Last updated 3 October 2026
Half Tab is built to work without sending your bills anywhere. Groups, people, expenses and payments are stored on your phone. Only a group you explicitly put online is copied to our server, and only your contacts you pick are ever read. While you are signed in, your circle — the names and numbers of the people you split with — is kept on our server too, so it is the same on every phone you sign in on.
Your groups and everything in them — names, amounts, dates, notes, who paid, who owes what — are held in a database on the device. So are your language and currency settings, and the name you gave yourself.
Deleting the app, or tapping Clear all local data in Profile, removes that database. We cannot recover it for you, because we never had it.
Putting a group online copies that group to our server: its name, currency, member names, expenses and payments. It stays there so the people you invited can see it. Groups you have not put online are never sent.
Signing in also sends your circle — the names and phone numbers you have added — and keeps it in step from then on. That is what lets the same circle appear on a second phone, survive reinstalling the app, and be named in a shared group without us having to ask you who somebody is. Signed out, none of it leaves the device.
Creating an account sends the email address you sign up with, or the account identifier your Google or Apple sign-in returns. Sharing a summary or a QR code hands a file to whichever app you choose — after that, it is that app's to handle, not ours.
If you tap Add from contacts, Half Tab reads the names and phone numbers on your phone so you do not have to type them. That happens on the device, and only the people you tick are added to your circle. Your address book as a whole is never uploaded, copied to our server, or shared with anyone — we only ever receive the people you chose.
You can decline contacts access and add people by hand instead; nothing else in the app depends on it.
Once somebody is in your circle, and while you are signed in, their name and number are stored on our server against your account. This is how your circle follows you to a new phone and how a shared group can name them. Signed out, your circle never leaves the device at all.
The people in your circle are not our users and we do not contact them. We do not sell this, share it with anyone, use it for advertising, or build a social graph from it. Removing somebody from your circle removes them from our server, and deleting your account removes the lot.
If you are adding somebody who would rather not be on a server at all, the honest answer is to keep that circle on a signed-out phone, where nothing is sent.
The camera and your photo library are used in two ways. Scanning or joining a group by QR code: the camera or a photo you pick is only scanned to find the code, and is not stored or sent. Adding proof to an expense: a photo you take or choose is attached to that expense, and if the group is online, that photo is stored on our server so the people in the group can see it.
Each installation of the app registers an identifier it generates itself, along with the platform, operating system version, model, app version, language and time zone. That is how you can see which phones are signed in to your account and sign one out remotely. It is not an advertising identifier and is not shared.
No advertising. No advertising identifiers. No third-party analytics or tracking software. We do not sell or rent your data, and we do not profile you.
A group you put online is kept until you delete it or delete your account. Account details are kept while the account exists. Server logs that record errors and request addresses are kept briefly and then discarded.
You can export everything on your phone at any time from Profile — Export all groups gives you a CSV file you keep.
You can delete your account at any time from Profile — Delete my account, no need to contact us. You are signed out straight away, and your account and everything in it are deleted after a 30-day grace period — sign in again before then and nothing is lost. Once it is deleted, your online groups are removed from the server; copies already on other members' phones stay with them.
For anything else held on our server — a copy of your data, or a correction — write to [email protected] and we will act on it.
Half Tab is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.
Our server is operated on our behalf by a hosting provider and may be located outside your country. Where that happens we rely on the safeguards our provider offers for such transfers.
If this policy changes, the date at the top of this page changes with it, and we will tell you in the app when the change is significant.
Questions, requests or complaints: [email protected]. More about the app: https://halftab.softcrunch.net.