Coursebird · Privacy

What Coursebird keeps, and where

Last updated October 2026. Coursebird is an independent, student-built app. It is not made by or affiliated with your school or the company behind its course site.

Your data stays on your device

Everything Coursebird keeps about your classes lives on the device you use it on: your course site's calendar and announcement links, the deadlines and announcements it fetched, the change log, your class list, syllabi, notes, links, files, tasks, chats and check-offs. In a browser that is the browser's own storage; in the app it is the app's own storage. Coursebird has no accounts, and nothing is sent to a server to be stored.

On iPhone, when Background App Refresh is on for Coursebird, Coursebird also checks your course site's feeds now and then while it's closed and shows a notification for the changes you picked under Remind me about (a moved due date above all). That check runs on the phone, from a compact copy of your list and your feed links kept in the app's own storage; nothing is sent anywhere, and Delete everything removes that copy too.

What Coursebird's server does

Coursebird's server answers two kinds of request, and keeps nothing from either of them:

• Fetching your feeds. A web browser cannot read those feeds directly, so when you sync on the website, the site sends your feed links to Coursebird's server, which fetches the feeds from your school's course site, parses them, returns the result to your browser, and discards everything. The links and the feeds are not stored or logged. The phone app fetches the feeds itself and does not use this.
• Answering a question with AI. When you ask something the syllabus and your class data cannot answer on the device, or use Learn mode, your question goes to Coursebird's server together with a bounded part of your classes, listed below. A study guide you ask for is written the same way: Coursebird reads the lectures the exam covers, sends them to the AI a lecture at a time, and keeps the guide it gets back on your device. The server adds its own key and passes the request to the AI provider (Anthropic) under that provider's API terms, then returns the answer. Coursebird's server keeps none of it. Coursebird asks for your permission before the first question is sent, and says there what it may read.

What goes with every question. The schedule, module titles, whatever you attached to that message, and a short card for each class the question covers (on Home, every class): a summary of its syllabus, which for a class graded by criteria includes your standing in it. A class's chat also sends that class's syllabus text. Home's chat also sends your own tasks (each one's title, class, date and minutes), and the full syllabus of a class you attach or name. On Auto, a class's chat, or Home's chat focused on one class, also sends that class's recent announcements, the instructions of its assignments due around now, and the slide titles of the lectures Coursebird keeps for it. On Ask each time, those go only for a class you said Always for.

What the AI may ask to read. When it needs more to answer, the AI can ask Coursebird to read more, and Coursebird sends that part with the same question: a part of a syllabus, a class's modules, a module file or page, a file the course home page links to, your scores in a class, a class's announcements, an assignment's instructions and the files they link to, or your own notes and files. Course files come from the copy Coursebird keeps after a sync, or are read through the Coursebird Sync extension. Whether Coursebird asks you first is your choice, in Settings under AI access. On Auto, the default, Coursebird sends what the AI asks for without asking each time. On Ask each time, Coursebird asks you in the chat before sending course material or your own files: for that one, or, for course material, always for that class.

Quizzes, exams and outside tools. Coursebird never opens a quiz or exam on your course site. Work in an outside courseware tool your class uses (such as Cengage MindTap) is opened only when you ask about that work in the chat and confirm, every time, whichever AI access you chose. Opening it there can count as starting that activity.

Reporting a conversation, only if you choose to. In a chat, Report writes that conversation into an email to Coursebird's team (coursesync12@gmail.com) in your own email app, so we can see what went wrong and fix it. Coursebird's server is not involved, and nothing is sent unless you send that email yourself; you can read and change it first. It holds only what the sheet lists under Exactly what's sent: the questions and answers you ticked, word for word, your note, what Coursebird did for each answer (what it read, by name), the AI model, how long it took and what it cost, Coursebird's version, the class and your browser. It never includes what's inside your files or course material (only their names), your feed links, or anything from your other chats. Coursebird also copies the same text, so you can paste it if your email app cuts a long report short. Ask us and we'll delete a report you sent.

So that no one can run up the AI's cost, Coursebird's server counts AI questions for a day, by network address and by a random number your browser or app picks for itself, which names nothing about you. The counts are kept only in the server's memory, never stored or logged, and are forgotten when that server stops, which the hosting service decides. For each AI request the server logs only counts and timings: the model, Ask or Learn, which round of the question it was (or which step of a study guide), whether the AI could ask to read more, why it stopped, how much text it read and wrote, and how long it took. When the AI service turns a request down, the server also logs the status, the service's error type, the first words of its error message and the request's id; when the service can't be reached, only the kind of error. It never logs the question, the answer or anything from your classes.

Simple lookups (grading scale, dropped grades, policies, dates, what is due) are answered on your device. They leave it only as part of a chat: when a later question in the same chat goes to the AI, the chat's last few messages go with it.

Apple Intelligence on iPhone

On an iPhone with Apple Intelligence, Apple's own model on the phone answers instead of Coursebird's server when this week's AI allowance is used up, when you say no to sending a question, or when Coursebird's server or its AI provider can't answer. That question and its answer stay on the phone, unless a later question in the same chat goes to Coursebird's server: the chat's last few messages go with it, including ones Apple's model answered, but never a question you said no to sending. Apple's Private Cloud Compute is not used yet. Once Apple enables it for Coursebird, it may answer those questions instead of the phone's model; it uses them only to answer, and does not keep the data or make it available to Coursebird. Apple's answers are labelled Apple Intelligence.

The browser extension

The Coursebird Sync extension reads your own class data from your school's course site, in your own logged-in tab, using the same requests the site itself makes: your courses, assignments, scores, announcements, modules and syllabi, each course's home page and the list on its Files tab, the text of course files (after a sync it keeps the text of your classes' module files and pages, and of the files a course home page links to or its Files tab lists, on your computer, reading only new or changed ones later, so Coursebird can answer about a lecture without your course site open), the colours you gave your classes on your dashboard and your school's colours, and your course inbox's subjects, senders and short previews. It never opens an inbox message, so nothing is marked read, and inbox previews are shown to you in Coursebird, never sent to the AI.

It reads only when you click it on your course site, or, if you turn on Keep in sync, every 30 minutes while that site is open. It also reads one module file when Coursebird's chat asks for it to answer you, in a course-site tab you have open. It opens a courseware site (such as Cengage MindTap) only after you allow that site in Chrome and then ask about that work in Coursebird's chat and confirm, in a background tab it closes after reading. Keep in sync asks Chrome for access to your one school's site and to the syllabus tool your classes use; Stop keeping in sync, or Chrome's own settings, takes it back.

What it reads stays in your browser's extension storage (the last two syncs, so it can show what changed). It passes to the Coursebird website on the same computer while Coursebird is open: once you've connected, a newer sync of the same account comes in on its own. Ask about this passes the one page or file you pick, and Show the code (under Coursebird on your phone) makes a QR code of your calendar and announcement links for the Coursebird app to scan. The extension itself sends nothing to Coursebird's server or anyone else. It never changes anything on your course site, never opens a quiz or exam there, and never sees your password. Delete everything in Coursebird clears the extension's copy too.

What Coursebird never does

• Ask for your school password or an access token.
• Store your grades, syllabi, files or chats on a server.
• Sell or share your data, or use it for advertising.
• Track you across other sites or apps.

The Example class

The Example class is made-up data that shows how the app works. It is never saved, sent anywhere or mixed with your real classes.

Deleting your data

Settings has Delete everything, which removes all of it from the device. Uninstalling the app or clearing the browser's storage does the same. There is nothing to delete on a server.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and the app says so.

Questions: see the support page.