Privacy policy — Always Weather

Last updated: 20 October 2026

Always Weather is made by Empatiq Limited, 66 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NA, United Kingdom, registered in England and Wales, company number 13746700 (“we”). We are the controller of the little personal data the app handles. Contact: apps@guzh.uk or +44 7776 912598.

The short version

• No ads, no account, no analytics, no tracking. We never sell or share your data for advertising.
• The app sends your approximate location, rounded to about a kilometre, to our own server to get the forecast and the name of the place you’re in. We don’t store it against you.
• If the app crashes, it sends an anonymous crash report so we can fix the bug. You can turn this off in Settings. The Mac, iPhone, Windows and Linux apps send none.
• Your saved places and settings stay on your phone, and in your phone’s own backup if you use it.
• Rain and warning alerts are off unless you turn them on. Your phone (or Mac, or PC) checks the forecast for itself; there is no push service and no list of devices.

What the app sends, and why

Forecasts

To show a forecast, the app sends our server the latitude and longitude of the place you’re looking at, rounded to two decimal places (roughly a 1 km square), together with the app version. This is either a place you saved or searched for, or your current location if you allowed it.

Our server runs on Cloudflare. It gets the forecast for that rounded point from the national weather service for the place, or the one you chose in Settings: the Met Office for the UK and Ireland, Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) for Germany, the US National Weather Service (NWS) for the US, and MET Norway, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, everywhere else and for the days a regional forecast doesn’t reach. MET Norway and the NWS receive the rounded point from our server, never from your device, with nothing that identifies you. The Met Office forecasts come from files our server copies in advance, and DWD’s from the file for the nearest weather station, so your point isn’t sent to either. Our server keeps a copy of the forecast for that point for a few hours so the next person nearby gets it quickly. That copy isn’t linked to you or your device. Our server doesn’t record coordinates or IP addresses in its logs. To stop abuse, it counts requests per IP address for one minute; nothing is kept after that. Cloudflare processes IP addresses to deliver and protect the service, as our hosting provider.

Legal basis: legitimate interests — showing you the forecast you asked for.

Weather warnings

To show official weather warnings, the app sends our server the same rounded point. For a place in the US, our server asks the NWS for the warnings at that rounded point, from our server and with nothing that identifies you. For the UK, Ireland, Germany and Norway it downloads each service’s whole list of warnings and finds the ones for the point itself, so the point isn’t sent to the Met Office, Met Éireann, DWD or MET Norway. Our server fetches the Met Office’s list every minute on its own schedule, so looking at a UK place doesn’t make it contact the Met Office. Warnings are kept in the app’s memory only, never stored on your device or in a backup.

Legal basis: legitimate interests — showing you warnings for the place you’re looking at.

Rain, snow and warning alerts

Alerts are off unless you turn them on in Settings → Alerts; on Android 13 and later, and on an iPhone or a Mac, the app then asks for permission to send notifications. While alerts are on, the app checks the forecast, and the warnings if you chose them, for the one place you picked: wherever you are, a saved place, or where the app last found you while it was open. Unless you choose Wherever you are, it never asks for your location in the background. If you do, on Android or an iPhone, and give the app permission to use your location all the time (you can take it back in your phone’s settings), it finds where your phone is as it checks; an iPhone tells it when you have moved a few hundred metres. As always, the location is rounded to about a kilometre before it leaves your phone, and the app keeps only the latest place, on your phone: never a history of where you have been. On a Mac or a Windows PC, which check only while the app is open, it finds your location just before each check, with the permission you already gave it. The checks run in the background, every 15 minutes to every hour, and send our server the same requests, with the same rounded point, as described under Forecasts and Weather warnings above; each one is listed in Settings → What left this phone. Your phone decides from that forecast whether to tell you: there is no push service, and our server keeps no list of devices and isn’t told whether alerts are on. Your alert settings, and a note of what has already been announced (times, kinds and levels, never a place), are stored only on your phone and never included in a backup, so a new phone asks again. Turning alerts off stops the checks.

Legal basis: legitimate interests — the alerts you asked for.

The name of your current location

When you use your current location, the app sends the same rounded point to our server to find the nearest town or district, so it can show “Hammersmith” instead of “Current location”. Our server looks it up in its own copy of the GeoNames place list, so the point isn’t passed to anyone else, and it isn’t stored or written to our logs. The app keeps the name on your phone for that roughly 1 km square, so it asks only once per square. It keeps the names of the last 50 squares you used and forgets older ones.

Legal basis: legitimate interests — showing where the forecast is for.

Place search

When you search for a place, the text you type is sent to our server to find matching places. It isn’t stored.

Legal basis: legitimate interests — answering your search.

