Privacy policy

Last updated November 2, 2026

Rainlit keeps as little about you as it can, only for as long as it needs to, and never sells it, shows you ads, or uses it to train AI.

This page says what rainlit.app keeps, why, for how long, and who else is involved. Rainlit is run by one person, its developer. You can reach them at rainlit.app@gmail.com.

Rainlit is free software, and anyone can run their own Rainlit server. This policy is for rainlit.app. If you use a Rainlit server someone else runs, they look after your information, and their own policy applies.

What Rainlit will never do

Sell your information, or rent it, trade it, or share it with advertisers or data brokers.
Use it to train AI, or give it to anyone who would: not your messages, files, calls, profile, homepage, or anything else.
Show you ads, or track you. There are no ads, trackers or analytics, in the app or on the website.
Record your calls.

What Rainlit keeps, and why

Your account

Your email address, to sign in with, and to email you a link if you forget your password. When you sign up, Rainlit emails you a link to confirm it's yours, and it tells your old address if you change it. It never sends you anything else. Other people don't see it.
If you join the waitlist (when Rainlit's full for the day), your email address, to send you an invite when there's room. It's deleted 30 days after your invite goes out. To come off the waitlist sooner, email us.
Your username, display name, profile picture and status, so people can find you and see who they're talking to.
Your password, only as a scrambled version that can't be turned back into it (scrypt).
When you joined, your badges, how you've chosen to show up (online, away or offline), which announcements you've seen, and your theme (so it's the same on all your devices).
Your card, if you make one: its colours, pattern, font and weather. Anyone who can see your profile sees it. It's kept until you make it plain again, or your account's deleted.

Your conversations

Messages, files, reactions and replies you send, so you and the people you sent them to can see them later. They stay until you delete them (a space's moderators can remove them there too), or until you delete your account. A big photo also gets a smaller copy for the chat to show, which goes when it does. So they can be searched, the server keeps an index of their words (and files' names): it changes when a message is edited, and goes when it does.
Hidden details are taken out of what you upload. Photos, videos and recordings often carry where and when they were made, on what phone or camera, and more. Rainlit takes that out of what's kept on its server (files you send, your profile picture, and your homepage's pictures and songs) as it's uploaded, keeping only which way up a photo goes and its colours. Their names stay as you gave them. A few kinds of file keep their details for now: documents (like PDFs), and WebM and Ogg videos and sound. Files that go straight between your devices during a call, with saving off, never reach the server, so they go exactly as they are.
With saving turned off in a conversation, messages pass through Rainlit's server without being kept. For a day, the server remembers only that you sent one (not what it said), so you can still take it back. Files go straight between your devices, during a call.
Messages aren't end-to-end encrypted yet. That means whoever runs the server could read ones that are kept. We don't. The only time we'd look at a message is if someone reports it to us.
Your notes (the conversation with yourself): kept until you delete them, and only you can see them.
Your friends, the people you've blocked, the spaces you're in, your roles in them, and how far you've read in each conversation.
Your birthday, when you make an account: only to check you're old enough for Rainlit. It isn't kept. If you're under 18, just the day you turn 18 is, so 18+ channels stay closed until then.
A birthday on your profile, only if you add one to have it celebrated: its month and day (never the year), and your time zone, so it's the right day for you. Others only see that it's your birthday, on the day, and only if you say so; never the date. Take it off Your profile and all of it's gone.
Your free times, only if you mark them: the hours of the week you're usually free, and your time zone. People in your spaces see them when they plan events. Clear them, and they're gone. The events you plan, and whether you said you're going, are seen by the people in that space, and an event goes a month after it ends.
If you open a channel marked 18+, that you said you're 18 or older, and when. It's kept with your account, so you're only asked once.
To keep the free tier from being filled up (by bots, mostly): how much each account sends a day, a fingerprint of each file sent (to notice the same one sent over and over), and when someone besides its sender first opened it (not who). For a day, scrambled addresses notice several accounts made from one place. An account that looks like it's filling up gets a flag, saying what was noticed, for whoever runs the server to look at, and until then can send up to 250 MB of files a day, like a new account in its first week.
What you're playing or listening to, only if you turn it on in Rainlit for Windows: the name of the game, or the song with its artist, album, app and how far in it is. It's passed on to your friends and the people in your spaces while it's happening, not while you appear offline, and it's never kept. To find it, Rainlit for Windows looks at which programs are open on your computer and what Windows says is playing; that stays on your computer.
Whether you're away: after 10 minutes without you touching Rainlit (in Rainlit for Windows, your computer: it asks Windows how long it's been since you last used the keyboard or mouse, and only whether you're away leaves your computer). It's passed on to your friends and the people in your spaces while you're here, and never kept.
If you support Rainlit (with Glow): that you do, since when (and for how long before, for your badge), your plan, when it renews or stops, and Stripe's ids for you and your subscription. Your supporter badge shows on your profile like your other badges: its level, whether you're supporting now, and since when (not your plan or what you paid). Never your card, name or address: Stripe has those, not Rainlit. A tip's amount and date are kept for the month's total; if you delete your account, they're kept without your name. When you use Rainlit's voice channels, how much video they've sent this month, to keep sharper streams within what's affordable.

