Using ShowPapers
Accepting these terms
By choosing “Agree and Continue” in the app, you accept these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the app. The Privacy Policy explains our data practices. “We,” “us,” and “developers” refer to Nirbhay Pherwani and Ameya Kulkarni, the independent developers who provide ShowPapers for Android and iPhone. This is a personal, noncommercial project, not an incorporated entity.
Age and license
You must be at least 13 years old to use ShowPapers. If you are under the age of majority where you live, use it only with the involvement of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to these terms. We give you a limited, non-exclusive, revocable license to use the app on phones you own or control for lawful document organization, subject to these terms and the applicable app store rules. If you got the iPhone app from Apple’s App Store, your license to it is described in the App Store section below.
A tool for records
Not professional advice
ShowPapers helps you keep and review copies of papers. It does not provide legal, immigration, tax, or professional advice; verify identity or immigration status; determine eligibility; or guarantee acceptance of a document by anyone. Nothing in the app, on this website, or in our replies to your messages is legal advice. We are not affiliated with a government agency.
Accuracy of what the app shows you
Text recognition, on-device AI reading, extracted details and dates, the names and folders the app suggests or chooses for a paper, reminders, text written with Write With AI or Refine With AI, and example notes and checklists may be incomplete or wrong. Check every value against its source, and move a paper that was filed in the wrong folder. A checklist is your own preparation aid, not a list of legally required papers. Confirm current requirements with the relevant organization or a qualified professional.
Your papers and responsibilities
Your documents, your responsibility
Your documents remain yours. You give us no ownership rights to their contents. Only add, access, or share information that you own or are authorized to handle, including when you send it to another person or an AI app. Do not use the app to falsify records, infringe others’ rights, distribute harmful content, or interfere with its security.
Physical originals
Keep physical originals and carry them when required. Digital copies do not guarantee that originals will be unnecessary. You remain responsible for deadlines, travel decisions, submissions, and checking what someone asking for a document actually needs.
Device security, sharing, and recovery
Protecting your device and backups
Protect your phone, its screen lock, and your recovery keys and passphrases. Keep separate backups and check that you can restore them. Restoring a backup replaces the library on that phone. We cannot reset a recovery key or passphrase, recover papers that were never backed up, or guarantee access if a device is lost, damaged, compromised, or unavailable.
Sharing and third parties
Sharing gives the recipient a copy that you cannot remotely revoke. Verify the recipient and share only what is necessary. Anyone who has a readable .showpapers file can read everything in it; a protected copy also needs its recovery key. Exporting to another app, sending a copy you reviewed through Ask an AI App, or saving a backup to a service places that copy under the recipient’s or provider’s control and terms. Answers from an AI app come from that service, not from us. A shared collection is not a full backup.
On-device AI and downloads
On supported phones, after you accept these terms, ShowPapers automatically downloads its on-device AI model (Gemma 4 E2B, about 2.6 GB) from Hugging Face. The download can use mobile data, and your carrier’s charges may apply. You can pause or remove it in Settings, On-Device AI. The model is provided by its developers under its own license. Some features, including on-device AI, depend on your phone and its operating system, and a few differ between Android and iPhone.
Third-party services
App stores, your phone’s platform services (such as the Google Play services scanner on Android), Google Firebase (including the configuration service described under Availability below), Hugging Face, external websites, and apps or services you choose to share with have their own terms. We do not control their availability, content, or practices. Links are provided for context and do not imply endorsement.
If you got ShowPapers from the App Store
If you got ShowPapers from Apple’s App Store, your license to use the iPhone app is granted by us under Apple’s standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement (the “Standard EULA”). These terms also apply to your use of ShowPapers. If they conflict with the Standard EULA about that license, the Standard EULA controls. Questions, complaints, or claims about the app go to us at hello@showpapers.app.
Availability and warranties
Changes we can make
We may improve, change, suspend, or stop the app. We do not promise continuous support, uninterrupted access, compatibility with every device, or error-free results. Export and back up important records regularly.
Remote configuration
ShowPapers checks a small configuration file from Google Firebase, described in the Privacy Policy. Through it, without an app update, we can temporarily switch off on-device AI, its automatic download, Ask an AI App, or Report a Problem; change how the iPhone scanner starts and which AI apps Ask an AI App lists; show a short notice; recommend an update; or require you to update before you keep using the app. While an update is required, the app shows only its update screen, after App Lock if it is on; your papers and notes stay on your phone, and nothing is deleted. This configuration cannot change your papers, your settings, or your analytics choice.
No warranty
To the extent permitted by applicable law, the app and website are provided “as is” and “as available,” without express or implied warranties, including accuracy, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.
Limits of liability
What's excluded
To the extent permitted by applicable law, the developers and contributors are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive loss arising from the app or website, including lost data, lost opportunities, missed deadlines, travel disruption, or reliance on extracted information, AI output, or checklists.
What's not excluded
These terms do not exclude or limit liability for fraud, deliberate misconduct, gross negligence, or any liability that applicable law does not allow us to exclude or limit. They do not remove mandatory consumer rights or remedies. The scope and enforceability of these limits depend on the law that applies to you.
Changes and ending use
Ending your use and changes to these terms
You may stop using the app at any time. We may terminate the license for a material breach of these terms, subject to applicable law. We will date revisions and provide notice of material changes; where required, we will ask you to accept them before they apply. Revised terms do not retroactively remove rights that have already arisen.
Severability
If a provision cannot be enforced, the remaining provisions continue to apply to the extent permitted by law. No delay in enforcing a right waives it.
Questions or concerns
Please contact us so we can try to address the issue. To report something that is not working, use Report a Problem. This does not prevent you from exercising your legal rights or seeking help from a court or regulator.
Open source and credits
Original ShowPapers code, writing, and artwork belong to their respective contributors. ShowPapers is built with open-source components, and the Gemma model is provided by its developers; each remains under its own license, and nothing in these terms limits the rights an open-source license gives you. The reference tool for the .showpapers format, which we offer on our protocol site, protocol.showpapers.app, is licensed under the Apache License 2.0; that license, not these terms, governs your use of the tool. Apple and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google LLC.