Marble Privacy Policy

Updated 16 October 2026

Marble is a podcast player that finds the ads in episodes and skips them. This page says what leaves your iPhone, where it goes, why, and how long it's kept.

The short version

• There's no sign-in. Marble doesn't ask for your name, email, contacts or location.
• Episode audio never leaves your iPhone. It's transcribed on your iPhone.
• To find ads, the transcript text goes to our service and an AI provider. Neither keeps it.
• Marble has no advertising and no third-party analytics or tracking code. We don't sell your data, share it with advertisers, or track you across other companies' apps and websites.
• Marble sends us a record of how the app is used, without show or episode titles. You can turn it off and delete it in Settings › Account.

What stays on your iPhone

Your shows, episodes, listening history, queue, bookmarks and downloads stay on your iPhone. The one exception is Agents, a feature in test versions only (below). Deleting Marble removes everything it kept on your iPhone.

Finding ads

To find the ads in an episode, Marble sends its scoring service the episode's transcript text, the show and episode titles, and any sponsor names in the show notes. The service asks an AI provider (currently TypeSafe) to label each line, and sends the labels back. The provider receives the text only to answer that request, under its own terms. Neither our service nor the provider keeps the transcript text.

Each request also carries an identifier for this installation of Marble. It isn't tied to you or your Apple Account. Your iPhone makes it with Apple's App Attest, which lets the service check that a request comes from a genuine copy of Marble. Apple sees only that check, not your transcripts. Deleting and reinstalling Marble makes a new identifier.

The service keeps that identifier with counts of requests, what they cost and when they were made. We use these to enforce daily limits and to understand how the service is used. Daily totals are kept for 90 days, and the record of each request for up to a year. The service doesn't keep your IP address.

If Marble's service can't be reached, your iPhone finds the ads itself with Apple's on-device model, and nothing leaves it.

Usage data

Unless you turn it off, Marble sends its service a record of how the app is used. We use it to see where ad skipping goes wrong, where the app fails, and why people stop using Marble. It records:

• when you open Marble, at most once every half hour;
• when you play an episode, and how much you listened;
• when an ad is skipped, and when you go back into a skipped section or jump ahead;
• how long Play waited for the ad check, and how each episode's ad finding went;
• problems you report;
• what you choose on an episode's Ads sheet, and the kind of section it applies to (for example, an ad or an intro): Not an Ad or Skip This Ad for one section, or skipping a kind of section for this show or for all shows;
• when you follow a show, and how you found it;
• which welcome screens you see the first time you open Marble, and how you leave them: you imported a library, picked shows, skipped or closed. For topics and shows you pick, only how many;
• when a download, playback, ad check, show refresh or library import fails: the kind of error (for example, offline, timed out, server error, not found or disk full) and the server's status code. Never the address or the episode. At most once an hour for each kind of error;
• crash, hang and slow-launch reports that iOS gives Marble, once a day: the build, how long the app hung or took to open, and for a crash, the exception and signal numbers. Never stack traces or memory contents;
• changes to a few settings.

Each record also says the app version, the ad-detection model in use, and the kind of build that sent it: a developer build, TestFlight or the App Store. Each record carries a random identifier made for this when Marble is installed, separate from the one above. Deleting Marble deletes it.

This is pseudonymous, not anonymous. The records aren't tied to your name or Apple Account, but they are tied to that identifier. They never include show or episode titles: each show and episode is sent only as a one-way code made from its feed address. We can recognize a popular public show from its code by making the same codes from shows listed in public directories, such as Apple Podcasts' charts. So the records can show which public shows were played on one installation. A private feed's address holds a secret we never see, so its code can't be recognized. The records are kept for 180 days.

To turn it off, go to Settings › Account › Share Usage Data. Marble then stops recording, deletes what it hasn't sent, and sends one last record saying it was turned off.

To delete what it already sent, go to Settings › Account › Delete My Data. Our service then deletes those records and any feedback and reports you sent from this iPhone, and your iPhone gets a new random identifier. Records of what the service cost to run are kept, but no longer linked to this iPhone. Today's request counts are kept until they reset, because they enforce the daily limits.

Searching and importing

• Searches and charts come from Apple's podcast directory, asked directly from your iPhone. For more results, Marble's service can also ask the Podcast Index, an open podcast directory, with your search. The service doesn't keep what you search for.
• Episodes and artwork download from each show's publisher, as in any podcast app. Publishers, and the hosting and measurement companies they use, can see your IP address and the app's name.
• If you import your library from screenshots of another app, each screenshot goes through our service to an AI provider (currently Google's Gemini, through OpenRouter) to read the show names. It isn't kept.
• If you paste a Spotify link, Marble looks it up with Spotify to find the show's name.

Share links

When you share an episode or a show, Marble sends our service its title, the show's name, the addresses of its artwork and website, and the show's feed address, to make the link. Anyone with the link can see these on the link's web page, and Marble on their iPhone uses the feed address to open it. The service keeps them, with the installation identifier described under Finding ads, so the link keeps working. Delete My Data removes the identifier and leaves your links working. If a show's feed address looks private, such as a paid subscription's, Marble shares its website instead, and the feed address stays on your iPhone.

Feedback, reports and email

When you use Send Feedback in Settings, our service keeps your message and the app's version with the installation identifier described under Finding ads, and your email address if you give one.

When you use Report a Problem, or tell us on the Ads sheet how an episode went, the report also includes the show and episode, the sections Marble found, the transcript around them and around where you were listening, and the last few lines of Marble's log for that episode. It never includes account details.

If you email us, we have your address and message.

We use all of these only to reply to you and to improve Marble. We may copy a report into our private issue tracker to work on it. We delete what you sent when you ask.

Agents (test versions only)

Agents is only in test versions of Marble on TestFlight, not in the App Store version. It's off unless you turn it on. While it's on, Marble copies your shows, episodes and listening history, your queue, your bookmarks and your episode transcripts to our server, hosted by Cloudflare, so AI assistants you connect, such as Claude or ChatGPT, can read them.

An assistant can also add to your queue, subscribe to shows and archive episodes. Each change shows in Marble with the assistant's name, and you can undo it.

The server also keeps your device's push token, so an assistant's change reaches your iPhone quickly. Only assistants you connect with a code from your iPhone can read this data. You can disconnect any of them in Settings › Advanced › Agents.

Tap Delete Synced Data in Settings › Advanced › Agents, and everything on the server is deleted at once and every assistant is disconnected. If free testing ends, syncing stops and the data is deleted 30 days later.

Crash reports from Apple

If you share analytics with app developers in your iPhone's settings, Apple may send us anonymous crash reports. Marble adds nothing of its own to them.

Your choices

• Turn off usage data in Settings › Account › Share Usage Data.
• Delete the usage records, feedback and reports sent from your iPhone with Settings › Account › Delete My Data.
• Send feedback without giving an email address.
• In a test version, leave Agents off, or delete what it synced at any time.
• Delete Marble to remove everything it kept on your iPhone.

For any other question or request about your data, email marble.app.help@gmail.com.

Children

Marble isn't directed at children under 13 and doesn't knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll post the new version here with a new date.