Why a money app should not hold your money data
Most portfolio apps ask you to link bank accounts or hand over broker logins, then keep your data on their servers. That is a lot of trust for a free app. Capital Friends takes the opposite route: it is open source, it never sees a bank login, and the only copy of your data is the Google Sheet in your own Drive. If you stop using the app, you delete one file and the app has nothing.
You sign in with the Google account you already have. There is no Capital Friends password and no profile stored anywhere.
The first sign-in creates a Google Sheet named Capital Friends. Every member, account, fund and goal is a row in it. Open it any time, download it as Excel, or delete it.
Mutual funds come from a CAMS statement PDF you download yourself; stocks from your broker's Excel. The app never connects to a bank.
The code is public on GitHub, so you can read what the app does with your data instead of taking our word for it.
What the four Google permissions are for
The Google consent screen is where most people get nervous, so here is each line in plain words.
| Permission | What the app does with it |
|---|---|
| See, edit, create and delete only the Google Drive files you use with this app | Create the Capital Friends sheet and read and write it. The app can only see files it created; it cannot browse the rest of your Drive. |
| Send email on your behalf | The daily family summary goes out from your own Gmail to the family members you choose. Nothing is sent through our servers. |
| Connect to an external service | Fetch the daily mutual fund NAVs, all-time-high prices and the gold rate from public sources. |
| Run when you are not present | The daily update: refresh prices, check every fund against its high, send the family email, even when the app is closed. |
Google reviews and verifies apps that ask for these scopes, and Capital Friends has gone through that verification.
Daily updates run inside your own Google account
After sign-in, open Settings → Data & Sync and turn on Daily updates. Google asks for permission once more, and then a small scheduled script is installed in your Google account (not on a server of ours). Every day it does three things:
- refreshes the NAV of every fund you hold and revalues gold at the live rate;
- checks each fund against its own all-time high and prepares the below-high alerts;
- sends the family email, if you have enabled it.
Because the script runs in your account, it keeps working even if you never open the app that day, and you can switch it off from the same settings page at any time.
Masking on screen
The eye icon in the header hides names, PAN, Aadhaar, account numbers and email addresses on every screen. Turn it on whenever you share your screen or sit in a cafe. PAN and Aadhaar are optional fields in the first place; if you add them they are saved only in your sheet and always masked in the family email.
On your phone
There is no Android or iOS app and you do not need one. Open capitalfriends.in in your phone's browser; every screen is built for mobile. Add it to your home screen and it opens like an app.
How to delete everything
- Open Google Drive and delete the file named Capital Friends. That is the only copy of your data.
- In Settings, switch off Daily updates, so the scheduled script is removed from your Google account.
- Optionally, remove the app from your Google account's third-party access list. Nothing remains anywhere.
What the app can never do
- It cannot move money. There is no connection to a bank, broker or AMC; every number is read from statements you provide.
- It cannot see your other Drive files, your contacts or your inbox.
- It cannot sell your data. There is no server that holds it.
What that sheet turns into
The dashboard and the daily email are built from the rows in your own sheet.
- Mutual funds · 4 members₹2.04 Cr
- House · loan linked₹1.6 Cr
- Gold · 250 g, today's rate₹35 L
- EPF, FD₹42 L
Every member, every account, revalued daily. Gold by weight, the house with its loan, insurance with nominees.
- Retirement is 4% off its path · 1 step due
- Flexi cap fund is 7% below its high · information, not advice
- SIP ₹40,000 due on the 5th · term policy renews in 12 days
- Net worth, every account, every fund, nominees, loans: where everything is
Sent every morning from your own Gmail to the family members you choose. If something happens to you, they know where everything is.
Last updated 15 Oct 2026 · by Jagadeesh Manne, who built Capital Friends for his own family.
Track the real thing, not just the estimate
Capital Friends is a free, open-source portfolio tracker for Indian families. Import your CAMS statement, see XIRR and CAGR for every fund, plan goals and retirement, and let your family get one summary email. Your data stays in your own Google Drive.
Frequently asked questions
Where exactly is my data stored?
In one Google Sheet in your Google Drive, created on your first sign-in. The app reads and writes that sheet through Google's own APIs; there is no Capital Friends database.
Does Capital Friends need my bank or Zerodha login?
No. Mutual funds come from a CAMS statement PDF, stocks from your broker's holdings Excel or a CDSL/NSDL statement. Bank accounts are just a list of which accounts exist.
Why does it ask to send email on my behalf?
So the daily family summary can go out from your own Gmail to the family members you choose. You pick who receives it and how often, or leave it off.
What does "run when you are not present" mean?
It lets the daily update (prices, below-high alerts, the family email) run from a schedule in your own Google account even when the app is closed. You turn it on in Settings and can turn it off there.
Can I open the data in Excel?
Yes. The Google Sheet is yours; open it in Drive or download it as .xlsx any time.
Is it really free?
Yes, free and open source for any family. There are no ads. A voluntary donation page keeps the lights on.
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Every member, every asset and loan, one dashboard, one number.
Calculators use the inputs you enter and standard formulas; results are estimates, not guarantees. Returns from mutual funds, stocks and other investments are not fixed and can be lower than assumed. Capital Friends is a tracking tool and is not a SEBI-registered investment adviser; nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security.