Privacy policy

Last updated October 5, 2026

Tallon Simmons runs HelloShelf in Rockford, Michigan. This policy covers what HelloShelf stores about you, who sees it, which services handle it, and how to delete it. The Terms cover everything else.

What we store

• Your email address, to sign you in and to send sign-in codes and invites. Sign-in codes are stored only as a hash and expire after 10 minutes. If you add a passkey, we store only its public key, which can’t be used to sign in.
• The name you choose. Other members see it.
• Your ZIP code, with its center point and time zone, and how far you usually travel. If you turn on meetups, also the places you’d meet at and the hours you’re free each week. We never store your exact home location.
• Your shipping address, once you add one. EasyPost checks it with USPS when you save it.
• Your BoardGameGeek account, which HelloShelf requires: your BGG username, your BGG account number, the date the account was created, your BGG avatar, and whether you verified it. To verify, we read the name and place fields of your BGG profile once to find the code, and we don’t keep them. While your account is linked, we read your BGG collection every night to keep your shelf and wants in step with it.
• Your shelf and wants: the games, their condition, points and terms, how far you’d travel for each want, and photos of your copies, games a BGG sync held for you to review, and reminders to update BGG after a trade. The app shrinks each photo and removes its location data on your device before uploading it.
• If you import a BGG collection file, the app reads it on your device and sends us only the games marked For trade, Want in trade or Previously owned, plus owned games a reminder to update BGG is waiting on.
• Your trades: what was proposed, who accepted, meetup picks and check-ins, labels and tracking, the ratings you give and receive (with any note you add), disputes and strikes.
• Your notifications, and for each device where you turn on push notifications, the address and keys your browser’s push service gives us.
• Payment details from Stripe: a Stripe customer number, the saved payment method’s ID and type, and a short label such as “Visa •4242”. We also keep a record of each charge and refund: the trade, the amount, the fee and postage, the status and Stripe’s payment ID. Card numbers go straight into Stripe’s form. We never see or store them.
• If you joined with an invite code, which code it was. If you joined our waitlist, your email and ZIP code.
• Email you send to any @helloshelf.app address, which is forwarded to our inbox.

Your device’s location is used only when you tap “I’m here” at a meetup, to check you’re within about 150 meters of the place. We store the time you checked in, not where you were.

Logs

Our server logs errors, slow requests, whether push notifications were delivered (the member number and the push service, with no message content), payment and label errors, and BGG checks. These lines can include member numbers, but not names, emails or addresses. Your IP address is used in memory to limit sign-in attempts, and our code doesn’t save it. Fly.io, our host, keeps these logs, and its own request logs, for 7 days.

How we use it

We use this information to find trades, show members what they need to trade with each other, send sign-in codes, invites and notifications, charge fees and refunds, buy shipping labels, track parcels, keep the standing record, handle disputes, and keep HelloShelf running.

What other members see

Other members see your name, BGG username, avatar and verified status, when you joined, your standing and the ratings you’ve received, the games you offer with their condition and photos, and your wants. Once there’s enough to go on, they also see your record: the share of proposals you accept, how quickly you usually reply, how often your ratings agree with what others said about the same member, and badges that sum these up (such as Quick to reply or Rates harshly). In a trade, they see the places and times you picked. Nobody sees the points you give games.

Anyone, signed in or not, can see what’s offered and wanted on HelloShelf and in each math trade: the game titles, how many copies there are and their conditions, and how many members want each. These pages never say who has or wants what.

They never see your email, ZIP code, weekly availability or payment details. Your address doesn’t appear anywhere in the app. There are two exceptions. The member shipping a game to you buys a label with your name and address printed on it. In a math trade, a member mailing you a gift card sees your name and address to send it. A gift card code sent to you is shown only to you. Moderators see disputes and the notes attached to them.

Services that handle your data

• Fly.io hosts HelloShelf and its database, in the United States (Chicago), keeps a continuous backup copy of the database, and stores the photos of your copies, in its Tigris storage.
• Stripe processes payments. When you add a payment method, Stripe gets your email and your HelloShelf member number, plus the card or wallet details you enter in Stripe’s form.
• EasyPost checks addresses, sells labels and reports tracking. It gets the sender’s and recipient’s names and addresses and the package’s size and weight. The carrier gets what’s on the label.
• Resend sends our email (sign-in codes, invites, alerts) and receives mail sent to @helloshelf.app.
• BoardGameGeek: we send BGG’s API your BGG username and the numbers of games, to look up accounts, games, prices and collections.
• Push services (Apple, Google or Mozilla, depending on your browser) deliver notifications. The content is encrypted on our server before it’s sent.
• OpenStreetMap’s search servers get the center point of a ZIP code when we look for meetup places in an area our own places data doesn’t cover.

Your browser also loads game covers from BGG’s image servers, fonts from Google Fonts, the map library from cdnjs, map tiles from OpenStreetMap, and Stripe’s script when you add a payment method or pay. Those services see your IP address and what your browser asked for.

What we don’t do

We don’t show ads, sell or rent your information, or share it with anyone for marketing. We don’t use it to train AI models. HelloShelf has no analytics or tracking scripts.

Cookies and storage on your device

• One cookie, hs_s, keeps you signed in. It ends when you sign out or after 90 days without use. We store only a hash of it, with your browser’s description and when it was last used.
• Local storage holds an invite code from an invite link until you sign up, and which tips you’ve dismissed.
• Session storage holds a note that the app already reloaded for an update, and in the demo, which sample member you’re playing.
• The app keeps its own files and your latest view on your device so it can open without a connection.

Deleting your account

Delete your account from Account in the app (type DELETE to confirm) once you have no trade in progress. Trades waiting for an answer are declined. We then remove your name, email, sign-in sessions and passkeys, BGG link, shipping address, meetup settings, shelf, wants, photos, notifications and push subscriptions.

Some things stay after you delete your account:

• Your past trades stay in other members’ history, with you shown as “Former member”, including the games and ratings in them.
• The record of your trade events and strikes stays under a member number with no name attached.
• Payment records and your Stripe customer record stay, for refunds, accounting and taxes. Stripe keeps its own records.
• Invite codes, and your waitlist entry if you joined the waitlist. Email us to remove the waitlist entry.
• EasyPost keeps the labels that were bought.

We keep payment records for [how long] and backups of the database for 5 days.

You can change your name and address or unlink BGG at any time from Account. Removing a game from your shelf deletes its photos. To get a copy of what we hold about you, email us. We answer within [number] days.

Children

HelloShelf is for people 18 and older. If we learn that an account belongs to someone younger, we delete it.

Where HelloShelf works

HelloShelf is for people in the United States, and your information is stored in the United States.

Changes

If we change this policy, we’ll post the new version here with a new date, and tell members in the app before a change to what we collect or share takes effect.

Contact

Email hello@helloshelf.app, or write to Tallon Simmons, [street address], Rockford, MI 49341.