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.
The app collects no personal data and sends nothing anywhere. There is no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising SDK and no tracking of any kind. It needs no account and never asks for your name, email address, contacts or location.
Every scan, every measurement and every deletion happens on your device. Cacher has no server of its own. It never uploads your files, your file names, or the list of apps you have installed.
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;
- 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, smart rules and app groups.
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. 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 and duplicates. The app reads names, sizes and dates. It opens file contents only to confirm duplicates, and then only the first 256 KB of files that already match in size. 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.
- All files access (MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE) — optional, for Deep clean: empty folders, leftovers of apps you already uninstalled, APK installer files, and litter from other systems such as .DS_Store, thumbs.db and LOST.DIR. 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. It builds no history of what you use and sends nothing anywhere.
- Notifications (POST_NOTIFICATIONS) — optional, for the quiet scheduled report and smart-rule reminders. The background scan measures and reports; it never deletes anything by itself. 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. It never confirms a "Clear storage" or "Clear data" prompt, so your app data stays intact. 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. Nothing it reads is stored or transmitted. Between cleanups it receives nothing at all: at rest 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 never covers the row of buttons — 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 ever pre-selected for deletion, and nothing is deleted without your confirmation. 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 trash instead of being erased. For files that have no system trash, Cacher says plainly that the deletion is permanent before you confirm it.
A cleanup counts as successful only when the system confirms that the space was actually freed. Scheduled background scans never delete anything on their own — they measure and report.
Purchases and Google Play Billing
Cacher+ is an optional subscription or a one-time purchase. Payment is handled entirely by Google Play Billing. Cacher never sees or stores your card number, billing address or any other payment detail. 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. Cacher sends nothing — your own mail app opens with the draft, and you press Send there.
The report describes the phone and the app, never 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 and the outcome of the last self-test, how many settings labels were recognised 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.
What is not in it: no app names, no package names, 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", never 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
The app shares no data with the developer or with any third party, because it collects none. There is no backend service, no account system, and no request that the app itself makes to any server.
The one component that reaches the network is the Google Play Billing library, which contacts Google Play about purchases; your use of Google Play 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
Cacher contains no analytics, no crash-reporting SDK and no advertising — not even in the free version. There is no advertising identifier, no profiling and no behavioural tracking.
Data retention and deletion
Everything described above lives only on your device. 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. It collects no 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.