Privacy Policy

Last updated 6 October 2026 · App software.basilbase.saywhen · Developer basilbase · contact@basilbase.com · Türkçe

SayWhen speaks the reminders, countdowns, checklists, the time and a morning briefing that you set up, at the times you choose, using the speech engine installed on your phone. Your routines, settings and history stay on your phone.

SayWhen has no internet permission, so it cannot send anything anywhere. There is no account, no sign-in and no server of ours. There is no analytics and no crash reporting.

Why that claim is checkable

No internet permission. Android does not let an app without the INTERNET permission open network connections. You can confirm the permission list on the Play listing, or by inspecting the APK yourself.
Forbidden permissions are checked on every build. Every build of the project reads the final merged manifest and fails if the internet permission, or any of the other permissions SayWhen promises not to use, appears.
No tracking code. The app is built from Android's own AndroidX libraries (Jetpack Compose, Core, Activity, Lifecycle, DataStore) and Kotlin coroutines. No analytics or crash-reporting library is included.

The speech engine is a separate app

SayWhen does not contain its own voice. To speak, it hands the words to the text-to-speech engine you have selected in Android settings (for example the engine that came with your phone). That engine is another app with its own privacy terms.

What is handed over: the text of the announcement being spoken. Depending on the routine this is your own message, a checklist step, the time and date, the names of people whose birthday is today, today's calendar event titles and times, or the time of the phone's next alarm.
SayWhen only uses voices that the engine reports as installed and not needing a network connection. If no such voice exists for a language, SayWhen reports a missing voice instead of using another one.
SayWhen cannot see or control what the engine itself does. Some engines can use the internet for some of their features. Check your engine's own settings and policy if this matters to you.

What SayWhen reads, and what happens to it

What	When	What happens to it
Names and birthday dates from your contacts (only the contact's display name and the date of a birthday entry)	Only if you turn on "Include contact birthdays" and allow the contacts permission. Read when a birthday announcement or briefing is spoken and when you open the Birthdays screen	Spoken aloud or shown on screen. Held in memory only; never written to SayWhen's storage, never put in a backup file
Today's calendar events: title, start and end time, and whether the event lasts all day, from calendars that are set to visible	Only if you turn on "Include today's calendar" and allow the calendar permission. Read when the briefing is spoken and when you open the Briefing screen	Spoken aloud or shown on screen. Held in memory only; never stored. SayWhen never changes your calendar
The time of the next alarm set on the phone, as Android reports it	When the morning briefing is spoken	Spoken aloud. Not stored. This can be one of SayWhen's own announcements, because Android lists them as alarms
The phone's sound state: ringer mode (sound, vibrate or silent) and whether Do Not Disturb is on	Right before an announcement	Used to decide whether a Normal announcement stays silent. Not stored
Permission and battery state: whether exact alarms and notifications are allowed and whether battery optimization applies to SayWhen	While SayWhen's screens are open	Shown in the app and in Diagnostics. Not stored
The voices your speech engine offers for the nine supported languages	While Diagnostics is open and before speaking	Used to pick an installed offline voice and to show which languages are ready. Not stored

What is stored on your phone

Everything below lives in SayWhen's private app storage, which other apps cannot read.

What	Why	How to remove it
Your routines: name, the words to speak, type, schedule (time, days, date or interval), countdown warnings, checklist steps, Normal or Must hear, volume, number of readings, chime, on or off, group, speaking language, and a marker if you skipped the next one	So SayWhen can speak them	Delete the routine in the app; Backup & restore › Delete all app data; uninstall
Settings: theme, language, whether you finished the introduction, quiet hours, a pause end time, groups you turned off, whether contact birthdays and the calendar are switched on, and whether the Family hub keeps the screen on	So your choices stay chosen	Change them in the app; Delete all app data; uninstall
Birthdays you entered yourself: name, month and day	For birthday announcements and the briefing	Delete them in the app; Delete all app data; uninstall
Delivery history, up to 1,024 entries: which routine, the planned time, when the alarm arrived, when speaking started and ended, and the result (for example spoken, stopped, muted, missed)	So Diagnostics can show whether announcements arrived on time and why one was not heard	Oldest finished entries are removed first; Delete all app data; uninstall
Bookkeeping: the list of announcements already handled (so none is spoken twice), the alarm that is currently scheduled, and how far you got in today's checklists	So delivery survives restarts and app updates without repeats	Removed with Delete all app data and by uninstalling
The app language you chose, a second time in a small separate file	So the screen opens in your language before the main storage has loaded	Change the language; uninstall

SayWhen keeps no audio recordings and does not use the microphone. It does not keep a copy of your contacts or calendar.

