Earmark
Privacy Policy
Earmark does not collect, transmit or sell any personal information. The app has no accounts, no servers of its own, no analytics, no advertising and no third-party software development kits. This page explains what the app connects to, what it accesses on your device, what it stores, and how to delete it.
No accounts
Earmark has no sign-in and no user profile. It works with the Apple Account already on your device, and only through Apple's iCloud framework. We do not know who you are and have no way to find out.
What the app connects to
Earmark makes network requests to three kinds of destinations, all of them at your direction.
- Podcast hosts. When you subscribe to a show, refresh it, play an episode or view artwork, Earmark downloads the RSS feed, audio file and images directly from the servers the podcast publisher uses. Like any podcast app, this means the host sees your IP address and the standard details of the request. Podcast hosts and their analytics providers operate under their own privacy policies, which Earmark does not control. Refreshes also run in the background on a schedule set by the system.
- Apple's iTunes Search API. When you search for a podcast by name, the text you type and your device's country or region are sent to Apple to return matching shows. Nothing is sent until you type at least two characters. Apple's privacy policy applies.
- iCloud. If you are signed in to iCloud, Earmark syncs your library through the private CloudKit database of your own Apple Account. See iCloud sync below.
The only other network connection is a one-time download of Apple's on-device speech language model, which the system performs the first time a memo is transcribed. Earmark does not contact any server operated by the developer, and it does not embed analytics, crash reporting or advertising services.
What the app accesses on your device
- Microphone. Only when you tap Record. Earmark asks for microphone permission the first time and records a voice memo only while the recording screen shows it is recording. Memos are saved as .m4a audio files inside the app's own storage. You can play, share, export or delete them at any time. If you deny microphone access, everything except recording keeps working.
- Speech recognition, on the device. After you save a memo, Earmark turns it into text using Apple's on-device speech recognition. Neither the audio nor the text is sent to Apple or to the developer for processing. The first time, the system may download a language model from Apple for your language. The transcript is stored with the memo, syncs with it through your iCloud account, and you can edit or delete it at any time.
- Files you choose. Importing an OPML file reads only the file you pick in the system file picker. Exporting a memo writes only where you choose.
- Apple Podcasts library (Mac only). Import from Apple Podcasts reads the list of shows you follow from the Podcasts library folder that you select in the open panel. The read is one-way and read-only. Earmark never writes to Apple Podcasts and does not read your Apple Podcasts listening history.
- Background audio, background refresh and silent push. Earmark keeps playing when the screen is locked, refreshes feeds in the background, and receives silent iCloud change notifications so sync stays current. It does not show notifications and does not ask for notification permission.
Earmark does not access your location, contacts, calendar, photos, camera, health data, or advertising identifier.
What the app stores
Everything Earmark stores lives in a local database on your device, and in your iCloud account if sync is on:
- The shows you subscribe to, with their feed URLs and feed metadata.
- Episode listings for those shows. By default Earmark keeps the last 90 days of each show and deletes older episodes on refresh, unless they are played, favorited, in progress, pinned to a playlist or have a memo attached. You can change the window per app or per show.
- Your playlists, their rules and pinned episodes, and which episodes are new since you last opened each list.
- Favorites, played state, playback position, and the last time you played each episode.
- Voice memos as audio files with their transcripts, attached to their episodes.
- Settings such as playback speed and the episode retention window.
Artwork and audio are cached by the system's networking layer on your device only. All local data is removed when you delete the app.
iCloud sync
If your device is signed in to iCloud, Earmark stores the data listed above in the private CloudKit database of your Apple Account so that your iPhone and Mac stay in step. That database belongs to you. It is stored and protected by Apple under Apple's terms, it counts toward your iCloud storage, and the developer has no ability to read, query or export it. If iCloud is off or you are not signed in, Earmark keeps everything on the device and shows a banner saying so; nothing else changes.
Deleting your data
- On the device: delete the app. All local data goes with it.
- In iCloud: on iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, find Earmark in the list of apps using iCloud, and choose to delete its data. On the Mac, System Settings, your name, iCloud, Manage, Earmark, Delete. This removes the synced copy for every device on that Apple Account.
- One memo, show or playlist at a time: delete it in the app. The deletion syncs to your other devices.
There is nothing to delete on our side, because we hold nothing.
Data we collect
None. On the App Store, Earmark's privacy label is "Data Not Collected". We do not run analytics, crash reporting, advertising, or any network service. If you email support, we see what you send us and use it only to reply.
Children
Earmark is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect information from anyone, of any age.
Changes to this policy
If a future version of Earmark changes what it connects to, accesses or stores, this page will be updated and the effective date above will change. The version of the app you have installed is described by the policy in effect when it was released. A Markdown copy of this policy is at /privacy.md.
Contact
Questions about this policy: info@mingjerlee.com. The developer is Ming-Jer Lee.