The rain map

When you open the rain map, the app downloads the latest rain radar from our server: a list of the last two hours’ pictures, then the pieces of them around the place you’re looking at, and more pieces wherever you move the map. These requests carry no location: everyone downloads the same pictures, and the app works out the rain where you are on your device. The pieces it asks for show roughly which part of Europe or North America you’re looking at, in squares about 250 km across, as any map’s would;
our server doesn’t record which pieces you asked for. The pictures are kept in the app’s memory only while the map is open, never stored on your device or in a backup. In Europe the radar comes from EUMETNET OPERA and the hourly forecast after it from Deutscher Wetterdienst; in the US and Canada, from NOAA (with Environment and Climate Change Canada’s radars) and NOAA’s HRRR. Our server fetches them all on its own schedule, so opening the map doesn’t make it contact any of them.

Legal basis: legitimate interests — showing you the rain map you asked for.

Crash reports

If the app crashes, it sends a report to Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.), which stores it for us in the European Union. A report says what went wrong in the code, and carries the app version, your phone model and its operating system version. It carries no location, no name, no email address and no identifier for you or your device, and Sentry is set not to store IP addresses. Reports are kept for up to 90 days. Crash reporting is on when you install the app; to stop it, turn off Settings → Crash reports, and the app sends nothing further.

Legal basis: legitimate interests — finding and fixing faults.

Feedback emails

“Send feedback” opens your own email app with a message to apps@guzh.uk that already contains the app version, your operating system version and phone model; you can see and change all of it before sending. If you send it, we receive your email address and whatever you write. We use it only to reply and to improve the app, and delete it within 12 months or sooner if you ask.

Legal basis: legitimate interests — answering you.

Ideas you send

“Suggest an idea”, on our website (guzh.uk/weather/ideas) and in the apps from version 1.0.5, sends our server your words, the email address if you choose to give one, where you sent it from (the website, or which app: Android, iPhone, Mac, Windows or a watch) and the app version. Our server passes it straight on, by email, to apps@guzh.uk, the same inbox as “Send feedback”, and keeps no copy: the idea isn’t stored and isn’t written to our logs. The email carries nothing else: no location, no IP address, no device details. If you give your address, our reply goes to it; without one, we can’t reply. To stop abuse, our server counts ideas per IP address for one minute; nothing is kept after that. Cloudflare, our hosting provider, delivers the email. We keep it in our mailbox while we consider the idea; ask us at apps@guzh.uk and we’ll delete it.

Legal basis: consent — you choose to send it, and you can ask us to delete it at any time.

What stays on your phone

Saved places, your settings (Look, units, time format, theme), the last forecasts and the names of the places where you’ve used your current location are stored only on your device. If you use your phone’s own backup (Google or iCloud), your settings and saved places are included in it, under your account, which we can’t access, so they come back on a new phone. Your current location, those names and the forecasts are never included in a backup or copied to a new phone. When you save your current location as a place, the app keeps only the point rounded to about a kilometre and its name. Uninstalling the app deletes all of this from the phone (on Android, so does clearing the app’s storage); a backup is kept by Google or Apple under their own rules.

On Android, Settings → What left this phone lists every request the app made in the last 7 days (the latest 500 at most),
exactly as it was sent, so you can check everything above for yourself. The list is kept only on your phone, is never included in a backup, drops each entry after 7 days, and you can clear it at any time. It never records the app’s own access key.

The Mac and iPhone apps

Everything above applies to Always Weather for Mac and for iPhone too, with one difference: neither has crash reporting, so neither ever sends a crash report. On the Mac, saved places, settings, last forecasts and place names are stored only on your Mac, and in your Mac’s own backups (such as Time Machine) if you make them; they aren’t synced through iCloud. And there, “Send feedback” includes your Mac’s model and macOS version instead of a phone’s.

From version 1.0.3, the Mac and iPhone apps have the alerts described above under Rain, snow and warning alerts, with two differences. On an iPhone, iOS decides when the background checks run, so an alert can come later than on Android. On a Mac, the checks run only while the app is open. On both, the alert settings and the note of what has been announced are kept only on that device and left out of its backups (on a Mac, Time Machine too), and each check is listed in Settings → What left this Mac (or iPhone).

On the Mac from version 1.0.1, and on the iPhone from its first version (1.0.3), Settings → What left this Mac (or iPhone) lists every request the app made in the last 7 days (the latest 500 at most), exactly as it was sent, so you can check everything above for yourself. The list is kept only on that device, is never included in a backup, drops each entry after 7 days, and you can clear it at any time. It never records the app’s own access key.

The Windows app

Everything above applies to Always Weather for Windows too, with these differences. From version 1.0.3 it has the alerts described above, with the checks running only while the app is open, as on a Mac, and Windows’ own notification settings deciding whether they show; the alert settings and the note of what has been announced are kept only on that PC. Its rain map works as described above, its requests carrying no location. It has no crash reporting, so it
never sends a crash report. It asks Windows’ own location service for your position only when you choose “Use my location”, from Wi-Fi or the network rather than GPS, and rounds it to about a kilometre before it leaves your PC, as on a phone; without it, you search for a place. Saved places, settings, last forecasts and place names are stored only on your PC, in the app’s own folder, which Windows removes when you uninstall the app; they aren’t synced anywhere. And there, “Send feedback” includes your Windows version instead of a phone’s model.

