Privacy Policy for Cacher
This policy describes what the Android app Cacher (package com.gante.cacher) does with information. Every sentence below is a statement about the code that ships in the app, not a statement of intent.
Overview
Cacher is a storage cleaner. It shows what is taking up space on your device and removes the files and app caches you choose to remove. It does not claim to speed up your phone, free RAM or save battery — no app can do that. It frees storage space, and that is what it says.
Cacher works without an account: there is no sign-in, and the app does not ask for your name, email address, contacts or location. The current version contains no analytics, crash-reporting or advertising SDK. The one third-party component that uses the network is the Google Play Billing library, described below.
Scans, measurements and deletions run on your device, and their results are kept in the app's private storage there. Cacher has no server of its own, and the app's own code makes no network requests: your files, your file names and the list of apps you have installed stay on the phone.
What is stored on your device
To do its job the app keeps the following in its own private storage, which other apps cannot read:
- your settings: theme, palette, app icon, language, and the age and size thresholds the scans use;
- your exclusion list — the paths and packages you asked Cacher never to touch;
- your schedule and smart rules: how often to scan, quiet hours, the screenshot age and cache threshold you set, and when each rule last notified you;
- app groups you create, stored as group names and package names;
- one snapshot per day of how much storage is used, kept for 60 days, so the app can show a trend and a 30-day chart;
- a cleanup journal: time, source, number of items and how many bytes were freed — no file names and no package names;
- measurements of your photos, used to spot similar shots and blank frames: for each picture its media address, size and date, a perceptual hash, and figures for brightness, detail and colour balance. They are kept so that the next scan does not have to read every photo again, they hold no copy of the picture itself, and rows for photos that are gone are dropped;
- whether you agreed to the accessibility service, and the verdict of the self-test that measured whether automatic cleaning works on this firmware;
- whether Google Play reports an active Cacher+ purchase;
- while the support screen is open, the diagnostics text described below, written into the app's own cache folder.
None of this is sent anywhere. Uninstalling the app deletes all of it.
Android backup and phone-to-phone transfer
Cacher takes part in Android's own backup and device transfer, which is run by the system under your Google account, not by the developer. What travels is what you chose and would not want to choose twice: settings, exclusions, schedule and smart rules.
Three things are deliberately left out. The cached Cacher+ status, because the entitlement lives in Google Play and a copied flag would be a lie on another phone. The automation verdict, because it describes one firmware and would also cancel the fresh check on the new device. And the cacher.db database with the storage history and the cleanup journal, because those are measurements of one device and would merge two phones into one chart; your app groups and the photo measurements live in that same database and stay behind with it. The same exclusions apply to cloud backup and to direct phone-to-phone transfer.
Permissions the app uses
Cacher asks step by step, only when a feature actually needs something. The first scan works with no special access at all.
- Photos and media (READ_MEDIA_IMAGES, READ_MEDIA_VIDEO, READ_MEDIA_AUDIO, READ_MEDIA_VISUAL_USER_SELECTED; READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE on Android 12 and older) — to find large files, old downloads, old screenshots, duplicates, similar photos and blank shots. For most of that the app reads names, sizes and dates only. It opens file contents in two cases: to confirm a duplicate, where it reads the first 256 KB of files that already match in size; and to compare photos with one another, where it decodes the picture at a small size to work out a perceptual hash and figures for brightness, detail and colour balance. Both happen on the device, and what is kept afterwards is the measurements, not a copy of the picture. On Android 14 and newer you can grant access to selected photos only; Cacher works with what it was given and tells you that the picture is partial.
- Writing to storage (WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE, Android 9 and older only) — to delete a file you selected. Those versions of Android came before scoped storage and have no confirmation dialog of their own, so deletion is possible only through this permission. Cacher uses it for one operation: removing the items you ticked on the review screen. On Android 10 the system asks you about each file itself, and on Android 11 and newer it asks about the whole batch in one dialog — so on those versions the app does not request this permission at all.
- All files access (MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE) — optional, for the deep part of the scan: empty folders, leftovers of apps you already uninstalled, APK installer files, litter from other systems such as .DS_Store, thumbs.db and LOST.DIR, older backup copies, and the photos, videos and voice messages that messengers left on the phone. On Android 11 and newer the contents of the Downloads folder are also shown only to apps that hold this access, so sorting Downloads out needs it too. Android exposes none of that in any other way. Cacher reads names and sizes; the only files it opens are APK installers, to read the app name and version out of their manifest and tell you whether that app is already installed. Everything else in the app works without this access.
