How your data works
Posts.io lets you share publicly or with approved followers. These are the privacy details of the service as it works today.
What people can see
Your username, display name, introduction, profile photo, cover photo, profile counts and personal profile header are public. Public posts are also available through RSS and JSON feeds, and other people can copy them or find them through search engines.
Private profiles share their published posts and post photos with approved followers. Follow requests do not grant access until approved. Existing followers keep access when you make your profile private; you can remove them. These settings apply across your profile pages. Replies use the original post’s audience. An attempt is your own post and uses your profile’s audience.
Private posts are excluded from public RSS and JSON feeds and public search. Making your profile public makes your published posts and their replies public again, including replies by other people. People who previously read a post may have saved a copy; changing privacy cannot recall those copies.
Likes and reposts
A like can notify the post’s author, and real like totals can appear beside a post. We do not publish a list of your likes or a public roster of people who liked a post. Saving a post remains private and does not notify its author.
A repost shares a reference to a currently public post with your profile’s audience. The original author, writing and link remain theirs. Private profiles share reposts only with approved followers; private originals cannot be reposted. Reposts disappear from other people’s views when the original becomes unavailable, private or blocked. You can remove your own repost without deleting the original. Changing your profile to public also makes its eligible reposts public.
Your account download includes your own like and repost references, including references to posts you can no longer read, and your interaction activity records. It does not include another person’s writing through those references. Deleting an account removes its likes and reposts; deleting an original removes its repost references.
What stays in your account
Your email address, verified phone number, password hash, saved posts, private reports, your blocked-account list and unpublished text drafts are not included in public profiles or people search. We store account and session records to sign you in, and activity records to limit abuse. Connected sign-in identifiers and short-lived sign-in confirmation records also stay private.
Notifications and private messages
Notifications are visible only in your account. They link to activity you can currently read; changing a profile’s audience or blocking an account can remove an alert from view. You can mark alerts as read and turn off follow or post-activity alerts in Notifications. Likes and reposts use the post-activity category. Undoing and re-adding an interaction does not generate repeated unread alerts. We don’t send these alerts by email or text message.
Private messages are stored on Posts.io’s servers and displayed to the conversation’s participants. They are not end-to-end encrypted. A recipient can copy what you send. Messages contain text only; we don’t show online status, typing indicators or read receipts to the other person. Your private read marker controls your own unread count.
A verified email address or phone number is required to send messages. By default, people you follow can start a conversation in your Inbox. Other people can send one request, then wait for your explicit acceptance. Following a private profile does not itself give the follower permission to message its owner. You can choose who starts new conversations in Inbox settings, decline a request or block an account. Blocking stops new messages while keeping the participants’ existing history available. Unblocking does not reopen the conversation automatically.
Reporting a received message shares only that selected message and your reason with authorized Posts.io moderators, after your confirmation. It does not share the rest of your conversation. Moderators can remove or restore a reported message they have removed, but cannot restore text you deleted. Reports and their review records are available for thirty days, then scheduled for deletion. Outages or a cleanup backlog can delay physical removal; expired reports cannot be opened for review.
Removing your own message clears its stored text from the conversation; a copy in a report already submitted can remain until that report expires. Deleting your account clears your authored message text and closes its conversations. The other participant’s own writing can remain in their history. Existing reported-message copies follow the thirty-day retention period. Your account download includes the correspondence visible to you, your private notification metadata and your own message settings and reports.
Post photos follow your posts
New post photos are stored privately. You can preview your own uploads; other people can read them only through a published post whose audience includes them. Unpublishing or deleting the last readable reference removes that access. Deleting a post does not permanently delete its uploaded file. Older public uploads require a storage move before a profile can become private.
Profile and cover photos are cropped and converted into still WebP images. Their original files and embedded photo metadata are not stored. Replaced or removed profile images are queued for cleanup when they have no known writing or profile references. Unconfirmed cleanup is retried; public caches and copies held by others can remain. This processing does not apply retroactively to older photos in posts.
