Privacy · TCGSpire

Your collection

TCGSpire is a card album available on the App Store in the countries listed on its page, in English and Spanish. This policy applies in the same way in every country. It does not require a TCGSpire account and contains no advertising. It stores the copies you register, their photos, card identifiers, finish, capture date and corrections, together with the prices it looked up and the value history. This data is used to keep and value your collection.

Camera and recognition

The camera is used with your permission when you start the scanner. Cards are recognized on the device, using a catalog stored locally. TCGSpire does not send your photos to a recognition server. You can withdraw camera permission in the system settings and keep browsing your collection.

Website and support

When you open the tcgspire.com website, policy or support pages from the app, those pages are served through Google's Firebase Hosting. The website uses no accounts, analytics, advertising, tracking cookies or forms that store data. Firebase may receive the IP address and the technical request data needed to deliver and protect the site. Contact links open your email app; TCGSpire receives nothing until you decide to send the message.

Included catalog

The card catalog and the languages built into each version are part of the installation. This version does not query or download catalog files from TCGSpire or Cloudflare servers; catalog updates arrive only when you install a new version of the app. On iPhone, card data in every included language can be browsed and searched for free. Premium only unlocks automatic recognition for the additional supported languages; it does not lock access to catalog data. TestFlight builds distributed before September 13, 2026 could download the catalog from Cloudflare R2; that service is kept running temporarily for them.

iPhone and iCloud

On iPhone the app also stores the locations, the Proxy, Signed and For trade marks, the condition and the purchase price and date you enter for each copy, and your wishlist with its target prices. iCloud sync can be turned on or off in Settings. When it is on, the app uses your private Apple CloudKit database to sync copies, captures, locations, proxies, signatures, condition and purchase price, trade marks, wishlist, prices and history with your devices signed in to the same Apple Account. Turning it off pauses uploads and keeps what is already in iCloud. After you review a capture, its enlarged photo is kept only on this iPhone for up to 30 days so you can correct it; it is not synced. Recognition uses Apple's system services; TCGSpire includes no analytics or tracking service of its own on iOS.

Local diagnostics on iPhone

To check recognition and stability, the app notes with each copy how its printing was decided (the scanner, the review of pending cards, your choice, manual entry or an import); that note is part of the copy and syncs with it if you use iCloud. It also keeps only on the iPhone, without syncing them: the times you change the printing of a copy the scanner had confirmed, with both printings and the app and catalog versions; the time and taps it takes to resolve each capture in Review; and the stability reports iOS gives the app through MetricKit (unexpected terminations, hangs, memory use and launch), which contain no photos. None of this is sent automatically. In test versions (TestFlight), Settings › Advanced › Diagnostics lets you create a file with that data, the app version, the iPhone model, counts from your collection and the camera's technical log, without photos, prices, locations or purchase data, and share it with whoever you choose, for example with support by email; that screen is not available in the App Store version. Everything is deleted when you tap Reset all.

Captures to improve recognition on iPhone

Only in test versions (TestFlight), Settings › Advanced lets you turn on “Share captures to improve recognition”; in the App Store version this option is not available and no captures are kept for this purpose. It is off by default. If you turn it on, the app keeps only on the iPhone, without syncing them, a cropped image of the card (with no location or EXIF data) for captures that end up in Review and for those it confirms by reading the printed set code and number, together with the options recognition proposed, how it decided, the card you choose afterwards and the app and catalog versions. None of this is sent automatically: from that same screen you can create a ZIP file with those images and their index, without prices, locations or purchase data, and share it with whoever you choose, for example with support by email to improve recognition. You can delete the saved captures at any time; they are also deleted when you tap Reset all.

Local scanner diagnostics on iPhone

To measure and improve the scanner, the iPhone keeps a technical log of the latest captures: the size of the card in the image, glare, sharpness, timings, camera settings and whether the capture was confirmed or went to Review. It contains no photos or card names, is not synced and never leaves the device unless, in a test version (TestFlight), you export and share it yourself from Settings › Advanced › Diagnostics. Captures waiting for review also keep, only on the iPhone, an enlarged crop of the bottom line and the type line so they can be read again and shown in Review; these are deleted when you resolve or delete the capture and when you tap Reset all, which also deletes that log.

Purchases and the Premium plan on iPhone

Premium purchases are processed by Apple through StoreKit. TCGSpire receives the product purchased, the transaction status and the validity needed to activate or restore access, but never your full card number or bank details. If a subscription expires, is cancelled or is refunded, Premium features are turned off; your collection stays available and can be exported.

