Essential Space Updates!

Rob ⚡️ · 2025-07-17T15:00:00+00:00

**Essential Space just got smarter.** Here's what's new: **🗓️ Google Calendar integration:** Your to-dos now sync directly with Google Calendar. Stay on top of life with zero extra effort. ![](https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-07-17/1752751496-504406-google-cal-interg.png "banner") --- **📝 Editable Memory**: Sometimes AI doesn’t get it quite right, so now you can review, edit, and refine summaries. ![](https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-07-17/1752751517-826613-editable-memory.png "banner") --- **🎙️Essential Recorder, now editable:** Meetings, interviews, and conversations just got clearer than ever. Fix and complete AI summaries so nothing important slips through. ![](https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-07-17/1752751583-584843-editable-flip-to-record.png "banner") --- 📤 **Essential Recorder, now shareable**: Send your Recorder moments to anyone, anywhere – as an image, PDF, or Markdown. One tap, fully packaged. ![](https://cdn.nothing.community/2025-07-17/1752751800-61563-sharing-flip-to-record.png "banner") > ***Note:*** > > *Essential Recorder updates are live on Phone (3), with support for other Nothing phones with Essential Key coming soon.* > > *No Nothing OS updates needed. Just connect to Wi-Fi, and Essential Space will update automatically via the [Google Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nothing.ntessentialspace&hl=en_GB "Essential Space on Google Play").*

Anonymous931

Rob ⚡️ 📝 Editable Memory:

Finally! Thank you!

Amudhan_Sundararajan

Hey Essential Space team, I’m genuinely excited about the Google Calendar sync and editable Recorder features—those could be game-changers for staying organized. But I’m beyond frustrated with the permissions issue. I’ve been raising this for months: why does Essential Space need access to my entire gallery just to save a screenshot? It’s ridiculous that I can’t choose specific photos or voice notes to share. There’s no reason for this app to demand full access to my personal stuff—it feels invasive and makes me question what’s going on behind the scenes. I really want to love this app, but this permission mess is a dealbreaker. Please fix it and give us control over our data. I’m rooting for you to get this right!

Anonymous931

Amudhan_Sundararajan But I’m beyond frustrated with the permissions issue. I’ve been raising this for months: why does Essential Space need access to my entire gallery just to save a screenshot? It’s ridiculous that I can’t choose specific photos or voice notes to share. There’s no reason for this app to demand full access to my personal stuff—it feels invasive and makes me question what’s going on behind the scenes.

krizxjr

Amudhan_Sundararajan

Isn’t there a limited access option ? There is for choosing wallpaper from gallery.

AbsentChris

Amudhan_Sundararajan that’s kinda how it works under android.

‘Gallery’ is just a directory location.

You are giving trade access for this app to this directory, you can’t give access to individual images without having read access to the directory itself otherwise the app wouldn’t be able to show you the images to select!

Amudhan_Sundararajan

Anonymous931 Hey, I know how to grant limited access to essential space and all.

But, the thing is it won’t open until or unless you give it your entire gallery access or else you’ll stuck with this screen.

Try setting limited access to essential space and see it yourself.

Eukaliptus

Well, Actually i don’t see any updates on my NP3

CMF1_hacker

Eukaliptus I just updated but mine might have been out of date.

Anonymous931

Amudhan_Sundararajan

I was replying to your “need access to my entire gallery just to save a screenshot?” part, in that quote. I smashed like 50 screenshots just fine with limited access. Also if you are worried about privacy, which is a 100% valid concern, don’t get me wrong, just don’t use the app.

CMF1_hacker

Amudhan_Sundararajan

for me, it provides an written summary of the screenshot that can then be parsed and compared to other text (from actual text input or voice messages that have been converted to text.)

I took a screenshot of my NP3 review pre-availability and it parsed the contents of the image into text that became searchable.

I find that very, very useful actually (and very powerful).

Amudhan_Sundararajan

Anonymous931 Look, I’m not just ranting here. If Essential Space can save stuff to my gallery without needing full access, why does it demand permission to my entire gallery just to open the app? That’s sketchy and doesn’t sit right. I actually like the feature and want to use it, but this overreach on permissions is a hard no for me. It’s not about being a hater—it’s about expecting basic respect for my privacy. You might be fine with apps collecting all your data, but most of us aren’t cool with that, especially when it feels like shady business. I chose Nothing thinking it’d be clean, without the bloatware nonsense other brands pull. But this? Asking for my whole gallery to access saved content? That’s a red flag.

Anonymous931

Amudhan_Sundararajan Cute. Nice way to twist it but it won’t work. Now tap on the three dots in the upper right corner. which you conveniently cropped out like no one else here can see them missing. These dots, and then “All permissions”:

sean (1) Because Google is spying we should open up all our data for everyone to see? 🙈

Literally never said that. What I said before, scroll up in the comments, that concerns about privacy are 100% valid, but the other guy is focusing EXCLUSIVELY on Nothing while ignoring everything else - because he cares so much about his own privacy. Try to read it all instead of taking stuff out of context. I even said it - if you don’t agree with that then don’t use it. It really couldn’t be more simple than that. There, so you don’t need to bother scrolling up:

Anonymous931 Also if you are worried about privacy, which is a 100% valid concern, don’t get me wrong, just don’t use the app.

