Records are saved on the device first
A contact you have checked, corrected, and saved is stored in PixWork’s own database on the device first.
Syncing to Google Sheets and writing out to the phone’s contact book are turned on independently of each other. When one is on, the contact is stored there as well as on the device.
On-device data is lost if the app is uninstalled.
Where card images live, and for how long
Card images are stored on the device, and are never saved automatically into the phone’s photo library.
What stays on the device is images you have not analysed yet, and the recovery copy kept in case analysis fails. Both are reachable from the "Unanalysed" list. When analysis completes successfully, that temporary recovery image is deleted.
A saved contact does not keep the card picture attached to it. If you want to keep it, save it separately before you run the analysis.
Card images and AI analysis
When a card is read by AI, the card image is sent through PixWork’s proxy to an external AI service. That external service performs the reading and the result comes back to your device.
QR scanning does not use this path. It runs entirely on the device, so neither an image nor the contents of the code leaves it.
See the Privacy Policy for the details, including how data is handled by the external AI service.
What Google Sheets carries over
With the Google Sheets connection on, synced contacts are also stored in the sheet. Picking the same Google Sheet on a new device pulls that text data back into the app.
In PixWork 1.0.2, contacts updated within the last 90 days are synced. An older contact becomes eligible again once it is edited in the sheet.
- Carries over — the text of contacts synced to Google Sheets and updated within the last 90 days, and company information already synced to the Companies sheet
- Does not carry over — card images, fields outside the synced columns, data that was never synced to Google Sheets, and anything held only on the device
- Carries over once you edit it in the sheet — a row that is in the sheet but was last updated more than 90 days ago. Editing it in the sheet puts it back in sync scope, so do that before you connect the new device
Card images are never written to Google Sheets. A successfully analysed image is not left on the device either, so save any picture you want to keep before you run the analysis — before the analysis, not before the phone swap. The synced columns are listed on "Google Sheets column layout".
What deletion actually removes
Deleting a contact inside the app removes the on-device record. If it had been written out to the OS contact book, it is removed from there too, provided a phone number is stored.
Setting a row’s Status to Deleted in the sheet marks that contact deleted inside PixWork, so it drops out of the list. It is not removed from the phone’s address book.
"Saving to your phone’s contacts" covers what happens to the OS contact book.