Privacy

1. Who we are

MergeHDR (“the app”) is developed and distributed by an independent developer, from the same team as RAWtoHEIC. You can reach us any time through our support page.

2. What the app does with your photos

MergeHDR reads photo metadata from your Photos library to detect exposure-bracket sets, merges the frames you approve, and writes the result back into Photos — all using your device’s own hardware, through Apple’s Photos and image-processing frameworks.

• Your original bracket photos are never uploaded anywhere.
• Merged HDR results are never uploaded anywhere.
• We have no servers that process, see, or relay your photos, and no cloud-merge fallback.
• Album membership, favorites, captions, and location data are preserved locally by the Photos framework — we do not read or transmit them off-device.

3. What we collect

Nothing. MergeHDR has no account system, no analytics SDK, no crash-reporting SDK, no advertising SDK, and no third-party framework that phones home. There is nothing about your photos, your library, or your usage that reaches us — because nothing is sent.

iCloud Photos

If you have iCloud Photos enabled, Apple syncs your photos across your devices under Apple’s own privacy policy. MergeHDR is not part of that sync; it only works with the local copy of your library on the device running the app.

4. How processing works

Bracket detection reads photo metadata (capture time, lens, focal length, exposure value) locally through Apple’s Photos framework to group frames into candidate sets. Merging — alignment, deghosting, tone-mapping and HEIC compression — all run on your device’s own CPU/GPU. The app works fully offline; none of this requires or uses a network connection.

5. Photo library access

MergeHDR asks for Photos permission solely to detect bracket sets, read the frames you choose to merge, and save the merged result back into your library. You can limit access to selected photos in iOS, iPadOS, or macOS Settings, and you can revoke access at any time — MergeHDR simply stops working with your library until you grant it again.

6. Purchases

MergeHDR is free to try, with unlimited saves available as a one-time purchase ($19.99) or a yearly subscription ($9.99/year) — a Universal Purchase across iPhone, iPad and Mac, with Family Sharing, sold through the Apple App Store. Payment is handled entirely by Apple — we do not receive your payment details, name, email, or billing address; Apple only tells the app whether a purchase is active. See Apple’s privacy policy for how they handle your transaction.

7. The website

mergehdr.app uses Google Site Kit (Analytics) to count page views and see which pages people find useful — no advertising trackers, and no attempt to identify you personally. Outbound App Store button clicks are measured in aggregate so we know which pages help people find the app; this is standard web analytics, not photo or app-usage data, and it has nothing to do with the privacy story in the sections above.

8. Children

The app is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect data from anyone. Because we collect nothing, there is nothing to collect from children either.

9. Your rights

Because we store no personal data, there is no account to access, no data to export, and nothing to delete on our end. Deleting the app from your device removes all app-local settings instantly. If you are in the EU/UK and believe we have nonetheless processed data about you, contact us through our support page and we will respond within 30 days.

10. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes — for example, if a future version adds an optional feature that involves a network request — we will update the date at the top and, where the change is material, note it in the App Store release notes. Continued use of the app after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

11. Contact

Questions about privacy? Reach us through our support page.