Sound Atlas

Privacy policy

Last updated: 30 September 2026

Sound Atlas is a music library and recommendation app for Android and iPhone. This policy describes what it collects, why, how long it is kept, and how you delete it.

The short version: your ratings and playlists belong to your account and nobody else sees them. Sound Atlas uses no third-party analytics, advertising or tracking tools, does not sell your data, and you can delete your account in the app at any time.

Who runs Sound Atlas

Sound Atlas is operated by Hooman Takhtechian. Questions about privacy, requests for a copy of your data, and requests for deletion: [email protected]. We answer within 30 days.

Joining Sound Atlas

Sound Atlas lets people in a few at a time. You sign in with Google or with Apple, and then either enter an invite code or join the waitlist.

The waitlist keeps the email address your Google account, or Apple, shared with us (with Apple this can be a private relay address, if you chose to hide yours), which of the two you signed in with, the version of the wording you agreed to, the date you joined, and the date we sent you a code. It is used only to email you an invite code. The entry is removed when you join with that address, when you ask us to remove it, or when you delete your account.
Invite codes are stored only in a scrambled, one-way form. When you join with one, we record which account used it.
Guessing codes is limited. To stop that, each failed attempt is recorded with a keyed hash of your app installation and of your network address, never the address itself. These records are deleted after 7 days.

What Sound Atlas stores about you

Your identity from sign-in. With Google: your Google account identifier, email address and display name. With Apple: your Apple user identifier and the email address Apple shares, which may be a private relay address; Sound Atlas does not receive your name from Apple. This is used to know which account you are and to keep your library separate from everyone else's. Nothing else in your Google or Apple account is read.
What you tell the app about music. Your song ratings, the artists and genres you mark as liked or avoided, songs you save or mark “not for me”, songs you skip, the playlists you create, the catalogues you follow, your settings, and any problem you report about a song. This is the substance of the app: recommendations are built from it.
Your taste profile and recommendations, worked out from the above, and the mixes built from them.
Listening in the app. Which lists you play, and when you send a list to YouTube Music or Spotify, so a mix can carry on where you left it and so what you skip can shape what comes next. We also record the days you open the app, how many times you open it and play a list on each of them, and whether you opened it from the daily-song notification, and keep these daily counts for 90 days.
Sign-in and security records. Your sign-in sessions and when they were used, so a session can be ended; a log of sign-in attempts, which identifies the app installation only by a keyed hash; and a record of significant actions on your account, to detect and investigate misuse.
Feedback you send, described below.

Crash reports

If the app crashes, it saves a short report on your phone and sends it to the Sound Atlas server the next time you open the app. A report contains:

the technical record of the crash: the type of error and the list of program steps that led to it;
the app version and build number;
your phone’s operating system (Android or iOS) and its version, and the phone model;
which part of the app was open, and the time of the crash;
how many times the same crash happened.

Before a report is saved, and again when the server receives it, anything in the error text shaped like an email address, the parameters of a web link, an identifier or a security token is removed. A crash report does not contain your name, email address, account, ratings, playlists or listening. It is not linked to your account: it carries only a random number the app creates for crash reporting alone, separate from the one used for signing in, and the server stores that number only as a keyed hash. Your network address is not stored. Crash reports are used only to find and fix faults, and each is deleted automatically 90 days after that crash was last seen. Because they are not linked to you, deleting your account does not find or remove them; they expire on their own.

Feedback

When you choose Send feedback (in Account, or in the Help menu), we receive the message you write, linked to your account, so we can understand your problem and reply if needed.

The form lists some technical details: the app version and build, your phone’s operating system, its version and model, the catalogue and part of the app you were on, and the app’s language. They are sent only if you leave Include these details ticked.
If you tick Attach a screenshot of this screen, a picture of the screen you were on is sent as well. It can show whatever was on that screen, such as song titles or ratings, so it starts unticked and the form shows you the picture first.

Feedback is seen only by the Sound Atlas operator. It is kept until we have dealt with it and deleted about 30 days after that, and it is deleted straight away, screenshot included, if you delete your account.

No analytics, advertising or tracking

Sound Atlas contains no third-party analytics, advertising, crash-reporting or tracking tools, and uses no advertising identifier. It does not track you across other companies’ apps or websites, and it does not sell or rent your data or share it with advertisers. Crash reports and feedback go only to the Sound Atlas server.