New post photos are also converted to WebP, and their original files and embedded metadata, including GPS location, are not stored. This does not remove location details visible within a photo or its caption. Previously uploaded post photos keep their existing files.
Copies on your device
Appearance preferences and recovery copies of writing can be stored in your browser. A writing copy can remain on a shared device after you sign out. You can discard recovery copies in Drafts or clear this site’s browser data. Private-message drafts are kept only in the open page’s memory and are lost when you close or reload it.
Finding people
People search uses public names and usernames. Interest suggestions use published posts. Phone numbers supplied for sign-in stay private; they aren’t used to match contacts or suggest people. We don’t upload your address book. Sharing a link lets you choose where to send it.
Blocking and private reports
Blocking an account hides your accounts’ posts and replies from each other while signed in, including when either account has blocked the other. It also prevents follows and interaction between those accounts. Existing follows are removed in both directions. Unblocking removes your block without restoring follows; the other account may still have you blocked. You can manage your private blocked list in Account & security.
Blocking does not make public posts private. People can still read it while signed out, from another account or through public RSS and JSON feeds. Use a private profile to limit posts to approved followers. Blocking also removes pending follow requests and approved following between the accounts.
Reports about posts and individual replies are private to service review. You can report a reply even after blocking its author; doing so does not contact or notify them. Receiving a report does not mean it has been reviewed or removed. Moderators can remove an individual reply while preserving its parent post and other replies, and restore it with its original date. Moderation does not itself remove public photo files.
When someone who can read a post or reply reports it, authorized moderators can review that reported content and the context needed to assess it, including private content. A report does not give moderators access to unrelated private posts or replies. The report can remain available for review after a decision or a later privacy change.
Service providers
Vercel hosts the site and uploaded photos. Supabase hosts the Posts.io database. A configured email service processes verification and recovery emails. When configured, Resend also receives messages sent to the Posts.io support address. Its team inbox contains those messages and attachments. These providers can process operational records needed to deliver and protect the service.
Signing in with Google
When Google sign-in is available and you choose it, Google processes the sign-in request and shares an account identifier and email address with Posts.io. We do not request your contacts or Google files, import your Google portrait, or store Google access or refresh tokens. Matching email addresses never combine Posts.io accounts automatically.
A Google-only account confirms sensitive actions through the same connected Google account. Setting an initial Posts.io password also requires a verified email address attached to that Posts.io account. A completed email password reset disconnects linked sign-in methods and signs out every device; you can reconnect them after signing in with the new password. Disconnecting a Posts.io sign-in method does not claim to revoke Google’s separate app consent.
Phone sign-in, when available
Requesting a sign-in code shares your number with Twilio Verify for delivery and fraud protection. Posts.io records the normalized number, its country, when it was verified and which account it belongs to. A phone-only account does not require or receive an invented email address. Connecting another sign-in method requires you to confirm your current account; matching contact details do not combine accounts.
Phone codes authorize a request for up to ten minutes. Private request records, including the number, consent version and request times, can remain for thirty days for abuse prevention and consent review, then are scheduled for removal by regular cleanup. Outages or a cleanup backlog can delay removal. Used or cancelled requests cannot sign you in again. These records can remain after account deletion until cleanup removes them. Twilio separately processes delivery records under its own privacy policy.
Keep a connected Google account or verified email sign-in method when you can. A phone number can be reassigned to another person, and losing control of your number can affect account access. A code confirms access to a number at that time; it does not identify a unique person.
Your controls today
You can edit your public profile, delete your own posts and replies, remove saved posts, and choose who you follow. Account & security lets you download your account data or delete your account after confirming your password or, for an account without a password, its connected Google identity or a fresh phone code for that specific action. Photos are queued separately for removal; failed or unconfirmed removal is retried. Browser copies and copies made by others can remain.
Private moderation audit notes and photo-removal records can remain after referenced accounts or posts are deleted. These records support review and cleanup; they are not public profiles.
Support and privacy requests
For account help or a data export too large for the self-service download, contact support@posts.io. Don’t send your password, verification link or session cookie.