its condition. They are used to
answer that request, are not kept by us afterwards, and are not used to train models.
Card descriptions (player, year, brand, card number) are sent to the
My Cards AI pricing service, which queries eBay's public marketplace data and returns
values. The query text is cached for up to a day so repeat lookups are faster and cheaper.
An anonymous device identifier goes with scanning and pricing requests
so usage limits can be applied fairly. It is a random string, and it is not linked to your
name, email, or collection.
A check-in when the Mac or iPhone app opens: once the first time, and at
most once a day after that. It carries the same anonymous identifier, a yes/no for whether it
is the first launch, and, if you are signed in, your sign-in token (so our own accounts can be
left out of the counts). Nothing else. It lets us tell whether people who download the app go
on to use it.
Usage counts. When a feature that runs on our server is used, such as a
scan, a price check, or publishing a listing, one is added to a daily count for that feature.
The count records only which app it came from (Mac, iPhone, or web) and whether the person
was signed in. To count active installs, we keep a one-way scrambled form of the app's
identifier (or of your account's, if you are signed in), which kind of app it is, and the
first and last day it was seen. These numbers are only ever read as totals, never to look
up who someone is, and deleting your account removes its entry.
Your internet (IP) address reaches our server with every request, as it
does with any website. It is used in the moment to stop any one address from overloading the
service, and our hosting provider's logs record it with each request. If a scan arrives
without the app's anonymous identifier, the address stands in for it when counting free-plan
use.
Your account details, if you have an account: your email address, the
name of each device you signed in from, when you last used it, and your plan. Sign-in codes
are emailed through Amazon Web Services.
Sale prices you record are pooled with other collectors' to estimate
what cards sell for. Only prices you enter yourself are pooled, never sales read from a
marketplace account, and no pooled figure identifies who sold a card. The
terms spell out these commitments.
Share links. If you make one, anyone with the link can see the cards
and details you chose to show. We keep the label you give each link (for example, who it
is for) and count how many times it is opened.
Discount codes and referrals. If you redeem a discount code or pass on a
referral code, we record which account redeemed it and when, and for referrals how many
months the new member has paid, so rewards can be credited. A code printed on an invoice
may carry the name of the person it was issued to.
Crash reports from the iPhone app: Apple's diagnostic of a crash, sent
the next time the app opens, with the app version and the anonymous identifier.
Messages you send us from inside the app, along with the basic device
and app details the app attaches, arrive as an email, sent through Amazon Web Services.
eBay. If you connect your eBay account to list cards, eBay's sign-in
passes through our server once and is then kept on your Mac. Listings you create are sent
to eBay.
Payments are handled by Apple (iPhone) or Stripe (web and Windows). We
never see your card number. We keep your plan, when it renews, and Stripe's reference for
your customer record.
That is the complete list.
This website
mycardsai.com, including the web app and share pages, uses Google Analytics to count
visits and see how people find the site. Google sets its own cookies for this and receives
the address of each page you view, but not your email address, your account, or your
collection. On share pages, the link's code is removed before anything is sent to Google.
Presses of the download buttons are counted by day and platform, with nothing about who
pressed them.
The Mac and iPhone apps contain no Google Analytics, advertising code, or other
third-party tracking. The only measurement they are part of is the check-in and usage counts
listed above.
What is never done
Your data is never sold, rented, or shared with advertisers or data brokers.
There is no advertising in the apps or on this website.
No one at My Cards AI browses your collection.
Backups
The desktop app can copy your collection data to your own iCloud Drive, and to any other
folder you choose (for example a Dropbox or Google Drive folder). Those copies live in your
accounts, under your control, and are governed by those providers' terms — not by this one.
eBay and affiliate links
Values come from eBay's public marketplace data. Links that take you to eBay listings may
be affiliate links, which means a purchase may earn a small commission at no additional cost
to you. This never influences which cards or prices are shown to you.
Your control
Export everything to CSV at any time from within the app.
Delete your account from the iPhone app's settings, or by emailing
hello@mycardsai.com. That removes your cards,
thumbnails, records, pooled sale prices, share links, and sign-ins from our server. The only
thing kept is the record of any discount code you redeemed, with your account removed from
it, because it is part of the financial books. Crash reports and the daily usage totals
were never tied to your account, so they stay as they are. Stripe and Apple keep their own
records of payments under their own privacy policies, and our hosting provider's logs are
deleted automatically within 30 days.
If you use the Mac app without an account, deleting its folder removes your collection.
None of it was ever on our server. Only the anonymous check-ins and usage counts described
above remain, as totals.
If you have a question about any of this, email
hello@mycardsai.com and a human (me) will answer.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what leaves your device, the change will be
described in the app's update notes, not buried here silently.