YouTube API Services

Sound Atlas uses YouTube API Services. If you connect a YouTube account, you are also agreeing to the YouTube Terms of Service, and Google’s handling of your data is governed by the Google Privacy Policy.

Saving lists to YouTube is not yet open to members. For now only the operator’s own YouTube account is connected; Sound Atlas does not accept a YouTube connection from members and keeps no YouTube permission for them.

Connecting YouTube is optional. If you connect it, Sound Atlas asks for permission to manage your YouTube account (https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube) and uses it only when you press Save on a list, when you connect or test the account, and once a day to check the playlists it created (described below). It then:

lists your playlists, to find the ones Sound Atlas created, to check that the permission works, and once a day to confirm that those playlists still exist;
creates a playlist for the list you saved, adds its songs and keeps them in the order the app shows;
when you save a list again, removes songs that are no longer on it from the playlist Sound Atlas created for it;
deletes a playlist in two cases only: if a save fails part-way, the playlist it has just created, so no half-filled playlist is left behind; and when write access is tested, a temporary private playlist it creates and deletes straight away;
once, when you connect in the desktop app, checks that the account has a YouTube channel. The channel ID is not kept.

Sound Atlas does not read your watch history, subscriptions, comments or uploads. It does not change playlists it did not create and does not upload videos or post on your behalf. Apart from what you ask for, it does one thing a day: it lists your playlists to confirm that the ones it created still exist, so that it never keeps their IDs for more than 30 days without checking. Playlist data not confirmed for 30 days is deleted.

What is stored from YouTube: the authorisation, kept in the Sound Atlas database (encrypted) and on the operator’s computer for the tool that publishes playlists; and, for each list you save, the ID, title and link of the playlist Sound Atlas created, with a record of that save and a copy of the playlist’s contents taken before it is updated. Which YouTube video plays a song is part of the Sound Atlas catalogue and is not taken from your account. The operator’s backups also contain these items and are kept for up to about 8 weeks.

Disconnecting: revoke access in your Google account security settings, which stops Sound Atlas using it immediately, or ask by email. The stored authorisation and the YouTube data listed above are then deleted within 7 days, and copies in backups are gone once those backups expire. The playlists themselves stay in your YouTube account unless you delete them there.

Google user data and Limited Use. Sound Atlas’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. When you sign in with Google, Sound Atlas receives your Google account identifier, email address and display name, and uses them only to create, identify and secure your Sound Atlas account, to email you an invite code if you join the waitlist, and to reply to feedback you send. If a YouTube account is connected, the authorisation and the IDs, titles and links of the playlists Sound Atlas creates are used only to save and update the lists chosen in that YouTube account, to confirm that those playlists still exist, and to play them in the app. Sound Atlas does not sell this data; does not transfer it to anyone except as needed to provide those features (the services listed under “Who else handles your data”), for security, or to comply with the law; does not use it for advertising, including personalised or retargeted advertising; does not use it to train or improve general-purpose AI or machine-learning models; and does not let anyone read it unless you ask us to (for example for support), it is needed for security or to comply with the law, or it has been aggregated and made anonymous for internal operations.

Connecting Spotify

Connecting a Spotify account is optional, and not offered to every account. If you connect one, Sound Atlas asks Spotify for permission to start playback on a device where you have Spotify open, and to see which of your devices are available and what is playing. It uses this to play a list in Spotify when you ask, and to show the song Spotify is playing while Sound Atlas is on screen. It does not read your Spotify library, playlists or listening history. The authorisation is stored encrypted and is deleted when you disconnect or delete your account. You can also withdraw it in your Spotify account, under Apps.

What YouTube Music is playing, on Android

On Android you can choose to give Sound Atlas notification access, so it can show the song YouTube Music is playing. While Sound Atlas is on screen, it sends that song’s title, artist and YouTube Music identifier to the Sound Atlas server to find the matching song in the catalogue, so you can rate it. That lookup is not stored. You can switch notification access off at any time in Android’s settings.