Amudhan_Sundararajan

CMF1_hacker Bro, I purchased Nothing phone 3a pro just for this feature. I couldn’t wait any longer as soon as I saw this feature I went for it. I used it for a week and then only noticed that this app demands full gallery permission. I really want this feature. I want to use it to save important notes, dream journal and so on. But, Granting entire gallery access isn’t right? We’ll not only save our photos in our gallery. We save important screenshots, our ID proofs (just incase we need it), etc.. letting AI access and train based on our data is one thing but, letting it access more sensitive information isn’t good. That’s all I’m saying.

Daniel

Thanks to the team for this update, personally really appreciate the Google Calendar sharing! ✨

Ant-e-so-shial

I have a vision for Essential Space, like it becoming a productive place as Notion.

I wish Nothing team considers collaborating with Notion someday.

Anonymous931

Amudhan_Sundararajan You might be fine with apps collecting all your data, but most of us aren’t cool with that, especially when it feels like shady business.

Google is collecting a hell lot of everything you do including on-device scanning of every single file you have on your phone (Android System Intelligence). Nothing is at least VERY transparent with what they do and do not collect 👉 https://nothing.tech/pages/privacy-policy

CMF1_hacker

Amudhan_Sundararajan that don’t use it. I don’t understand what’s hard about this concept. I give access to my gallery and in return I have written transcriptions of any photos that can be searched.

what solution would you like. without access to gallery, ES can’t provide that transcription.

Amudhan_Sundararajan

Anonymous931 well, google won’t access your entire gallery tho. Ever heard of scoped storage? Apps can access your browsing data by accessing your cookies and sell your browsing data, make profits out of it. But, they can’t access your entire gallery unless you let them access it.

Literally every single apps follow this. Including Google, facebook, WhatsApp and telegram. All of them collect your data, show advertisements based on the data (cookie) they’ve collected. But, with limited access and scoped storage (they’ll only access their folders) they atleast don’t peak at your photos.

CMF1_hacker

Anonymous931 well

Updated May 19,2023

meer

Anonymous931 bbbut what about Google? Please let nothing take our data because google.also does.

CMF1_hacker

Amudhan_Sundararajan then don’t use it. I don’t see what is so hard here. You can make an evidence-based decision to use or not use ES.

This is an example of a screenshot I captured by accident (I have now remapped my finger control)

The first screenshot is what I recorded and the second is the output from ES.

Anonymous931

Amudhan_Sundararajan well, google won’t access your entire gallery tho.

It literally will. Check permissions of Photos, Calendar, Gmail, Drive…

I really don’t want to comment about the rest. Sure you are correct but you are intentionally focusing SOLELY on Nothing and the Essential Space when Nothing is super-transparent (unlike others you mentioned) about what they do. All while just giving permissions without even reading what they say just to notice that a week later. There, your own words:

Amudhan_Sundararajan Bro, I purchased Nothing phone 3a pro just for this feature. I couldn’t wait any longer as soon as I saw this feature I went for it. I used it for a week and then only noticed that this app demands full gallery permission.

pollenjh

Amudhan_Sundararajan Does OnePlus’ Mind Space require full gallery access too or no? Because if they took Nothing’s idea, made it more secure AND customizable then that’s kind of embarrassing

Amudhan_Sundararajan

CMF1_hacker well I wanna use this. As I told you, I only want it to access the data i present it, let it be the screenshot or the photos in my gallery. Let me pick what I wanna share. Whenever I accidentally press the button it captures the data on the screen and saved it on gallery. So, it doesn’t really need the entire gallery permission to store the screenshot. Just read what scoped storage means or just scroll through my profile and I’ve posted about it earlier.

I like nothing too. But, I’m not acting like a fan boy here. But, you guys are acting like a certified fan boys and defending this. 🙂

sean (1)

How about offline transcribing? It’s the only feature I’m interested in and I assumed such a basic feature would be included at launch. For me Essential Key is redundant without it, which is disappointing to find out after getting the Phone (3a).

According to the privacy policy all the speech-to-text processing is done on the phone, so I’m surprised there is no offline transcribing for those of us who do not want our private notes/data sent to nameless third-parties’ servers.

https://nothing.community/d/34416-nothing-essential-space-forcing-full-gallery-access-is-a-privacy-violation-heres-the-fix/4

CMF1_hacker

Amudhan_Sundararajan nah, I’m OK with the take it or leave it policy. I’ll take it. I assume that all data on my mobile phone is public as it’s naïve to think otherwise. Physical storage (paper/pen) is the only information I expect not to be parsable.

I live one the UK, and while not as surveilled as other country when my face and gait is analysed and stored, I fully expect all electronic communication to be compromised. Hence, I keep physical lab notebooks in a locked cabinet that are not easily copied. All signed and dates for IP purposes.

Edit: I read you last post and you should be using e/OS as it even runs on my CMF1 and not expect survive like ES for free. If you’re not paying; you are the product. Ignorance must be bliss homie.

Amudhan_Sundararajan

Anonymous931 Well, I am careful about the permissions I grant. I disabled pretty much everything (I MEAN EVERYTHING ON GOOGLE, web activity - disabled, google drive - I don’t even open it, photos - i disabled the sync and that too don’t have access to my photos. Facebook, whatsapp, i only let them access what I want them to)

When I got the phone I was excited and really wanted to use the feature hence i just skimmed through the setup as it was my secondary device and I just wanted to dream journal and notes at that time. I didn’t care about it that much. When I switched to nothing as my primary device i noticed it.

Atleast I’m not being ignorant here. But, you are!