The rulebook.
Short answers: what friends see, what goes to BoardGameGeek and to Anthropic, the limits, and how to leave. Privacy is the formal policy; where the two overlap, they agree.
Updated
Yes. No ads, no subscription, no payment taken, and nothing sold about you.
There's no analytics script either. GameChest is non-commercial: its game facts and covers come from BoardGameGeek, and if it ever charged for anything or showed an ad, a conversation with BoardGameGeek would come first. More on the BoardGameGeek page.
On its own page: the name friends see, an email address and a password. An email brings a link to confirm the address, and opening it signs you in. Once you're in, you can add a passkey from Settings, and the password keeps working.
Anyone can create an account. It's free, and there are no ads.
If the email doesn't come, the sign-in page can send it again. The name can be changed later in Settings.
No. Search BoardGameGeek's catalogue and add games without one, paste a list of names, photograph a shelf, or add a game by hand. If you have one, your collection comes in from your username and can sync both ways.
Bringing a collection in needs only the username. Sending changes back means signing in to BGG: see What happens to my BGG password?
It's a website that works like one; there's no App Store or Play Store version. Added to your phone's home screen, it opens on its own, without the browser's bars. Your own shelf can open without a signal, too: see Does it work without a signal?
Settings → This app shows how for the browser you're using: a button where the browser offers one, the steps from the Share menu on an iPhone. Installed, it opens on Home.
Your own shelf can, once the app has saved a copy of it on your device. Other pages need a connection, and say so.
The copy stays on the device after you sign out, until the app is next opened with a connection.
Mostly. Prices can be in pounds or euros, chosen in Settings. What touches eBay is eBay UK only: publishing a listing, the asking prices shown beside it, and the morning deal check. Postage sizes are Royal Mail's.
Prices on GeekMarket, BGG's marketplace, are shown in whatever currency the seller used, never converted. The deal check, likewise, only matches a listing in the same currency as your target, so it suits a shelf kept in pounds.
The sign-up confirmation and password resets, a test email if you ask for one, and, while the morning emails are on, at most two a morning: one when a friend is selling or trading a game you want to buy, or wants one you're selling or trading, and one when a game you want turns up on eBay UK at or under your target price.
The morning emails come only when there's something new, and one switch in Settings, under Notifications, stops both. The sign-in emails can't be switched off.
Yes: GameChest is for people aged 13 and over.
One person in Edinburgh, with a few friends who use it and say what's wrong with it. More on who makes it, and why.
Part of your shelf: the games you have, want to buy or have on the way, with an asking price on any you're selling or trading, which ones you want to play, and whether you've played a game. Your recent changes show on their Home and at the top of their Friends page, and you can switch that off. Never what you paid, your notes, your photos, or when and with whom you played.
When one of you is selling or trading a game the other wants, you're both told.
When a friend uses the curator's brief or Ask the shelf, what they can see of your shelf can be part of what's sent to Anthropic. See What do the AI features send?.
A read-only view of your shelf, without your name, for anyone with the link: the games you have and the ones you want to buy, with an asking price on any you're selling or trading. Never what you paid or your notes.
Share from the shelf or a game; stop sharing under Settings → Who sees your shelf and the link stops working.
Anyone with its link sees the ranking's name, your display name and the ranked games, nothing about whether you have them.
That can include games your share link wouldn't show, so before you share, the page says how many.
Everything on the shelf, as you do: they can see and change all of it.
Your account, friends, emails and BGG sign-in stay your own. Only someone who's already your friend on GameChest can be asked, and the page that asks says what moves before anything does. Leaving takes your own copies with you. Your partner's friends see the shared shelf the way your friends do.
An AI app you connect (Claude, ChatGPT or another that speaks MCP) uses GameChest as you: it can read your shelf, wishlist, plays, notes and numbers, and your friends' shelves as you see them, and it can search BGG, add games and log plays. What it reads goes to that app's maker on every call.
Each app asks first, on a page that says all this, and you can disconnect it any time in Settings → Connections. It sees nothing your friends can't see about them, and nothing changes on BGG by itself.
How to connect each app, with the address and what to copy, is in the guide, and on Settings → Connections once you're signed in.
Account details, such as your email address and when you joined, how much the account is used, and anything you send through the feedback button, so the service can be run and supported.
The collection BGG shows publicly under your username: each game you own, have for trade, pre-ordered, previously owned, wishlisted, want to buy or want in trade arrives with its answer here. The table shows what lands where.
