A practical guide, not a promise of magic
What can an app read from your iPhone home screen?
Thomas Chung ·
If an app asks you to plug in your phone and tap Trust, ‘trust me, it’s private’ is not an answer. I would want to know what it reads, what stays on the Mac, and the moment anything leaves it.
What Unjiggle reads
After you connect your iPhone by USB and tap Trust, Unjiggle reads the home-screen layout: app names and IDs, folder names, positions, and pages. It uses those details to score the layout and make share cards on your Mac. It does not read your photos, messages, contacts, health data, or browsing history for this job.
The app can ask Apple’s App Store lookup service about app IDs to get names and categories. That is a lookup of apps, not an upload of your page-by-page layout. Scanning does not send your layout to the Unjiggle server.
The important exception is optional AI
If you choose Mirror, Obituary, or AI Stylist, the request includes documented layout details. Included Pro AI passes through our server to Anthropic; if you add your own API key, your Mac talks directly to Anthropic or OpenAI. With included AI, an encrypted reply is kept for 15 minutes and may repeat some app names. Saying ‘nothing leaves the Mac’ would be false, so I won’t say it.
License checks and update checks also use the network, but do not include your layout. The website measures visits; the Mac app has no usage-analytics SDK. Those are separate things, even though they have the same name on the icon.
How I think you should evaluate the claim
Look at the privacy policy, not just a green badge on a landing page. Ask the narrow question: what is read during a scan, what is sent when you ask for AI, and what is kept afterward? Our public engine is available to inspect, but the paid Mac app is not the same as an open-source app.
If that distinction is not comfortable, you can use the scan without requesting an AI result, or not connect the phone at all. Trust should be an informed choice, not a clever paragraph in small print.
Bottom line: A USB scan reads layout metadata, not your personal content. Optional AI is a separate action with a different data path.
Read the full plain-English privacy policy →
Apple has a guide to Home Screen and App Library basics if you would rather do it yourself.
Tell me where I'm wrong.
If I missed a better way, or your phone does something this guide doesn't cover, I'd like to know. Find me @chungty on X.
Reply to Thomas on X →Opens an unsent draft. You decide whether to post it.
Curious about your own layout?
Take the free 60-second quiz in your browser. It uses your answers, not a scan of your phone. For a real layout score, you need the free Mac app and a USB connection.
Take the free quiz →No signup. No changes to your phone.