Keeping your spots safe
Your spots live on your device, not with us. Keep a copy.
Last updated October 2026
Indigene has no accounts and no server. Your saved spots, plantings, linked sightings and settings live in one place: the browser you saved them in. Nobody else can see them, so nobody else can bring them back if that browser forgets them.
How you use it
- In Settings, tap “Save a copy”. You get one small file holding all of it.
- Keep that file somewhere besides this phone: your email, a cloud drive, a computer.
- On a new phone, in another browser, or after clearing your data, tap “Bring a copy in” and pick the file. Everything comes back.
- Already have spots there? Nothing is overwritten. If a spot looks like one you have, you choose: combine them, or keep both.
A browser forgets when you clear its data. On iPhone and iPad, Safari also clears a site you haven’t opened in about a week of using Safari. Added to your Home Screen, Indigene doesn’t have that limit, but it starts empty there, so bring your copy in once.
Goes well with
Learn more
- How Safari stores and clears website data — WebKit, the team behind Safari
Recent changes
The latest updates to this part of the app, in the same plain notes that go out with each update.
Version 0.38
October 9, 2026- when a spot you bring in looks like one you already have (same name nearby, or the same patch of ground), you choose whether to combine them or keep both. Nothing comes in until you've chosen.
- your spots file now holds everything — spots, plantings, linked sightings with their photos, your iNaturalist username and your settings. Open it in a new browser and it all comes back.
- bringing a copy into a browser that already has your spots adds what's new, like sightings linked on another device. Nothing already there is removed or overwritten.
- saved spots now ask the browser not to clear them when space runs low, and Settings shows when you last saved a copy. On iPhone, it explains Safari's one-week limit.