Last updated: September 29, 2026
OffGrid is a camping spot tracker and trip planner. It is designed to keep your data on your device.
All of this is stored only on your iPhone. OffGrid has no user accounts, no servers of its own, and never uploads your spots, trips, photos, or settings anywhere. Deleting the app deletes this data.
OffGrid asks for permission to use your location while the app is open. Your location is used to center the map on you, sort your spots by distance, and plan trips that start from where you are. Your location is processed on the device and is not sent to the developer.
To draw maps and load information, OffGrid connects to these services. Each receives the standard information any internet request carries, such as your IP address and the map area being requested.
When you start navigation in OffGrid, the app uses your location continuously, including while the screen is locked, to follow your saved route and give turn directions. This stops when you end navigation. Your position is used on the device only and is never sent to the developer.
If you turn on Friends, OffGrid creates a profile record in the public database of Apple's CloudKit (in the app's own iCloud container) so other OffGrid users can find you. That record holds your display name, your 8-character friend code, a public encryption key generated on your device, and, only if you also turn on "Let contacts find me," hashed versions of your contacts (see Contacts below).
The same public database also holds your messages in transit. While a message travels the internet path, OffGrid writes a message envelope record there containing your friend code, the recipient's friend code, the message kind, an expiry time, and the encrypted message itself — anyone with the app can read that record, but only your friend can decrypt the message inside it. Envelope records are deleted once your friend's device acknowledges receiving them, or automatically after 24 hours if they don't. An acknowledgement record — the message id and the acknowledging friend's code — may persist after that.
Messages to friends are end-to-end encrypted. Your device generates a private key that never leaves it, kept in the Keychain, and pairs it with your friend's public key to seal every message before it is sent. Anyone relaying a message for you — another OffGrid user's phone over Bluetooth, or a Meshtastic radio — sees only the encrypted message plus routing information: a message id, a hop count, and both friend codes (yours and your friend's), never the message content.
Blocking a friend is enforced locally on your device; it also syncs to your own private iCloud data so the block follows you to your other devices, since CloudKit has no server-side filtering.
To stop using Friends, remove each friend from the Friends tab (this deletes their key and stops new messages) and turn off "Let contacts find me" to remove your contact hashes from your profile. There is no in-app way to delete the profile record itself yet; contact support to delete your Friends profile.
With "Let contacts find me" turned on, OffGrid reads your contacts and, on the device, normalizes each phone number and email address and hashes it with SHA-256 and a fixed salt built into the app. Only these hashes are stored in your CloudKit profile, so other OffGrid users whose contacts include you can find you automatically. Your raw contacts never leave your phone, and a match only happens if the other person has also turned this feature on. Turning the toggle off removes your hashes from your profile.
With Nearby Messaging on, your phone advertises over Bluetooth and relays messages for other nearby OffGrid users, and they relay for you, so a message can reach a friend who isn't directly in range. A phone that relays a message sees only the encrypted message plus routing information: a message id, a hop count, and both friend codes (yours and your friend's).
An SOS you send is different: it also reaches nearby OffGrid users who are not your friends, as an anonymous alert so they can help, and that alert is not encrypted — it contains your display name, position, and any note you add, in the clear, to anyone with Bluetooth range of your phone while your SOS is active.
Nearby Messaging runs only in the foreground unless you also turn on Background Messaging, which keeps Bluetooth scanning and advertising running while your phone is locked or OffGrid is closed, until you swipe the app away in the app switcher.
If you connect a Meshtastic LoRa radio, direct messages and channel messages to nodes that aren't your OffGrid friends are sent as plain text over the radio, and OffGrid marks them as unencrypted — anyone with a compatible radio listening on the same channel can read them. If a radio's node is linked to one of your OffGrid friends, messages to that node are sealed the same way as any other friend message before being sent as a direct message. An SOS broadcast on the radio's primary channel is always public, readable by any Meshtastic radio in range. Meshtastic is third-party hardware and software; OffGrid is not affiliated with Meshtastic and does not control what other radios or apps on the network do with messages they receive.
OffGrid sends local notifications on this device for incoming messages, friend requests, and SOS alerts, including time-sensitive notifications for SOS so they can break through Focus and Do Not Disturb. New Friends activity can wake the app in the background using Apple's own CloudKit push notifications; no developer server is involved and no notification content passes through anyone but Apple and your device.
If you are signed in to iCloud with iCloud Drive on, OffGrid keeps a copy of your spots, trips, favorites, and photos in your own iCloud Drive so they appear on your other devices. This uses your Apple account only; the developer has no access to it. Turn off iCloud Drive for OffGrid in Settings to keep everything on one device.
The Back Up option writes a file you control, containing your spots, trips, favorites, and photos, to a location you choose. Restore reads such a file back in.
When you tap Depart or Directions, OffGrid opens Apple Maps or Google Maps with your route. From that point the other app's privacy policy applies.
OffGrid is not directed at children under 13 and collects no personal information from anyone.
Updates to this policy will be posted at this address with a new date.
Questions about privacy: cjherrmann50@gmail.com