Onu

Privacy policy

Last updated: 24 October 2026

Onu is a chat app for two people. It is made by Tiny Loop ("we"). This page says what Onu collects, why, where it is kept, and how you delete it. Questions: hello@heyonu.com.

What we collect

Phone number

You sign in with your phone number and a one-time code sent by SMS. Your number is kept only in Firebase Authentication. It is not in the chat database. We use it to sign you in, and to find you when someone who has your number asks you to be their Onu.

Name, profile photo and status

You choose a name, an optional profile photo and an optional short status. Your partner sees them. A person who sent you a request, or to whom you sent one, sees your name and photo. Your profile photo can be read by any signed-in Onu user who has your account's photo address. In practice the app shows it to contacts who have your number, and only when you are linked. The app never shows your name or your partner's name to your contacts.

Messages and media

Everything you send to your partner is stored on our servers so that both of you can see it: text, photos, voice notes, videos, reactions, questions and answers, reminders, and daily question answers. Only you and your partner can read them. Messages are not end-to-end encrypted today. They are encrypted in transit and at rest by Google Cloud.

Link previews. When a text message has a web link, our server opens that link to show a preview card. The website sees a request from our server, not from your phone.

View-once. A view-once photo or video can be opened only once, by your partner. The app blocks screenshots on that screen (Android). The file is deleted from our servers within about a day after it is opened, or after a day if the message was never sent.

Deleted messages. When you delete a message for both of you, its text and media are removed from the message. Uploaded files that no message uses are deleted by a daily clean-up.

Photos you save. If you save a photo, it goes to an "Onu" album on your phone. That copy is yours and we cannot see it.

Location

Onu uses your location only when you choose to share it with your partner.

Maps are shown with Google Maps, which receives the map area your phone loads.

Contacts

If you allow it, Onu reads your phone's contacts to show who is on Onu. Names and other contact details stay on your phone. The phone numbers of the contacts on your screen are sent to our server to check which of them have an Onu account. We do not store those numbers. We keep a list of the Onu accounts that matched, to apply a daily limit on new matches.

Push notifications

We store your phone's push token so that we can tell you about new messages. Notifications are sent through Firebase Cloud Messaging and can include the sender's name and the message text.

Crash reports and usage

The app uses Firebase Crashlytics to report crashes. A crash report has technical details about your phone and the app, and your Onu account ID. The app uses Google Analytics for Firebase with its default events only, such as first open and sessions. We use these to fix bugs and to understand how many people use Onu. We do not sell your data and we do not show ads.

App check

The app uses Firebase App Check with Google Play Integrity to confirm that requests come from the real Onu app.

Who processes your data

Onu runs on Google Firebase and Google Cloud. Google processes the data for us, under its own terms. We have no other processors.

Where it is stored

How long we keep it

Delete your account

You can delete your account in the app. See heyonu.com/delete-account for the steps and for what is deleted.

Children

Onu is not for children under 13.

Changes

If we change this policy, we update this page and the date at the top.

Contact

Tiny Loop · hello@heyonu.com