Privacy policy.

Last updated: October 16, 2026

1. Who we are

BUOKO ("we", "us") is an independent email service for people and small businesses. This policy explains what we collect, why, who helps us, how long we keep it and the choices you have. It covers the website buoko.com, BUOKO accounts and the BUOKO apps on the web (buoko.com/mail), iPhone and Android.

For anything about privacy, email [email protected] ([email protected] also reaches us). We're responsible (the "controller") for the personal data described here.

2. The short version

• We don't ask for your phone number or your real name.
• There are no ads in BUOKO. We don't sell your data, and we never read your email to target ads.
• There are no analytics or advertising trackers on our website.
• Your mailbox is stored on our server in Germany. It is not end-to-end encrypted; see what we can and can't see.
• Optional features, like AI writing, notifications and the Social tab, only share data with other companies when you turn them on or use them.
• We collect only what we need to run BUOKO, keep it safe and meet our legal duties.
• You can get a copy of your data, correct it or delete your account at any time.

3. Website visitors

• Hosting. buoko.com runs on Cloudflare. To deliver pages and block attacks, Cloudflare processes your IP address, browser details and the pages you request. We don't use this to build profiles of visitors.
• No analytics, no trackers. The website has no analytics, no advertising trackers and no social media pixels.
• Sign in with Apple (iPhone). If you use it, Apple gives us an anonymous ID that is unique to BUOKO, and we store it next to your BUOKO address so Apple can sign you in. We don't ask Apple for your name or email. Each iPhone that signs in this way gets its own app password on our mail server (we never store it). You can turn Sign in with Apple off in Settings; deleting your account removes the link too.
• Usage counts for running BUOKO. Once a day our mail server counts, per address, how many times it signed in and how many emails it sent, and in total how many emails arrived and from which sending domains (for example "instagram.com"). We use these counts to spot abuse, keep mail flowing and see how BUOKO is used. We never look at what your emails say. We also keep an anonymous total of new sign-ups per country per day (from the country Cloudflare reports, never linked to your address). Daily counts per address are deleted after 400 days.
• Sign-up step counts. To see where people get stuck when creating an address, the app and web app tell us when someone reaches a step (for example "opened sign-up" or "account created"), together with the platform (Android, iPhone or web). We only keep a total per step per day. Nothing that identifies you is stored with it: no address, no device ID and no IP address.
• Fonts from Google. Our pages load fonts from Google Fonts. That means your browser connects to Google's servers, and Google receives your IP address and browser details when you visit. Google says it uses this only to deliver the fonts.
• Domain Doctor. When you check a domain, your browser asks Cloudflare's public DNS service (cloudflare-dns.com) for that domain's public records. We don't receive or store the domain you type.
• Theme setting. If you switch between light and dark mode, that choice is saved in your own browser. It's never sent to us.

4. Signing up

Anyone can sign up at buoko.com/mail/sign-up or in the BUOKO apps. You choose your address and a password. We don't ask for your phone number or your real name.

Rate limiting. To stop abuse, we keep a scrambled (salted and hashed) version of your IP address for a short time. These records are deleted automatically, usually within an hour and never later than a day. We never store your IP address next to your email address.

One address per person. To keep free addresses fair, we allow up to 2 new addresses from the same internet connection every 30 days. This is a best-effort check. For it, we keep a salted and hashed version of the IP address used to sign up for 30 days, then delete it. It's never stored next to the address you created. Legal basis for these checks: our legitimate interest in keeping BUOKO free of spam and bots (Art. 6(1)(f)).

If you joined our old pre-launch waitlist, we keep that email only until you ask us to remove it or we delete the list.

5. Your BUOKO account

What we don't collect: no phone number, no real name, no date of birth, and no contacts from your phone. Contacts only reach your BUOKO address book if you add them or upload a contacts file yourself.

6. Your mail

• Stored on our server. Your mailbox is stored on our own mail server in Germany.
• Encrypted in transit. Mail travels encrypted (TLS) between BUOKO and other email servers whenever the other server supports it. The apps always connect to us over an encrypted connection.
• Not end-to-end encrypted. Our systems can technically access stored mail, which is needed to filter spam, search and deliver it.
• Nobody at BUOKO reads your mail unless you ask us to (for example, when you need help with a specific message) or a valid legal order requires it.
• Senders can't track you by default. The BUOKO apps block tracking pixels and remote images by default. You choose when to load images.
• Read receipts are your choice. A sender can ask for a read receipt, but BUOKO only sends one if you choose to.
• Protecting your sign-in. You can turn on two-factor sign-in with an authenticator app, keep recovery codes, add a backup email and create separate app passwords for other email apps.

7. Plans and payments

• The free plan. No ads and no price. It comes with 1 GB of storage, sending to up to 25 people a day (10 an hour), 3 aliases, 4 temporary emails (each lasts up to 7 days) and attachments up to 10 MB. Free addresses created on or after 26 October 2026 go to sleep after 14 days without a sign-in (new mail is refused until you sign in again) and are deleted after a year asleep; older free accounts aren't closed for being inactive. See the terms.
• Paid plans. Personal, Plus and Business are bought only in the BUOKO Android app, through Google Play Billing. Google is the seller and handles the payment, so Google receives your payment details under its own privacy policy. We never see your card number. Once you've bought a plan, it works everywhere you use BUOKO, including the web and iPhone. Plans aren't sold through the Apple App Store.
• Subscription status. We use RevenueCat to manage subscriptions bought through Google Play. RevenueCat receives an app user id (your BUOKO address), your purchase and subscription records and the store's transaction ids. We use this only to check which plan you have.
• There are no ads, on any plan.