- Usage access (PACKAGE_USAGE_STATS) — optional, a special access you switch on in system settings. Android reports how much space each app occupies only to apps that have it. Cacher uses it for two things: the size of each app's cache, and when an app was last opened, so you can find apps you no longer use. Cacher reads these figures when it needs them and keeps no history of how you use your apps.
- Notifications (POST_NOTIFICATIONS) — optional, for the quiet scheduled report and smart-rule reminders. The background scan measures and reports; deleting is a step you take in the app. Below 50 MB it stays silent rather than nagging you, and it respects the quiet hours you set.
- Uninstall requests (REQUEST_DELETE_PACKAGES) — to open the system uninstall dialog when you choose to remove an unused app. Android performs the removal and you confirm it.
- Internet (INTERNET) — present in the installed app, and worth stating precisely rather than denying: Cacher itself makes no network request. The permission arrives with the Google Play Billing library, which talks to Google Play about purchases. Thumbnails are loaded only from files that are already on your device.
- Accessibility service (BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE) — optional and off by default. The next section describes it in full.
Nothing else is requested. There is no access to location, contacts, camera, microphone, call log or messages. The app also does not ask for permission to enumerate every installed package: the list it shows is built from apps that have an icon in your launcher.
The accessibility service
Android does not let any app clear another app's cache directly. The only way is to open that app's own system settings screen and tap "Clear cache". Cacher can use an accessibility service to reach that button — only after you have read the disclosure screen and agreed, and only during a cleanup you started yourself.
It follows one fixed sequence and nothing else: open an app's settings, find "Storage and cache", find "Clear cache", tap it. If a settings page does not scroll when asked to, Cacher scrolls it with a swipe. That is why Android lists "perform gestures" among the service's abilities when you switch it on: the swipe on a settings page is the one gesture Cacher makes, and only while a cleanup or a check you started is running. The one button it presses is "Clear cache". If a confirmation prompt appears — "Clear storage" and "Clear data" ask one, "Clear cache" does not — Cacher takes it as a sign of the wrong screen and leaves that app without confirming. On some firmwares that button is a menu rather than an action — Cacher opens it, picks the cache entry by name, and backs out if there is no such entry. The button names you are shown are read from the screen itself rather than translated by us, because the language of the app and the language of the system settings are not always the same.
On some phones the service can do the tapping for you. On others the system marks that button as sensitive: it disappears from the accessibility tree and rejects synthetic taps. That is more common on newer versions of Android, but the version number alone does not decide it, so Cacher does not guess — it measures on your phone, says plainly what it found, and where the tapping is not available it switches to a guided mode: it opens each app's storage screen and steps aside so that you tap the system button yourself.
While a cleanup runs, the service reads the text of the settings screen it opened. That is how the button is found, and also how Cacher can tell that an app has nothing left to clear — the screen shows the current cache size, and the system's own statistics can lag behind it by more than a minute. Reading the size is what keeps a second cleanup from reporting failure over apps the first one already emptied. During a cleanup, what it reads is used to find the button and is not saved. The one exception is the self-test described under "Writing to support": it keeps the layout of Cacher's own two settings pages in memory for the diagnostics file. Between cleanups it is subscribed to no events and carries no flags, and the flags are set only for the duration of a run and removed straight after. It is declared to receive events from the device's settings apps only, and before every tap Cacher checks for itself that it is standing on the right screen.
During an automatic run Cacher covers the screen with its own progress panel, so that a stray tap cannot land on a system button. In the guided mode it leaves the row of buttons uncovered — you have to be able to read the system labels — and it removes its hints the moment another screen or a system dialog appears on top.
Cacher is not declared as an accessibility tool, because it is not one: it is a cleaner, and Google Play's policy is explicit that cleaners must not claim that status.
You can withdraw your consent in one tap, and the service switches itself off. If it is ever enabled without going through the consent screen, it disables itself on the spot. Turning it off changes nothing else in the app. The screen-dumping tool used while adding support for new firmwares exists only in developer builds and is not part of the version published on Google Play.
What Cacher deletes
Nothing is pre-selected for deletion: you tick what goes and confirm before anything is deleted. In a group of duplicates the original is protected and cannot be selected.
Media files are removed through the system dialog, and where Android supports it they go to the system trash instead of being erased — about thirty days in which you can bring them back. Files that have no system trash are deleted permanently, and the confirmation counts the two apart before you agree to anything: so many items to the trash, so many gone for good.