Notifications and alarms other apps can see

Alarm icon and next alarm. SayWhen schedules announcements as alarm clocks, as Android recommends for times you set yourself. While an announcement is planned, Android shows an alarm icon in the status bar, and the time of the next announcement can appear wherever Android shows the next alarm (for example a clock widget or the lock screen). Only the time is shared this way, not the words.
While speaking, a quiet notification shows "SayWhen" with a Stop button. Its content is hidden on a locked screen. After a checklist starts, a separate notification can say that a checklist is ready; it disappears after 30 minutes. Neither notification contains the words of your routine.

Backup files you make yourself

Backup & restore can write a backup file to a place you choose through Android's file picker, and read one back.

The file contains your routines, your settings and the birthdays you entered yourself. Contact birthdays and calendar switches are saved as off. The delivery history, contact data, calendar data and voices are never included.
The file is not encrypted. If you save it to a cloud folder, that provider stores and may sync it under its own terms. basilbase never receives a copy.
Restoring replaces routines, settings and manual birthdays after you confirm a preview. The delivery history on the phone is kept.

Android backup and moving to a new phone

SayWhen tells Android not to copy its data anywhere:

android:allowBackup="false". On Android 8 to 11 this turns off both Google cloud backup and device-to-device transfer of SayWhen's data. On Android 12 and later it turns off cloud backup.
Backup rules for older Android versions and data extraction rules for Android 12 and later exclude every storage area of the app (root, files, databases, shared preferences and external storage) from cloud backup and from device-to-device transfer.

A new phone or a reinstall therefore starts empty unless you restore a backup file you made yourself.

Permissions, and why each exists

Permission	Why	Without it	How to withdraw it
Alarms & reminders (`SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM`). Special access on Android 12 and later; SayWhen opens the settings screen only when you tap its button	To speak at the exact minute you set	SayWhen keeps your routines but does not speak them, and says so on the home screen	Android settings › Apps › Special app access › Alarms & reminders
Notifications (`POST_NOTIFICATIONS`). Android 13 and later; asked only when you tap the button in Diagnostics	The Stop button while speaking and the checklist notification	Announcements still play; you stop them from the app	Android settings › Apps › SayWhen › Notifications
Contacts (`READ_CONTACTS`). Asked only after you turn on contact birthdays and read the explanation	To read names and birthday dates for birthday announcements and the briefing	Birthdays you enter yourself still work	Turn the switch off, or Android settings › Apps › SayWhen › Permissions
Calendar (`READ_CALENDAR`). Asked only after you turn on today's calendar in the briefing and read the explanation	To read today's event titles and times for the briefing	The rest of the briefing still works	Turn the switch off, or Android settings › Apps › SayWhen › Permissions
`FOREGROUND_SERVICE`, `FOREGROUND_SERVICE_MEDIA_PLAYBACK`. Granted at install	Speaking runs as a visible media task with a notification, so Android does not cut the voice off when the screen is off. It ends when the announcement ends	Announcements could be cut off	Tap Stop; uninstall
`WAKE_LOCK`. Granted at install	Keeps the processor awake for the few seconds between the alarm and the start of speech, and while speaking (at most two minutes per announcement)	Announcements could stop halfway with the screen off	Uninstall
`RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED`. Granted at install	After a restart, an app update, a clock or time-zone change, or a change of the alarms access, SayWhen sets its alarms again. It never speaks at that moment	Announcements would stay unscheduled until you open SayWhen	Uninstall
`DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION` (SayWhen's own)	Added by the AndroidX library; it only stops other apps from sending SayWhen's internal broadcasts	—	—

SayWhen holds no internet, location, microphone, camera, storage, phone, SMS or accounts permission. It does not ask for Do Not Disturb access, display over other apps, or a battery-optimization exemption; if an announcement was missed or late, Diagnostics can open the battery settings for you to decide. The only other apps SayWhen asks Android to see are installed speech engines.

Children

SayWhen is a tool for households and daily routines; it is not designed for children to use on their own. It collects nothing from anyone.

Your rights and deleting everything

Because nothing is collected or transmitted to basilbase, there is nothing held about you to request, correct or export from us. Everything SayWhen stores is on your own phone.

Delete a routine or a birthday in the app.
Backup & restore › Delete all app data removes routines, birthdays, settings and history on this phone. Backup files you saved elsewhere are kept; delete them yourself.
Uninstalling SayWhen deletes all of its data.

Contacting us and this page

If you write to contact@basilbase.com, we receive what you send, including your e-mail address, and use it only to answer you. The Contact button only opens your own e-mail app; nothing is sent until you send it.

The Privacy policy button opens this page in your browser. The page is hosted on GitHub Pages; your browser's request goes to that host, not through SayWhen.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and the updated text is published at the same address before the change reaches a released version of the app.

Contact

contact@basilbase.com