Calls

Calls aren't recorded. A call between two people goes straight between your devices when it can, or else through Cloudflare's relay. It's encrypted either way, so the relay can't listen.
Voice channels and group calls go through Cloudflare, encrypted with keys only the people in the call (and Rainlit's server, which hands them out) have, so Cloudflare can't listen.
The conversation shows when a call started and how long it lasted. While a call's going on, Rainlit's server keeps a note of it (who it's between, when it started, and when it was last going), so it carries on through an update to Rainlit. The note's gone when the call ends.
Your call record, only if you turn it on (Your profile › A record of your calls): just for you, when each of your calls started and ended and who rang, and each time you were in a voice channel or group call, where, and how long you were there with each person. Never what's said on a call. It also keeps your own side when something goes without you asking: your messages and files in a conversation with a friend who deletes their account (and the times of your calls with them, but not their name or anything of theirs), and your messages and files in a channel or space someone else deletes. It's kept until you delete it (there) or your account, and it's in your data download.
A record of your calls with a friend (from their menu: Save a record of your calls) is a page made on the spot and saved to your device: your calls with them, and your messages with them (what both of you sent) if you choose. Rainlit doesn't keep a copy.
The call debug log is off unless you turn it on. Then it notes what happens to your calls' connections (like the kind of network and device, how smoothly video comes through, and when a connection drops), never what's said or shown, to find out why calls drop. Those notes are kept for 7 days.

Everything else

Your signed-in devices: a scrambled copy of each device's sign-in, and when it was last used. A sign-in lasts up to a year after it was last used.
Notifications: the address your phone's notification app gives Rainlit. What's sent there is encrypted for your phone and never includes your messages ("Bea is calling", "New message from Bea").
Reports: when you report something, a copy of it and who reported it, for whoever handles it. Reports that have been dealt with are deleted after a year. If an account is suspended, when and the reason given are kept with it until it's let back.
Evidence for the authorities: when something's reported as sexual content involving a child, a copy of it is kept at once, with the account that shared it (its username, display name, email and when it was made), where the app can't show it. If it's what the report says, it's reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and the copy is kept for a year, as US law requires, even if the account is deleted. If it isn't, the copy is deleted.
Feedback you send from Settings (a bug, an idea or anything else): what you wrote, who you are and when, for whoever runs the server, with any reply they send you. If you tick the box on a bug, its diagnostics go too: which app and browser you're using, your screen's size, your theme and settings for calls, whether you were in a call, and Rainlit's own recent errors on your device (never your messages). You can read them before you send. A screenshot goes with it too if you add one (made smaller, with nothing hidden in it, like where a photo was taken). Feedback that's been dealt with is deleted after a year (its screenshot with it), and all of yours when you delete your account.
A space's custom emoji: their pictures, and who added them. Like Discord's, a custom emoji's picture can be seen by anyone who's shown a message using it.
A space's soundboard sounds: their files, names and emoji, and who added them. A sound can be heard by everyone in a call or voice channel where it's played. Playing one only passes it on to the people there: who played what isn't kept.
Your homepage: what you put on it, its pictures and song, who you let see it, and how many visits it's had (not who visited). You choose who can see it: your friends, people in your spaces too, or anyone with its link, even without a Rainlit account. Its pictures and song can be seen and played by whoever can see the page, and one you take off it is deleted within a day. What people write in your guestbook is kept with who wrote it and when, until they or you delete it (it keeps the newest 500), and whoever can see your page can read it. Questions people ask in your "ask me anything" box are kept with who asked and when, until they or you delete them (it keeps the newest 200 waiting for an answer, and 500 answered). Only you see a question until you answer it; then whoever can see your page can read both. If someone asks anonymously, you aren't told who they are, and neither is anyone else, except whoever runs the server if you report the question. Whoever runs the server can see any homepage, to deal with reports about it.
Your pet, if you adopt one: what kind it is, its name and colours, whether it's on your homepage (where whoever can see the page sees its name and how it's doing), how fed and happy it is, when you last fed it and played with it, and how many times it's been petted (not who petted it). It's kept until you let it go, or your account's deleted. How you've done up its room (its wallpaper, floor and things) is kept with your account, until it's deleted.
Space logs: what's been done in a space (like moderation), with the names as they were then, for the people who look after it. A space keeps its newest 1,000.
Copies made before an update of Rainlit, in case the update goes wrong. They're deleted after 30 days, so anything you delete is gone from them within a month.