Weekly scan allowance on iPhone

The free plan records locally how many scans have been used during the week. Saved captures and cards identified in Price check mode both count. Only captures in which the app identified the card count, even if the printing or finish is left for review; captures it cannot identify do not count, and tapping Undo right after a capture gives the scan back. To do this, the device notes which capture used each scan; that note is not synced. The counter resets on Monday at 00:00 in the device's time zone. Deleting cards later or resetting the collection does not give scans back or reset that week's counter. Scans made while Premium is active do not use this allowance. Cards scanned in Price check mode are not saved, but each identified card uses one scan, like a saved capture. The counter is not synced globally across devices and is removed, along with the rest of the local data, when you uninstall the app.

Android and Google ML Kit

Android uses Google ML Kit's bundled text recognition. According to Google, this SDK collects technical device and app information, per-installation identifiers, performance metrics, configuration and usage events for diagnostics and analysis. Google states that it transmits this data over HTTPS. This SDK activity is separate from the local processing of your photos. See the ML Kit disclosure and Google's policy linked below for how that data is handled.

Price lookups

When you tap Update prices, TCGSpire queries Scryfall over the Internet. It sends the public identifiers of the printings it needs to value, and it may look up the equivalent English printing if there is no price for your copy's language. These requests contain no photos, quantities, locations or personal marks. As with any network connection, the service may receive the IP address and technical request data. Prices are stored locally and reused for 24 hours. Scryfall publishes the Cardmarket price in euros and the TCGplayer price in US dollars; the “View on Cardmarket” and “View on Scryfall” links open those websites in the browser only when you tap them, with the referral parameters Scryfall includes. Scryfall, Cardmarket and TCGplayer have their own privacy policies.

Automatic price and image features on iPhone

On iPhone, three features query Scryfall without you tapping a button. They are on by default and you can turn each one off in Settings, under Scryfall connection. “Prices while scanning” asks for each card's price right after recognizing it and sends the public identifier of that printing; it reuses prices already looked up for 24 hours. In Price check mode, if a card's printing is not confirmed, it sends the public identifiers of its possible printings in a single request to show a price range; with “Split by value”, that same price is used to decide the card's location, with no further requests. “Update prices automatically” checks, when you open the app or finish scanning or importing, the prices in your collection that are more than 24 hours old; it only does so on a connection that is not cellular data and not in Low Data Mode, never while you scan, and it sends the same public identifiers as Update prices. With this option on, iOS may also run that same lookup in the background from time to time, under the same connection conditions, for the cards in your wishlist and collection; iOS decides when and whether it runs, so alerts are approximate. If you set a target price in the wishlist, the app asks for permission to send you local notifications when the reference price drops below it; notifications are generated on the iPhone itself and never pass through a TCGSpire server. “Reference images” downloads from cards.scryfall.io the official image of the printings shown in Review, in the scanner and for the cards in your collection that have no photo; each image address contains the printing's public identifier. None of them sends photos, quantities, locations or personal marks. As with any network connection, Scryfall may receive the IP address and technical request data. Images are kept in the device cache so they are not downloaded again; they are not synced with iCloud, are not used to recognize cards and are deleted when you tap Reset all. Without a connection, the app keeps working and shows a placeholder instead of the image.

Exports and backups

Files are exported only when you ask for them and choose a destination or an app to share them with. The CSV contains the list of cards, without photos or history. You can choose the TCGSpire format or the format of other apps (Moxfield, ManaBox, Archidekt, Deckbox and Dragon Shield); in the latter, cards pending review are only included if you choose so. Copying a list for Cardmarket or sharing a trade puts the text on the clipboard or in the app you choose; TCGSpire does not send it anywhere. The service or app you choose will handle those files under its own terms. Copies you keep outside TCGSpire remain under your control.

Recovery on Android

Android lets you save and restore a full backup as a ZIP file that includes every copy, the photos, prices and history. This backup is not encrypted: keep it in a private location. No automatic backups are made and the collection is not synced with a TCGSpire account. Before restoring, the app checks the file and asks you to confirm that it should replace the current collection. Test photos imported in development builds are treated the same as camera captures.

Retention and deletion

The collection is kept until you delete its copies or tap Reset all. That option deletes cards, photos, prices, history and the app's temporary export files. Exports and full backups you have already saved outside the app are kept: you can delete them wherever you saved them. Uninstalling the app deletes its local data; save a backup first or check the sync you use.

Synced deletion on iPhone

Deleting copies and resetting also apply to iCloud and to synced devices when sync is on and there is a connection. If sync is paused, the deletion is kept and sent when you turn it back on. Uninstalling the app is not a request to delete what is already in iCloud.

Contact and changes

For privacy questions, use the support contact on TCGSpire's page in the store you installed it from. This policy shows its last update date and will be revised whenever the way the app handles data changes.

Contact

For any privacy question, write to support@tcgspire.com.