Aloud — Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-10-14 · Applies to the Aloud app for Android and Windows

Aloud is an audiobook player for audiobooks you already own. It is developed by Sergio Piedrahita ("we", "us"). This policy explains what Aloud reads, where that data lives, the book lookups that leave your device, and how you delete or revoke everything. Privacy questions: dev-team@aloud-app.com.

1. Audiobooks and ebooks on your device

• Folders you grant (Android). You grant folders through Android's system folder picker (Storage Access Framework). Aloud reads the audio files in those folders to list your books, read the embedded title, author, chapter and cover tags, and play the audio. Aloud never modifies or deletes your files. The Windows version does not read local folders.
• Ebooks you import for read-along. If you choose an ebook file on your device to pair with a book, Aloud reads it on your device to show the text alongside the audio.
• Microphone (optional). Only when you record a voice note on a bookmark. Recordings are stored on your device and never uploaded.

2. Google Drive (optional)

This section describes Google user data separately from everything else, as Google's policies ask.

What Aloud asks Google for

• The read-only Google Drive permission, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.readonly (shown by Google as "See and download all your Google Drive files").
• Your basic Google account information (name, email address, profile picture), used only to label the connected account in Aloud so you can tell accounts apart and disconnect the right one.

What Aloud reads from your Drive

After you connect, you choose the folder(s) that hold your audiobooks in Aloud's folder browser, which shows your My Drive and the folders shared with you. Aloud's library lists only the folders you chose. You can also look through your Drive yourself on Aloud's Browse screen, which lists a folder only when you open it. Within the folders you chose or opened, Aloud reads:

• the names, folder structure, types and sizes of folders and files, to find and group your books, and the checksum Google Drive reports for each audio file, which Aloud compares on your device to tell when a file has changed or when two copies are the same recording;
• the contents of audio files: streamed to your device from the point you play or seek to, including a brief read of each file of a book you play to measure its length; downloaded whole when you make a book available offline; and copied temporarily into the app's storage when you prepare read-along, so the speech recognition on your device can transcribe it;
• the title, album, author and catalog-number tags (ISBN or ASIN) embedded in a book's first audio file, read with a few range requests of at most 4 MB each (never the whole file) to identify the book for covers and ratings, and only while Online covers & ratings is on (section 5);
• optional companion transcript files you placed next to an audio file (<audio name>.readalong.json) for the read-along feature.

Aloud never creates, edits, moves, shares, uploads or deletes anything in your Drive, and never scans folders you did not choose or open.

How Aloud uses it

Only for features you see in the app: showing your library, playing and seeking within books, showing chapters, covers, ratings and reviews, preparing and showing read-along text, offline copies you request, recognizing the same recording when it moves or is copied, and remembering your position, listening history and bookmarks.

Where it goes

From Google's servers to your device. Aloud has no servers, so no Drive data, file name, token or account detail is ever transmitted to us. Everything Aloud keeps (library index, positions, listening history, bookmarks, covers, transcripts, offline copies) is stored on your device, and on Android in Aloud's private storage; Android's own device backup can copy part of it into your Google Account (section 7). The only exception is the book information described in section 5: a book's title and author (which may come from your Drive file names or tags) and catalog numbers, sent to public book catalogs.

Google API Services User Data Policy — Limited Use

Aloud's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. The use of information received from Google Workspace scopes will adhere to the Google User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically, Google user data is used only to provide the user-facing audiobook features described above; it is never sold, never used for advertising, never used to build databases, and never transferred to third parties except as necessary to provide those features (the catalog lookups in section 5, which Aloud explains before you connect), for security purposes, or to comply with applicable law. No person at Aloud can read your Drive data; there is no system through which they could. Aloud does not use Google user data to develop, improve or train any AI or machine learning model, whether personalized or non-personalized.

Disconnecting and revoking

• In Aloud: Sources → your Google account → Disconnect. Aloud asks Google to revoke its access, deletes the stored credentials from your device, and removes the account and its folder selection. On Android, Google's sign-in library can revoke only an account Aloud has used since the app was last started; if you disconnect right after opening Aloud, also remove access from Google as described below. Books from that account that are already in your library can stay listed but can no longer be played; listening positions, listening history, cached covers and offline copies stay on your device until you remove them (section 8), clear the app's storage, or uninstall.
• From Google: open your Google Account's linked apps page, choose Aloud under "Access to your Google Account", and select Remove access. This works even if you no longer have the app.

3. OneDrive and Dropbox (optional)

Connecting a personal Microsoft OneDrive or Dropbox account works the same way as Google Drive (section 2): read-only access, used for the folders you choose or open, the same reads (names, sizes and the checksums each service reports, audio for playback, offline copies and read-along, a book's first-file tags, companion transcript files), basic account information to label the account, credentials stored only on your device, and nothing sent to us. In Aloud, Sources → the account → Disconnect deletes the account's credentials from your device; for Dropbox, Aloud also asks Dropbox to revoke its access. To remove Aloud's access from the provider's side, use your Microsoft account or Dropbox connected apps page.

4. Free public-domain audiobooks

The optional Free classics catalog searches and streams public-domain recordings from LibriVox via the Internet Archive (archive.org). The text you type in that catalog's search box is sent to archive.org as a search query, and the books you open or add are fetched from archive.org by their catalog number. None of these requests includes any account or device identifier, and none involves your Google Drive.

5. What leaves your device: cover art, ratings and reviews lookups

To show covers, ratings and reviews, Aloud derives a book's title and author from your file and folder names or embedded tags and sends that text, like typing a book title into a search box, to public book-catalog services. When a catalog number is known (an ISBN, or an Audible ASIN found in the file's tags or returned by an earlier lookup), Aloud may send that number instead or as well.