The embedded YouTube player and your device

Songs play inside the app in YouTube’s embedded player (youtube-nocookie.com), with YouTube’s own controls. When the player loads, YouTube may place or read cookies or similar technology on your device, under the Google Privacy Policy. YouTube serves the videos and any advertising inside the player; Sound Atlas shows no advertising of its own.

On your phone, Sound Atlas keeps your sign-in session (encrypted), a random identifier for that installation, a separate random identifier for crash reports, any crash report not yet sent, and copies of your lists so they open quickly.

Who else handles your data

Nobody receives your data to use for their own purposes. These services handle it only so that Sound Atlas can work:

Hetzner hosts the Sound Atlas server and its database, in Germany.
Cloudflare carries traffic between the app and the server, and serves this website. Like any network, it sees your network address as your requests pass through.
Google or Apple confirm who you are when you sign in.
YouTube and Spotify receive what is needed to play or save your lists, and only if you use those features.

We do not otherwise transfer your data to anyone, except where the law requires it.

Where your data lives

In a private database on the Sound Atlas server, in backups of it (on the server and on the operator’s own computer), and on the operator’s computer for the tool that publishes playlists to YouTube. Credentials for connected services are encrypted in the database, are never shown in the app and are not sent anywhere except to the service they belong to.

How long it is kept

Your account and everything linked to it: until you delete the account.
A waitlist entry: until you join, ask us to remove it, or delete your account.
Records of failed invite-code attempts: 7 days.
YouTube playlist IDs, titles and links: deleted once they have gone 30 days without being confirmed, and within 7 days of YouTube access being withdrawn.
Crash reports: 90 days after that crash was last seen.
Feedback: until we have dealt with it, then about 30 days; or until you delete your account, if that comes first.
Backups: each backup is replaced within about 8 weeks, so anything deleted is gone from every backup within about 8 weeks.

Delete your account

You can delete your Sound Atlas account, and the data that goes with it, at any time.

In the app

Open Account.
Tap Delete my account, at the bottom of the page.
Read what will be deleted, type DELETE, and tap Delete for good.

Your account is deleted straight away and you are signed out on that phone. Any other phone signed in to the account is signed out the next time it connects.

Without the app

If you cannot open the app, email [email protected] from the address you sign in with, with the subject “Delete my Sound Atlas account”. We delete the account within 30 days and reply to confirm. We may first ask you to confirm the request from that address, so that nobody else can delete your account. To be taken off the waitlist, write to the same address from the address you joined with.

What is deleted

Your ratings, including any imported into your account.
Your taste profile, and the recommendations and mixes built from it.
Your playlists, saved songs and “not for me” marks, and the records of lists saved to YouTube or sent to Spotify.
Your settings, your catalogue choices and your listening in the app.
Your feedback, including any screenshot.
Your connections to YouTube and Spotify, including the authorisations we held for them.
Your sign-in: your Google or Apple account is no longer linked to Sound Atlas, and all your sessions end. If you signed in with Apple, we also ask Apple to end Sound Atlas’s access to your Apple ID; you can check this in your Apple ID settings, under Sign in with Apple.
Your place on the waitlist, if you had one.
The record of actions on your account.

What is kept

A record that an account was deleted, and when, with the number of items removed. It holds no name, email address or anything else that identifies you.
The invite code you joined with stays marked as used, pointing only at that anonymous record.
If you reported a problem with a song and we corrected the catalogue because of it, we keep the correction. Your report stays with it, with your own words removed and nothing linking it to you.
The log of sign-in attempts, with the link to your account removed.
Crash reports, which were never linked to you, until they expire after 90 days.
Our backups. They still hold your data until they are replaced, which takes up to about 8 weeks. If we ever restore from a backup, we delete again every account that was deleted after that backup was made.

Deleting your account cannot be undone. If you want to come back later, you can join again with a new invite code.

Your choices

See your data: email us and we send you a copy of your ratings, playlists and the other data listed above.
Correct it: change your ratings and settings in the app, or ask us.
Disconnect YouTube or Spotify: in your Google account or Spotify account settings, or by email.
Leave the waitlist: email us from the address you joined with.
Delete everything: in the app, or by email, as described above.

Children

Sound Atlas is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly hold data about them. If you believe a child has an account, tell us and we will delete it.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, the date above changes and anyone with an account is told before the change takes effect.