Last updated 27 September 2026 · Terms of Service
Manara is a reading app. To work at all, it has to handle the books you read and the questions you ask about them. This page sets out what that means.
The short version. Your books, your reading position, your notes and everything the app makes for you are stored under your account, so they follow you between devices. Passages you read and questions you ask go to AI providers, which is how the translations, definitions, answers and pictures get made. Our usage analytics never carry the text of what you read, ask or search for. We do not sell your data and we do not run advertising. Deleting your account in the app erases all of it.
Manara ("Manara", "we", "us") is an independently operated app, run from the United Arab Emirates. We are the data controller for the information described here.
This policy covers the Manara mobile app and this website. It does not cover the books you obtain elsewhere, or any third-party website an author links to from inside a book.
To sign in you give us an email address, or you use Sign in with Apple or Sign in with Google. Email sign-in is passwordless: we mail you a six-digit code and never store a password. If you use Sign in with Apple and choose Hide My Email, we only ever receive Apple's relay address, never your real one. From Google we receive the email address and the name on the account.
If you sign in with Apple or Google and they share your name with us, we keep it as your display name. You can change it or clear it in the app.
Your target language, reading level, Arabic dialect preference and transliteration setting, so they follow you between devices.
When you import an EPUB, the app keeps it on your device and also stores a private copy in our storage, so a reinstall or a new phone does not lose your library. That copy is locked to your account at the database level; nobody else can read it, and it is not shared with other readers.
Our servers also process the text so the app's features can work on it. The book is split into passages. Those passages are turned into numeric embeddings, which is what search actually runs against, and each chapter gets a summary and notes on its characters. We store what that produces, per edition and per account.
Reading positions, highlights and the words they cover, saved vocabulary with the sentence it was met in, how your library is organised, and which books you have added.
Questions you ask and the answers you get, translations, word definitions, generated scene images and character portraits, and the notes that keep those pictures consistent across a book. These are stored under your account, partly so you can go back to them and partly so asking the same thing twice does not cost you twice.
Whether your account is on a trial, active, or expired, and when it expires. When you buy a subscription or a picture pack, Apple sends us a confirmation of the purchase so we can check it is genuine. We record what you bought and how many pictures you have left. Payments are handled entirely by Apple. We never see or store your card details, billing address, or any payment credential.
Your copy of the app gives itself a random install identifier. The app also keeps a random device identifier in the iOS Keychain, so settings that belong to one device, like your reading theme, survive a reinstall. Neither is linked to your name, and neither is an advertising identifier.
We use Apple's DeviceCheck to make sure each device only gets one free trial. It tells us nothing about who you are or about your device.
If you turn notifications on, we store a token that lets us reach this device, and Google Firebase delivers the notifications. The token is deleted when you turn notifications off or sign out.
Like any online service, the servers that run Manara see your IP address when the app connects. It is handled only briefly, by our hosting providers, to keep the service secure. We do not use it to identify you, and we do not store it or use it to limit free trials.
No date of birth, no phone number, no address, no contacts, no photos, no location, no advertising identifier. The app requests none of these and we hold none of them.
We record what people do in the app so we can tell which parts work. Every event is keyed to an install identifier, the random name your copy of the app gives itself, and to your account once you have one.
An event records what happened and when. With it goes some plain technical context: the kind of device and operating system, the app version, the screen you were on, your language and reading preferences, and whether you are signed in. Loading times and crash counts go in too. We read all of it to see which parts of the app people reach, which they give up on, and where the app is slow.
What analytics never contain: the text of any passage you read, any question you type, any search query, your email address, or your name. Where we need to know how big something was, we record its length rather than its content.
These usage events go to our own servers and to PostHog, the analytics service we use to read them. PostHog receives the same events, filtered the same way, with your account identifier as the only thing that says whose they are. It does not record your screen, your taps, or anything you type. There is no Google Analytics, no Facebook SDK, no advertising network, and no cross-app tracking in Manara.
Crash reports are sent to Sentry to help us fix problems, and Sentry also receives timings of how long parts of the app take. A crash report contains where in the app the crash happened, your device model, iOS version, app version and your account identifier. It never contains the text of your books.
For readers in the UK and EEA, our legal bases under the UK GDPR and GDPR are:
We do not rely on consent for any of the above, and we do not use your data for automated decisions with legal effects, for profiling, or for advertising.
Read this section closely. It is the one place where your reading leaves our servers.
To translate a passage, define a word, answer a question or draw a scene, we send the relevant text to a third-party model provider. That means the passage, the context around it, and whatever you typed. We send the least the feature needs to work. Your email address, your name and your account identifier do not go with these requests.
AI features run on providers such as Google, OpenAI and DeepSeek, reached through OpenRouter. We use their business tiers, where content sent to them is not used to train their models by default. We send these requests only to providers that do not keep or train on what we send.
Generated images are machine interpretations of the text, not photographs, and not depictions of any real person.
We do not sell your personal data, and we have never sold or shared it for advertising. We disclose it only to the categories of service provider below, each of which processes it on our instructions and for no purpose of their own.
If you have a question about any of these companies, ask us at the address in section 14.
We may also disclose information where we are legally required to, or to establish or defend legal claims. If Manara is ever acquired, your data may transfer as part of that business, and this policy will continue to apply until you are told otherwise.
Depending on where you live, you have some or all of the following rights over your personal data: to access a copy of it, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to our processing, and to withdraw consent where we relied on it.
For a copy, use More → Account → Export my data in the app: we email the data held under your account, as one JSON file, to your account's address. Or ask us and we will put it together for you.
Exercise any of them by emailing privacy@readwithmanara.app. We answer within 30 days. We will not charge you, refuse service, or degrade the app because you exercised a right.
If you are in the UK or EEA and think we have got this wrong, you may complain to your national data protection authority. We would rather you told us first.
In the app: More → Account → Delete account. This is not a request queued for review. It removes your account and, by cascade, every row and file tied to it: your library, your uploaded books, positions, highlights, vocabulary, questions, answers, translations, definitions and generated images.
Two things survive, and neither identifies you. Your usage analytics are unlinked from your account, so the random install identifier is all that is left on them. The shared per-edition index data also stays. It describes the edition, not you.
Every request travels over TLS. Access to your rows is enforced by the database itself through row-level security, not merely by application code, so a bug in the app cannot hand your library to another account. Your uploaded books sit in a private bucket keyed to your account. On your device the app holds one credential, the token that keeps you signed in, and it lives in the iOS Keychain.
No system is perfect. If we discover a breach affecting your personal data, we will notify you and the relevant regulator as the law requires.
Manara is operated from the United Arab Emirates. Our database, file storage and server functions run in Seoul, South Korea. Several of the companies listed in section 6, including the AI providers, Sentry and Google Firebase, operate in the United States, so using the app's AI features involves transferring the relevant text there.
For readers in the UK and EEA: South Korea holds an adequacy decision from the European Commission, so storing your data there requires no additional safeguard. Transfers to providers outside an adequacy decision rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or an equivalent mechanism.
Manara is not directed at children under 13, or under 16 in countries where that is the applicable age of digital consent. We do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has given us data, email us and we will delete it.
When we change this policy we update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we handle your data, we will tell you in the app before it takes effect.
Privacy questions and rights requests:
privacy@readwithmanara.app
Everything else: hello@readwithmanara.app
Manara, United Arab Emirates