Aloud then downloads the cover images those services point to. These requests contain nothing else from your files or accounts: no audio, no file paths, no Drive or other cloud identifiers, no account information and no device identifiers. Aloud keeps nothing from a request except the book details it shows you (cover, matched title and author, description, narrator, ratings, reviews and catalog numbers), cached on your device. The services receive the request and your device's network address, as any web request does, under their own privacy policies. Some app versions do not include every service listed here.

Turning the lookups off. Settings → Enrichment → Online covers & ratings (on by default) stops every request in this section, including cover downloads. Covers already saved on your device keep showing. Turning it back on runs the lookups again for your library. It does not affect the Free classics catalog (section 4) or the read-along model download (section 6).

6. Read-along and AI

Read-along transcription runs entirely on your device using an open-source speech-recognition model (Whisper). The model files are downloaded once from Hugging Face; that download carries no information about you or your books. Your audio and transcripts are never sent to any AI or cloud service, and no model is trained or improved with your data.

7. Where your data is stored, and how it is protected

• Everything Aloud keeps lives on your device: library index and book metadata, playback positions, listening history, bookmarks and their notes, cover images, voice notes, read-along transcripts, and any audio you made available offline. On Android this is the app's private storage.
• Listening history. Aloud records which parts of each book you played and when: the start and end of each listening session (positions in the book and times of day) and how it ended, where skips, seeks and chapter jumps started and ended, and each sleep timer you set, its length and how it ended. It is used on your device so Aloud can tell which parts of a book you have already heard. It stores no text or audio and no title fields. It refers to books and files by the same references as Aloud's library index, with each file's size and checksum: for cloud books, file IDs; for books in device folders, the system addresses of the folder and files, which include their names and so often the book's title. Aloud also keeps, in its settings, the times of up to 20 recent playback stops whose prompt to find your place you have already used or dismissed, or after which you started playing again, so that the prompt is not shown again; these times include no book, title or position. Listening history is on by default and kept for one year, and those stop times follow it; section 8 explains how to shorten it, turn it off or clear it.
• Device backups (Android). Like most apps' data, Aloud's database and settings are included in Android's own backup and device-to-device transfer. If backup is turned on in your phone's settings, Android can copy them to your Google Account's backup (end-to-end encrypted with your screen lock on Android 9 and later, when one is set) and restore them on a new phone. This covers the library index, positions, listening history, bookmarks and their typed notes, read-along transcripts, copies of ebooks you imported, and the accounts you connected (name, email address and the folders you chose). Sign-in credentials, voice-note recordings and offline copies are excluded. Aloud does not run this backup and cannot read it. Android's backup is controlled in your device's settings, and turning it off stops it for every app.
• Windows. The Windows version keeps its database (aloud.sqlite, which holds the library index, positions, listening history, bookmarks and transcripts) and your voice notes in your Documents folder. Aloud sends them nowhere, but if that folder is backed up or synced (for example by OneDrive folder backup), those copies follow that service's settings.
• All network traffic uses HTTPS.
• Google sign-in tokens on Android are held by Google Play services; on Windows, and for other cloud accounts, tokens are stored in the operating system's protected credential storage. Tokens are sent only to the service that issued them, and are deleted when you disconnect.
• Aloud contains no analytics, advertising or crash-reporting software.
• Diagnostic log. Aloud keeps a short diagnostic log in memory while it runs; it is erased when the app closes. It can contain book titles and file identifiers from requests that failed. It leaves your device only if you open Settings → Export logs, copy it, and send it to someone yourself.

8. Retention and deletion

• Data stays on your device until you remove it. Removing a book's offline download deletes that copy; Disconnect deletes an account's credentials and removes its folder selection, and for Google and Dropbox also asks the provider to revoke Aloud's access (OneDrive: section 3); Clear read-along data in Settings deletes all transcripts; clearing Aloud's storage or uninstalling deletes everything on the device, including positions, bookmarks and cached covers. On Windows, removing Aloud does not delete aloud.sqlite or the voice_notes folder in your Documents folder; delete them yourself.
• Listening history (section 7): Settings → Library → Listening history lets you keep it for 30 days, 1 year (the default) or "Until I clear it", or turn it Off. Entries older than the period you choose are deleted automatically, when the app starts and about once a day after that. Choosing a shorter period deletes older entries right away, and Off stops recording and deletes all of it. Clear listening history, in the same section, deletes all of it at once. None of these touch your positions, bookmarks or notes.
• Deleting data on your device does not reach a copy that Android has already backed up (section 7). Android replaces that copy at its next backup, which usually runs overnight.
• Because Aloud keeps no copies off your device, there is nothing for us to delete server-side. For any request or question, email dev-team@aloud-app.com.
• Aloud takes no actions in your Google, Microsoft or Dropbox account other than reading the files in folders you chose or opened, and asking the provider to revoke Aloud's access when you disconnect.

9. Children

Aloud is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect personal information from children. Connecting a Google account is optional; the Free classics catalog and (on Android) device folders work without one.

10. Changes to this policy

If Aloud's data practices change, this page will be updated with a new date before the change takes effect, and if the change affects how Aloud uses Google user data, the app will ask for your consent before using that data in a new way.

11. Google Play Data safety

Our Google Play Data safety declaration reflects this policy: Aloud collects or shares no user data except the ephemeral lookups described in section 4 and section 5. Listening history and everything else in section 7 stay on your device. Android's own device backup is run by your phone's operating system into your own Google Account, and we cannot read it, so it is not data Aloud collects.