YouCai Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 10, 2026 · Effective: November 10, 2026 · Applies to YouCai for iOS, Android and HarmonyOS

YouCai is a fridge vegetable tracker. We follow data minimization: we collect only what is needed to run the app. No ads, no profiling, no selling or sharing your data with data brokers. This policy fully discloses every third-party service we integrate and how data flows.

1. What we collect

2. What we do not collect

3. AI fridge recognition (important)

When you use the "Snap a photo" feature, your photo is compressed to 1024px on-device, then forwarded once through our server to an AI gateway for visual recognition. Depending on your region:

3.1 Optional profile photos

Profile photos are optional; other features work without uploading one. Your device crops the image to a square of at most 512×512 pixels and re-encodes it to remove EXIF, GPS and other original metadata. Mainland China avatars are re-encoded again by our server and stored in Tencent Cloud COS in mainland China; overseas avatars are stored in Supabase Storage in the United States. The URL is linked to your account for profile and family-member display. Avatars are not sent to the AI recognition model. These are public URLs: anyone who knows the link can view the photo. Random filenames are not access controls; please avoid sensitive photos.

After a new avatar or sticker is saved successfully, the previous photo is queued for deletion. Failures are logged and retried. Retired URLs cannot be reused; upload a new copy instead. An uploaded photo that you cancel or never save may remain until account deletion. On account deletion, mainland accounts are removed first and a background task deletes all avatars in the account folder. Overseas avatars are removed through the Storage API before account deletion; a cleanup failure leaves the account available for retry. Follow-up sweeps remove late uploads. Failed tasks remain retryable; after successful cleanup, sweeps continue for seven days and account-related cleanup records in the database are then removed. While the account exists, minimal retirement markers prevent old URLs from being reactivated. Deletion cannot recall copies already downloaded by others, and public caches may remain until expiry.

3.2 Organizing recipes from shared links

On the mainland China Android version, when you open the Import recipe screen or return to it from another app with the input field empty, YouCai checks on your device whether the clipboard text contains a supported share link and asks whether you want to paste it. The text is added only if you tap “Paste,” and you can edit or clear it. Checking the clipboard and pasting do not send the text to our server. Only when you tap the “Import recipe” button does YouCai send the contents of the input field, including the link and any text included with the share, to our server to extract the link and organize the recipe.

To organize a recipe, we may retrieve the public text, images, video and audio track at the link. Our servers in mainland China transcribe the public audio and, when needed, recognize captions in video frames. YouCai does not request microphone permission or record audio from your device. We may send text from the source, the audio transcription or recognized captions to Zhipu GLM to extract ingredients and cooking steps. If we cannot read a public Douyin page directly, we may send its public link to a fallback resolver, without the rest of the shared text or account information. See section 5.1.

Import task records expire after seven days. Once processed successfully, the recipe is saved to My Recipes. The saved recipe is separate from the temporary import task and is not deleted when that task expires. You can view, edit and delete saved recipes in the app.

4. Where your data lives

YouCai determines your data region at first launch based on your App Store country/region, and keeps it stable thereafter:

In either region, row-level security (RLS) policies ensure each user can only read and write their own data.

5. Third-party services

5.1 Third-party services for recipe import

Our server uses these services as needed after you start organizing. They are not SDKs installed on your device.

Zhipu GLM

Fallback services for public Douyin links

6. Notifications

Enabled only after you grant notification permission. We send two kinds of reminders:

So that reminders arrive on time even when the app is closed, these are delivered via remote push services: Alibaba Cloud EMAS for mainland China users, and Firebase Cloud Messaging → Apple APNs for users elsewhere. To deliver them, we register a device push token on our server after you sign in. You can turn notifications off anytime in system Settings or in-app.

7. Permissions and device information

Device information and sensors

8. Data export and deletion

9. Children

YouCai is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

10. Changes to this policy

If a future version changes how we handle data, we will notify you in-app and update this page. Material changes will prompt re-consent on next launch.

This update explains how recipes are organized from shared links. After updating the mainland China Android version, you will see the updated policy on first launch and be asked to confirm it once.

11. Contact

For questions or to exercise your data rights (access / correction / deletion):

12. Support

Found a bug? Have a feature request? Email support@maaker.cn — we read every message weekly.

YouCai · © 2026 Maaker.AI · Bundle ID ai.maaker.youcai · Terms of Service · 简体中文

This English version is provided as a courtesy translation. In case of any discrepancy between the English and Chinese versions, the Chinese version shall prevail.