NOTE: Open items to confirm before App Store / Play Store submission:

1. Support email. This document uses privacy@readrats.app as the single contact for both privacy and support, on the assumption that Phase 0 volume does not justify two inboxes. If a separate support@readrats.app alias is preferred, swap it in across the document.
2. Status page URL. The “System status” section links to https://status.readrats.app. That subdomain is not provisioned yet. Either (a) provision a static page that says “All systems operational” before the App Store / Play Store submission, or (b) remove the link and replace it with a sentence saying status will be posted on the marketing site at readrats.app if we have an outage.
3. Response time. The document promises a reply within five business days. Adjust to whatever the founder can sustain through the 14-day closed-test window plus the first month of public availability.

ReadRats Support

Effective date: 2026-04-25 Last updated: 2026-04-25

This is the support page for ReadRats. If you cannot find an answer below, write to us at the email at the bottom and we will reply within five business days.

How to contact us

Email: privacy@readrats.app

Tell us:

• What you were trying to do.
• What happened instead.
• Your account email and your display name (so we can find you).
• Your device and operating system version (for example “iPhone 14, iOS 17.4” or “Pixel 6, Android 14”).
• A screenshot, if you have one.

For privacy requests (deletion, export, access), the same email applies. See the privacy policy for the full list of rights and the response timeline.

Frequently asked questions

How do I delete my account?

During Phase 0, account deletion is processed by hand. Write to privacy@readrats.app from the email address tied to your account and ask us to delete it. We will:

1. Confirm the request from a different email or in-app message.
2. Delete your account, your reading sessions, your notes, and your session photos within five business days.
3. Reply to confirm the deletion is complete.

Your data may persist in our daily backups for up to 30 days, after which it rotates out automatically. See the privacy policy for the full retention schedule.

In-app self-serve deletion is on the Phase 1 roadmap.

How do I export my data?

Write to privacy@readrats.app and ask for an export. We will reply within five business days with a JSON file containing your account profile, your reading sessions, your notes, and references to your session photos. The photos themselves are sent as a zip alongside the JSON.

What happens to my photos if I delete my account?

They are deleted from our S3 photo bucket within five business days of the deletion request being processed, alongside the rest of your account data. They may persist in daily backups for up to 30 days, then rotate out.

How do I report another user?

Write to privacy@readrats.app with:

• The user’s display name.
• The challenge or screen where you saw the content.
• Roughly when (date and approximate time).
• A short description of what they did, and a screenshot if you have one.

We will look at it within five business days. We may suspend or terminate the reported account under section 4 and section 7 of the terms of service.

How do I leave a challenge?

Open the challenge from your home screen, scroll to the bottom of the challenge details, and tap Leave challenge. Your prior sessions remain in your reading history but stop counting toward that challenge’s leaderboard.

If you are the owner of a challenge, you cannot leave it directly. Either transfer ownership (Phase 1 feature; ask us by email in the meantime) or delete the challenge entirely. Deleting a challenge does not delete the underlying reading sessions; it removes the challenge itself and its leaderboard.

How do I recover lost progress?

Reading sessions are saved to our server the moment you tap Save or Complete. They are tied to your account, not to your device, so signing in on a new phone restores your full history.

If a session is genuinely missing (you saw it earlier and now it is gone), write to privacy@readrats.app with your account email, the session date and book title, and a description of what happened. We keep daily database backups for 30 days and can restore from them in extreme cases. We cannot recover sessions that were never saved (for example, a live timer that was force-closed before you tapped Complete).

Why is my book missing or wrong in search?

Book metadata comes from the Google Books API. If a book is missing, incorrect, or has the wrong cover, the underlying data lives at Google. We cannot edit it at the source.

What you can do:

• Use the “Can’t find it?” option to add the book manually. The manual entry stays in your library and counts toward your sessions and challenges normally.
• For the wrong cover, the manual entry path is the workaround for Phase 0.

Why am I getting a “rate limit” message in book search?

To stay within Google’s free quota, we cap book searches at 50 per minute per network address. Wait a minute and try again. If you see this often, write to us; we may need to raise the cap.

How do I sign out?

Open the Profile screen and tap Sign out. Your authentication token is cleared from the device, but your account and your data on the server are untouched. Sign in again with the same email and password to get back in.

I forgot my password. How do I reset it?

Phase 0 does not yet ship a self-serve password reset. Write to privacy@readrats.app from the email address tied to your account and we will reset it for you and send the new password via the same email. Self-serve password reset is on the Phase 1 roadmap.

Can I change my email address?

Yes, by writing to privacy@readrats.app. We will verify both the old and new addresses and then make the change. Self-serve email change is on the Phase 1 roadmap.

Can I change my display name?

Yes, in the Profile screen.

Why does the app ask for camera or photo library access?

Only when you choose to attach a photo to a reading session. The app does not access your camera or library at any other time, and it never accesses location, contacts, or microphone. See the privacy policy for the full list.

Can I use ReadRats on the web?

Yes, at app.readrats.app. The web build supports the same accounts and the same data as the mobile apps. Photo upload uses the browser file picker rather than a native camera capture.

Is there a desktop app?

No. The web build at app.readrats.app works in any modern desktop browser.

Will ReadRats ever cost money?

Not in Phase 0. We will tell you in advance, with at least 30 days' notice in the app and on the marketing site, if that ever changes.

Known limitations (Phase 0)

ReadRats is a young app. The following capabilities are on the roadmap but not yet available:

• Persistent groups: today, every reading competition is a standalone challenge with a start and end date. Long-running groups (book clubs, friend pods) come in Phase 1.
• In-app chat: Phase 1.
• Push notifications: not enabled. The app does not send any push notifications today; reminders happen inside the app on next open.
• Sign in with Apple, Sign in with Google: not enabled. Phase 0 uses email and password only. Third-party authentication arrives with the Firebase Auth migration.
• Self-serve account deletion in the app: not enabled. Use the email at the top of this page.
• Self-serve password reset: not enabled. Use the email at the top of this page.
• Self-serve email change: not enabled. Use the email at the top of this page.
• Transferring challenge ownership: not enabled. Delete the challenge or ask us by email.
• Editing the photo on a saved session: not enabled. You can delete the session and log a new one with the right photo.
• Crash reports and analytics: deliberately not enabled. We do not embed any third-party SDK that collects them. This means we cannot see when the app crashes for you; please write to us.

System status

We post status updates at https://status.readrats.app. During Phase 0 the page shows a static “All systems operational” message unless we have an active incident, in which case we update it within 30 minutes of becoming aware of the issue.

If the API is unreachable for you, please:

1. Check your network connection.
2. Force-close and reopen the app.
3. Check the status page.
4. If the status page says everything is fine and the app still doesn’t work, write to privacy@readrats.app with your device model and OS version.

Vulnerability disclosure

If you find a security vulnerability in ReadRats, please write to privacy@readrats.app with the subject line “SECURITY” and a description of the issue. We ask that you:

• Do not exploit the vulnerability beyond what is necessary to confirm it.
• Do not access, modify, or delete data that is not yours.
• Give us a reasonable time (at least 30 days) to fix the issue before publishing it.

We do not run a paid bug bounty in Phase 0, but we will publicly credit your finding (with your permission) once it is fixed.

Changelog