Privacy
Policy
Photo Backup to Hard Drive is an iPhone and iPad app from Fire in Belly (FatCouple OÜ, Estonia). It copies your photo library to a drive or folder you choose, on your own device.
Last updated: November 4, 2026
The app has no server, account, sign-in, analytics, advertising, tracking, crash-reporting service or third-party SDK. It sends nothing to us or to anyone else. Your photos go only to the drive or folder you pick.
What happens on your device
With your permission, the app reads your photo library through Apple's Photos framework and copies every photo and video, with their edited versions and related files, into the folder you chose. For each file it computes a SHA-256 checksum, reads the file back and compares the two. In that folder it also writes a file named "Photo Backup manifest.jsonl" that lists each copied file with its name, size, checksum and the library's identifier for the item, so the next backup knows what is already there.
If your device keeps only smaller versions of some photos, the Photos framework downloads the originals from iCloud before they are copied. That download happens between your device and Apple's iCloud under your own Apple Account, as with any other app that opens those photos; it does not go through us.
What the app keeps
- A bookmark to the folder you chose, its name and its drive's name, so it can find the folder again.
- Your setting for including the Hidden album.
- The report of your last backup (counts and the names of any files it skipped or couldn't copy).
- The app version it last asked you to rate, so it asks at most once per version.
These stay on your device and are deleted when you delete the app. If you back up to a folder on the device itself (On My iPhone or On My iPad), that copy is excluded from the device's iCloud backup.
Permissions
- Photos (full access): needed to read and copy your whole library. If you allow only some photos, only those can be copied. The app never changes or deletes anything in your library.
- Files: you pick the destination folder in Apple's Files picker; the app can write only to the folder you pick.
Nothing else is requested: no camera, microphone, location, contacts, notifications or app tracking permission.
Background work
On iOS 26 and later, when you tap Back Up Now the app asks iOS to let the backup continue if you leave the app. iOS shows its progress and you can stop it there. This is local work on your device; nothing is sent anywhere.
Links and ratings
Help, the privacy policy and feedback open this website or your email app. Those are ordinary visits made by your browser or mail app, not requests by the app. The app's pages on this site set no cookies and run no analytics scripts. After a complete backup, iOS may show Apple's standard rating dialog; Apple controls it and the app never learns what you chose.
Sharing and disclosure
We do not sell, rent, share or disclose your information, because we never receive any.
Retention and deletion
Nothing reaches us, so there is nothing on our side to keep or delete. The backup files and the manifest are yours, on your drive, and you can delete them at any time. Deleting the app removes its settings and last report.
Children
The app collects no information from anyone, at any age, including children.
Payment
The app is a one-time purchase (US$9.99 in the US store) with no subscription and no in-app purchases. Apple handles the transaction and payment details; we receive Apple's sales reports, which do not identify individual buyers.
Changes and contact
If a future version changes how the app handles data, this page and the App Store privacy answers will be updated together and the date above will change. Controller: FatCouple OÜ, Estonia. Privacy questions: [email protected].