What Rainlit doesn't keep

Your IP address. The server only holds it in memory, for a day at most: to slow down password guessing, to limit how many accounts can be made from one place, and (scrambled, for an hour) so a pet on a homepage isn't petted too fast. (Render, the company whose computers run the server, keeps its own logs for a short time, and those can include IP addresses.)
Anything for a CAPTCHA. Signing up has a bot check, but it's a small puzzle your device solves by itself, with no other company involved.
Your location, contacts, or anything about what you do outside Rainlit.

On your device

A cookie keeps you signed in. Your settings (volumes, sounds and so on, apart from your theme) and a list of your recent calls are kept in your browser or the app, on your device only.

The Android app doesn't use Google Play services, and has no ads or trackers in it. Its notifications come through a push app you choose (like ntfy), so it works on phones without Google, too.

Who else is involved

The people you talk to see what you send them. People in a space see what you post there. Your friends and the people in your spaces can see your profile.
Render runs the computers Rainlit's server is on.
Resend sends Rainlit's emails (password resets, confirming your address, and waitlist invites), so it sees your email address and those emails.
Cloudflare relays calls that can't go straight between devices, carries voice channels and group calls (encrypted, as above), and stores files: what people send, profile and homepage pictures, songs, custom emoji and soundboard sounds. Rainlit checks who may see each one first, then your device fetches it from Cloudflare. It sees your IP address, as any server your device connects to does.
Stripe takes payments from people who support Rainlit (Glow, and tips), selling it for Rainlit (through Link). It gets what you give it when you pay (like your card, name, email and billing address), under its own privacy policy, and tells Rainlit only whether you paid, for what, and until when.
KLIPY runs GIF search. Your searches go straight from your device to KLIPY, and the GIFs load from there.
Your phone's notification app (like ntfy), if you use one, delivers notifications. It can't read them.
Link previews: when someone sends a link, Rainlit's server fetches the page to show what it is. The site sees Rainlit's server, not you, and its pictures come to you through Rainlit. The same goes for a cover you find from a link for a shelf on your homepage (its picture is kept as one of your homepage's pictures).

Rainlit only hands anything to anyone else if the law requires it. When it can, it will tell you first.

Your choices

Change your profile, and delete your messages and files, any time (how to delete your data).
Download a copy of your data, any time (Your profile › Download your data): your profile, every message you've sent, your calls, your friends and spaces, your homepage with its pictures, your pet and more, in a .zip, with a folder for each of your conversations (both sides of it, and your calls).
Save a record of your calls with a friend (and your messages, if you like), to keep or print.
Turn saving off in a conversation, so new messages aren't kept.
Choose who can see your homepage, and change or clear it, any time.
Delete your account in the app (Your profile › Delete your account) or at rainlit.app/delete-account. Everything you've sent goes with it, and so do your conversations with friends, your friends, your profile and your homepage. Groups carry on without you, and a space you own passes to its most senior member. If you support Rainlit, that stops too (Stripe keeps its records of your payments, as the law requires of it).
Ask for a copy of what Rainlit keeps about you, or for anything to be corrected, at rainlit.app@gmail.com. Depending on where you live (like the EU or UK), you have these rights by law, and you can also complain to your data protection authority.

Children

Rainlit isn't for anyone under 13, or older where your country's law says so. If we learn that an account belongs to someone younger than that, we delete it.

Keeping it safe

Rainlit only talks over encrypted connections (HTTPS), keeps passwords and sign-ins scrambled, and keeps what it stores to what's written here. No system is perfectly safe, though. If something ever goes wrong with your information, we'll tell you.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version goes here with its date. For anything big, Rainlit tells you in the app at least 3 days before it starts (sooner only if something can't wait, like a change the law needs).

See also the terms of service. Questions: rainlit.app@gmail.com.