Legal basis: contract (Art. 6(1)(b)).

8. Optional features

These features only share data with other companies when you turn them on or use them.

• AI writing (Plus and Business). Only when you tap an AI button (write, rewrite or fix, translate, summarize), the text of that draft or email is sent to Anthropic's Claude API to produce the result. For replies, the email you're replying to is sent too. Under Anthropic's commercial API terms, this data isn't used to train their models by default. We don't store what you send to the AI or what it writes back on our servers. We only count how many times you use it each month. If you tap Report on AI text, we receive that AI text, the reason you picked, any note you add and your address, so we can review it and make the AI safer. Reports are kept for up to 12 months.
• New-mail notifications. If you turn them on, your phone's push token and a short notification (the sender's name and the subject) pass through Expo (650 Industries) and Apple Push Notification service or Google Firebase Cloud Messaging, so the notification can reach your phone.
• Moving your mail to BUOKO. If you import mail from Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud or another IMAP provider (Settings → Move to BUOKO), you give us your old account's address and an app password for it. We store them encrypted (AES-GCM), together with your BUOKO login, only while the import runs. Our import worker on our server in Germany uses them to copy your mail over IMAP. They're deleted when the import ends: when it's done, fails or is cancelled, or after 7 days if it never starts. Contacts files you upload are added to your BUOKO address book.
• Social tab: YouTube. If you add a YouTube channel, we look up its handle with Google's YouTube Data API to get the channel's public statistics.
• Social tab: Twitch. If you connect Twitch, you sign in with Twitch. We then store an encrypted Twitch access token, along with your public channel details, to read your public follower count. Disconnecting Twitch deletes the token.
• Social tab: Alt Chat. Alt Chat is a separate app by BUOKO's founder. If you link your Alt Chat account, the BUOKO app keeps a read-only link token on your device to show your follower stats. We never keep your Alt Chat password. If you create an Alt Chat account from BUOKO, your BUOKO address and the username, name, birthday and gender you enter are shared with Alt Chat, under Alt Chat's own terms and privacy policy.

Legal basis: contract (Art. 6(1)(b)), because you ask us to provide these features.

9. Who helps us

We use a small number of companies to run BUOKO. Those that work for us may only use your data to provide their service to us. A few are services you also use directly, such as the app stores, Google Play payments, Twitch and Alt Chat, and they handle that data under their own privacy policies. We don't sell your data, and we don't share it with anyone for their own advertising.

We may also share information with authorities when the law requires it, or to protect people from serious harm such as fraud or abuse.

10. Where your data is stored

Your mailbox (your emails, calendar and contacts) is stored on our server in Germany, in the EU. Your account records (such as your address, plan and security settings) are kept in Cloudflare's database in Europe. Cloudflare, Google and Apple are global companies, so data they handle (such as website visit data, app store and payment data, or notification tokens) may be processed outside the EU, including in the United States. When you use the features that rely on them, RevenueCat (your subscription records), Anthropic (the text you send to AI writing) and Expo (your push token and notifications) process that data in the United States. Where that happens, these companies rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

11. How long we keep data

12. Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time in the app (Settings → Delete my account), or by emailing [email protected] from your BUOKO address with the subject "Delete my account". We delete your mailbox, your account data and your recovery codes. Your address is retired forever and never given to anyone else, because old addresses still receive things like password resets for other accounts. Full details are on the delete account page.

13. Your rights

Under the GDPR (and similar laws elsewhere) you can ask us to:

• give you a copy of your data, including in a portable format,
• correct data that's wrong,
• delete your data,
• limit or object to how we use it,
• withdraw your consent at any time (this doesn't affect what we did before).

Email [email protected]. If you write from your BUOKO address, that helps us confirm it's really you. We'll reply within one month. If you're not happy with our answer, you can complain to the data protection authority in your country.

14. Cookies and local storage

• No tracking cookies. We don't use advertising or analytics cookies.
• Security cookies. Cloudflare may set strictly necessary cookies to tell people from bots and protect the site.
• Theme. Your light or dark mode choice is saved in your own browser only.
• Signing in. The BUOKO apps, including the web app, use strictly necessary storage to keep you signed in.

15. Age requirement

You must be 16 or older to use BUOKO. We don't knowingly collect data from anyone younger. If you think a child under 16 has an account or has given us data, please tell us at [email protected] and we'll delete it.

16. Changes to this policy

We'll update this policy when BUOKO changes, for example when we add features or new companies that help us. We'll post the new version here with a new date, and tell you by email or in the app before important changes take effect.

17. Contact

Email [email protected] ([email protected] also reaches us). A real person reads every message. Security problems: please see our security page.

Questions? [email protected]