Squeezing media, which is part of Cacher+, is the one place where the app writes to your own files rather than removing them. The re-encoded copy is written next to the original; only if that copy really is smaller does the original move to the system trash and the copy take its name, and refusing the system dialog leaves everything exactly as it was. It works on Android 11 and newer, because below that there is no trash to fall back on. The whole of it happens on the device.
A cleanup counts as successful only when the system confirms that the space was actually freed. Scheduled background scans measure and report; deleting is done by you in the app.
Purchases and Google Play Billing
Cacher+ is an optional subscription or a one-time purchase. Payment is handled entirely by Google Play Billing. Your card number, billing address and other payment details stay with Google Play; Cacher does not receive them. What the app receives from Play is whether an entitlement is active, and it stores that single answer on your device.
Every purchase is checked against Google's signature before Cacher+ turns on. Subscriptions are managed and cancelled in Google Play, not in the app.
Writing to support
The support form lives in Settings, and is also one tap away from every step of a cache cleanup and from the report at the end. It composes an email for you: the address, the subject and your message are filled in, and unless you switch it off, a short diagnostics file is attached. The email is sent by your own mail app: it opens with the draft, and you press Send there.
The report describes the phone and the app, not you. About the app: version, install source, whether the build is debuggable, the language the app is set to and the languages the system is set to. About the phone: manufacturer, model, Android version and build, screen size and density, total and free storage. About access: which permissions and special accesses are granted, whether the accessibility service has your consent, is enabled and is connected, and whether the app was installed from outside Google Play.
Then it describes how cleaning went: the verdict for this firmware, the outcome of the last self-test and the step it stopped at, the labels Cacher looks for on system screens (the system's own words, such as "Storage" or "Clear cache") and where they came from, which settings apps exist on this firmware, and for the runs made since the app was last started — mode, how long ago, duration, how many apps were in the list, how many caches were cleared and how many bytes that freed, how many were already empty, how many were tapped without the system giving anything back, counts and reasons for skips and failures, and how the run ended. Finally the total ever freed and a few recent successful cleanups.
If a self-test ran since the app was last started, the report also shows how Cacher's own pages in Android Settings looked to it: the App info page and the storage page of Cacher itself. For each element on those pages it lists its type, its identifier, where it sits on the screen and its text, such as "Storage", "Clear cache" or "32 MB". These pages are about Cacher, not about you. The self-test visits only Cacher's own pages, and if a different app is on screen when it looks, that screen is not written down. This part also lives in memory only.
What is not in it: no names or package names of your other apps, no file names, no paths, and nothing you typed anywhere else in the app. Times are written as relative ages such as "2 h ago", not as exact timestamps, because a list of exact times across months would describe your daily routine. The per-run counters live in memory only and disappear when the app process ends; they are not a history kept on disk.
The whole file is shown on screen before you send anything, and you can read every line of it. It is written into the app's own cache folder, and the mail app you pick receives a one-time read grant for that single file. Mail sent this way reaches cacher@gi-gante.com and is used only to answer you and to fix what you described.
Network access and data sharing
Cacher has no backend service and no account system, and the app's own code makes no requests to any server. What the app works with — scan results, measurements, your settings and history — is not sent to the developer or to third parties.
The one component that reaches the network is the Google Play Billing library, which contacts Google Play about purchases. It comes with Google's data-transport component, which the library can use to send Google its own technical logs about the purchase flow; Cacher does not receive them. Your use of Google Play, including those logs, is covered by Google's own privacy policy. The support screen is no exception to any of this: it prepares a draft, and your mail app sends it.
Analytics and advertising
The current version of Cacher contains no analytics, crash-reporting or advertising SDK, in the free version and with Cacher+ alike. It does not read the advertising ID and does not build a profile of how you use your phone.
Data retention and deletion
Everything described above is stored on your device, and in your Android backup if that is switched on. You can erase it at any time through Android's "Clear storage" for Cacher, or by uninstalling the app, which removes all of it. The developer holds no copy and therefore cannot delete anything on your behalf. If you have written to support, ask at that same address and the correspondence will be deleted.
Children
The app is a general-purpose utility and is not directed at children. The current version does not collect personal information from anyone, of any age.
Changes to this policy
This policy may be updated as the app changes. Material updates are reflected on this page, and the "Last updated" date changes with them.
Contact
Write to cacher@gi-gante.com — the same address the in-app support form uses — with privacy questions or anything else about the app.
The Google Play listing for Cacher carries the current support contact. If it ever changes, that listing is the authoritative source.