Settings → What left this PC lists every request the app made in the last 7 days (the latest 500 at most), exactly as it was
sent, so you can check everything above for yourself. The list is kept only on your PC, drops each entry after 7 days, and you can clear it at any time. It never records the app’s own access key.

The Linux app

Always Weather for Linux, made for Omarchy and other Arch systems, is free. Everything above applies to it too, with these differences.

• Your location. Linux gives apps no location service, so “Use my location” (off until you choose it) uses one of two things. First, the place Omarchy’s weather is set to, which the app reads from Omarchy’s own settings on your computer; if Omarchy has only a place’s name, the app finds it with a place search (above) and remembers the answer on your computer, so it searches once per name. Otherwise, or if you choose “Where this computer is” in Settings → Places → Your location, a rough place from your internet connection: the app asks our server for the place it’s in, sending no location at all, and our server answers with the place nearest Cloudflare’s estimate of where the connection comes from, which Cloudflare makes from your IP address and is usually the town. That estimate and the answer are never stored, logged or cached, and your IP address is used, as for every request, only to limit how often one address can call us. It can be wrong, for example behind a VPN; then search for a place instead. The app looks only when it opens on your current location, never in the background, and a point is rounded to about a kilometre before it leaves your computer, as on a phone.
• Omarchy’s bar. If you add Always Weather to Omarchy’s bar, it shows the hour’s weather for the place the app opens with. When that forecast is out of date, the bar asks our server for it with the same request as the app (see Forecasts above). It never looks for your location itself.
• Checking for updates. No app store updates the Linux app, so once a day it asks our server for the newest version, to tell you in Settings (and in the bar’s tooltip) when one is out. The request carries nothing about you: no location, no place and no identifier, only the app’s name and version, as every request does. Like every request it appears in What left this computer. Settings → Privacy → Check for updates turns it off.
• It has no crash reporting, and for now no alerts.
• Saved places, settings, last forecasts and place names are stored only on your computer, in ~/.local/share/always-weather; deleting that folder removes them. They aren’t synced anywhere.
• “Send feedback” includes your Linux distribution and kernel version instead of a phone’s model.
• Settings → What left this computer lists every request the app and the bar made in the last 7 days, as on Windows.
• You download the app from GitHub, which, like any download site, sees your IP address when you do; GitHub’s own privacy statement covers that.

The watch apps

From version 1.0.3, Always Weather has an app for Apple Watch and one for Wear OS watches, such as the Pixel Watch. A watch app shows the place your phone’s app is showing. The phone tells the watch that place, and your units, clock and forecast source. It sends nothing else: never a forecast.

• iPhone: the place goes to your paired Apple Watch through Watch Connectivity, Apple’s link between an iPhone and its watch. For your current location it is the position iOS gives the app (see Location permission below); the watch rounds it to about a kilometre before it asks our server, as the phone does.
• Android: the place goes only to a paired Wear OS watch that has the app installed. It travels through the Data Layer of Google Play services, which can carry it through Google’s servers when the phone and the watch aren’t near each other. A current location is first rounded to about a kilometre. A phone without such a watch sends nothing.

The watch then asks our server for the forecast itself, with the same request and the same rounded point as the phone (see Forecasts above), so it stays right when the phone is out of reach. It keeps the place and the last forecast on the watch. The Wear OS app never includes them in a backup. Neither watch app has crash reporting.

Location permission

The app asks for your location only while you use it, and looks again each time you come back to it, so the forecast is for where you are. On Android and an iPhone you choose precise or approximate location when the system asks, and the app works with either; precise makes the forecast more exact, and either way the point is rounded to about a kilometre before it leaves your device. On an iPhone or a Mac the app tells Location Services it needs a position only to within about a kilometre, so even with Precise on it never asks for more. It’s optional: without it, search for a place instead. You can change this at any time in your phone’s settings (on Windows: Settings → Privacy & security → Location). On Linux, where there is no location service, see The Linux app above.

Purchases

Google Play, the App Store or the Microsoft Store handles the purchase. We don’t receive your payment details. The Linux app is free; if you give through the website’s “Buy me a matcha” link, Ko-fi handles the payment.

Where data is processed

Cloudflare runs our server in data centres around the world, usually the one nearest to you. Sentry stores crash reports in the EU. Where data leaves the UK, our providers protect it with the UK’s approved safeguards (the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses).

Your rights

Under UK GDPR (and the EU GDPR where it applies) you can ask us for access to, correction or deletion of your personal data, or object to how we use it. Because we don’t keep data that identifies you, a request usually concerns feedback emails or ideas; write to apps@guzh.uk. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) or your local data protection authority.

Children

The app isn’t directed at children under 13 and we don’t knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If this policy changes, we’ll update it here and change the date above. If a change affects what the app sends, we’ll say so in the app’s release notes.