A game you've only rated or played stays out, and so does a wishlist entry at priority 5 ("Don't buy this"), unless want to buy is ticked too. A previously owned game arrives as Had, marked Sold. Games already on your shelf are skipped, so bringing it in twice adds nothing twice.
Plays come separately, from Settings → BGG, for the username saved there: your newest 1,000 plays, with their dates, minutes and who played, as names. Older ones aren't brought in. Plays already brought in, and plays with no date, are skipped; a game you played that isn't in your GameChest at all arrives on your Radar. Plays never go back to BGG.
Games you have as owned (marked for trade if you're selling or trading them), games you Had as previously owned if they're already in your BGG collection, games you want to buy as wishlist, and Pre-ordered games as pre-ordered. Never Pledged games, Radar games you don't want to buy, games with no BGG link, plays, notes, prices or loans.
It checks first and shows every change, both ways, before it makes any; skip one and that exact change isn't proposed again. When the two disagree, the newer change wins, and a tie goes to your shelf. Nothing on BGG is ever deleted, and what you set only on BGG, such as a comment or a price there, is kept. A clash, such as a game on your wishlist here that's owned on BGG, is shown to you, never forced.
A game new to your BGG collection goes on with its edition, if you picked one, and the edition you picked is added to a BGG entry that has none. A new wishlist entry goes on at priority 3, Like to have. A game you Had that BGG never had isn't added: BGG isn't told about a game it never knew.
Pre-ordered goes as BGG's pre-ordered flag, which hasn't yet been checked against BGG itself. If BGG doesn't keep it, a later check shows that game still out of step.
One sync makes at most 60 changes on BGG; the rest wait for the next run, and the page says how many are left. On a shared shelf, each person's sync sends only their own copies and the shared ones.
It's used once, to sign in to BGG as you, and is never stored or logged. It's only asked for when something needs changing on BGG.
If you choose to keep the sign-in, it's stored encrypted, never your password, until you forget it in Settings → BGG or it expires. Bringing a collection or plays in needs no password at all.
Reading from BGG uses its public API. Sending changes back relies on signing in to BGG as you, which BGG can change at any time, so the sync may stop working now and then.
After a sync, GameChest reads your BGG collection back, and a change BGG didn't keep shows up as still to make. The BoardGameGeek page says more about signing in.
Six features use Claude, Anthropic's AI: the curator's brief, Ask the shelf, the listing draft, Snap the shelf, reading a box back, and reading your copy's photos on Sell it. Each sends only what that feature needs, and none is sent your email address or what you paid.
Four run only when you tap for them. On Sell it, two run on their own: once you add a photo there, the photos are read for a condition to suggest and the edition printed on the back, and once the condition, a photo and the price are in, the listing is written. If a fact changes afterwards, a tap writes it again. What's kept is the few words read and the listing text, which you confirm or edit.
GameChest keeps a photo only where it's yours to keep: the ones you put on a copy, and the box front that Sell something puts on the copy for you. Nothing else it sends is kept. When a friend uses the curator's brief or Ask the shelf, what they can see of your shelf can be part of what's sent to Anthropic.
Each person gets a daily allowance per feature, counted per UTC day: 3 curator's briefs, 30 questions to Ask the shelf, 20 listing drafts, 60 shelf photos, 30 box backs and 40 copies' photos read on Sell it.
A shelf holds up to 5,000 games and 3,000 photos; a shelf shared by a household counts once. If you genuinely need more, ask.
Any time: Settings has the whole shelf as one CSV, every game with your answers, prices, conditions and notes. You can also delete your account from Settings.
It leaves out target prices, and it's games only: plays, photos, people, rankings and borrowed games aren't in it.
Settings → Delete my account, then type "delete". It removes your account and your data from GameChest.
If you share a household shelf, leave it first. Backups keep a copy for up to 7 days. What's already been sent elsewhere at your request, such as an eBay listing or changes to your BGG collection, stays there, and a few stored files can take longer to remove: Privacy says more. Download the CSV first if you want your shelf.
You'll be told, and given time to take your data.
That's in the Terms. The CSV in Settings has every game on your shelf; Can I take my data with me? says what it leaves out.
If something on this page is wrong, that's a bug. Say so through the feedback button in the app, or write to nuno@newnew.consulting.
Anyone can create an account. It's free, and there are no ads.
