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Traces terms of use

Last updated 6 November 2026

These terms cover your use of Traces, the app made by NEXTGEN SOFTWARE LTD ("we", "us"), a company registered in England and Wales. By downloading or using Traces you agree to them. If you don't agree, please don't use the app.

1. Apple's licence

You get Traces from the App Store, so Apple's Standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement applies to it. These terms add to that agreement. If the two disagree about your licence to use the app, Apple's agreement wins.

Apple isn't a party to these terms and isn't responsible for Traces, its content or its support. That's us.

2. What Traces does

Traces checks the photos on your iPhone for locations, text such as card numbers and passwords, ID documents, faces and, if you turn on Sensitive Content Warning, intimate photos. All of it happens on your iPhone; see the privacy policy.

Detection isn't perfect. Traces can miss something, and it can flag something that isn't there. A category marked clear doesn't mean a photo is safe to share. You decide what to fix and what to keep.

3. Purchases

The scan is free, as are rescans and seeing everything Traces finds. Your first three fixes are free too, one photo each; a fix includes moving a photo to the Locked folder. After that, fixes need one of two one-time purchases, sold through Apple's App Store. There's no subscription.

  • Clean-up fixes every photo that had findings when you bought it, all at once or one by one, with no time limit. Photos found by later scans need another Clean-up or Lifetime. You can buy a Clean-up as often as you like. Apple doesn't restore this kind of purchase, so Traces keeps the record of it on your iPhone, which keeps it if you delete and reinstall the app but not on a new iPhone.
  • Traces Lifetime is a one-time payment for every fix, for as long as Traces is offered. It also checks new photos automatically, with a notification when it finds something, and unlocks sharing a safe copy with Clean Share. Use Restore purchase to get it on another iPhone with the same Apple Account.

Prices are shown in your App Store's currency before you buy. Refunds are handled by Apple, at reportaproblem.apple.com.

You can always open and export photos in the Locked folder, whatever you've bought.

4. Fixes change your photos

Fixes change your Photos library, and iCloud Photos copies those changes to your other devices if it's on:

  • Remove location removes the location from each photo. Traces can't undo it.
  • Redact text and Blur faces save a new copy and move the original to Recently Deleted.
  • Move to Locked folder takes photos out of Photos and into the Locked folder.
  • Delete moves photos to Recently Deleted.

iOS asks you before anything is deleted. Photos keeps Recently Deleted items for 30 days, after which they're gone for good. Please check what you've selected before you confirm a fix.

5. The Locked folder

The Locked folder keeps photos encrypted on this iPhone only. It isn't included in iCloud or device backups, and nobody, including us, can open it without your iPhone.

If you delete Traces, use Delete all app data, or reset, lose or replace your iPhone, the photos in the Locked folder are gone and can't be recovered. Export the ones you want to keep first.

6. Clean Share

Clean Share makes a cleaned copy of a photo for you to share. You choose where it goes, and what you share is up to you. Please check the copy before you send it.

7. Using Traces fairly

Use Traces on photos you have the right to manage. Please don't copy, change, decompile or reverse engineer the app, except where the law allows it, or use Traces for anything unlawful.

8. Our content

The app, its name, design and code belong to us or the people who license them to us. The acknowledgements list the fonts and open-source software it uses.

9. The app as it is

We work hard to keep Traces working well, but we provide it "as is". We may add, change or remove features, and we may stop offering the app, though we'll try to give notice before we do. We can't promise it'll always be available or free of bugs.

10. Our liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't be limited by law, such as for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud. Your legal rights as a consumer aren't affected, including your rights if digital content we supply damages your device or other digital content because we didn't take reasonable care.

Otherwise, we aren't liable for losses that weren't foreseeable, or for business losses. Traces is for personal, non-commercial use. Our total liability to you is limited to what you paid for Traces in the 12 months before your claim.

11. Ending

You can stop at any time by deleting the app. Deleting it removes everything Traces stored on your iPhone, including the Locked folder, except the record of your purchases described in section 3.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, for example when the app changes or the law does. We'll update this page and the date at the top. If you keep using Traces after a change, the new terms apply.

13. Law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales deal with any dispute. If you live in Scotland, Northern Ireland or the EU, you can also use your local courts, and your local consumer law still protects you.

14. Contact

NEXTGEN SOFTWARE LTD hi@nextgensoftware.co