Aloud

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 22 September 2026

Aloud collects nothing. There is no account, no analytics, and no server that sees what you read.

Aloud is a text-to-speech reader for iPhone. It turns articles, PDFs, and text you paste into speech using a voice model that runs on your device's Neural Engine. This policy explains, in plain terms, what happens to your information — which is: it stays on your iPhone, or in your own iCloud if you choose to sync.

What we collect

Nothing. Aloud has no accounts, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising, no crash-reporting service, and no tracking of any kind. We do not receive your documents, your library, your listening history, or any identifier for you or your device. There is no server operated by us for the app to send anything to.

Because of this, Aloud's App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected.

What stays on your device

Everything you add to Aloud is stored on your iPhone, in the app's own private storage:

• the text of every article, PDF, or note you add, and the PDFs themselves;
• your library, reading positions, and which pieces you have finished;
• your settings — chosen voice, playback speed, sort order;
• the downloaded voice models.

This data is covered by your device's encryption and is included in your encrypted iPhone or iCloud device backup, if you use one. Deleting the app deletes all of it. Removing a single piece from your shelf deletes its text immediately.

iCloud sync (optional)

iCloud sync is off until you switch on Sync with iCloud in Settings. When it is on, Aloud writes each piece on your shelf as a plain text file into an Aloud folder in your own iCloud Drive, and keeps your reading position for each piece in your iCloud account, so your other devices can pick up where you left off.

This data travels between your devices through Apple's iCloud and is governed by Apple's privacy policy (https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/). We never receive it and cannot access it. You can switch sync off, or delete the files from iCloud Drive, at any time.

When Aloud uses the network

Apart from optional iCloud sync, Aloud makes network requests in exactly two situations. Both are initiated by you, and neither involves us.

1. Fetching an article you shared. When you share a web page to Aloud, your iPhone loads that page directly from the website in question, the same way your browser would, so the article text can be extracted on your device. The website you are reading will see this request just as it would see a normal visit. When the page is shared from Safari, Aloud can usually read the copy already loaded in your browser and does not need to request it again.
2. Downloading a voice, once. The first time you play a natural voice, its model files are downloaded from Hugging Face (huggingface.co), a third-party model host, and then kept on your device. Each additional voice you choose downloads its files the same way. These requests contain no information about you and no text from your documents — only the name of the file being fetched. After a voice is downloaded, Aloud can read without any internet connection at all.

Your documents are never uploaded. Speech is generated on your iPhone, so the text you listen to is never transmitted anywhere — not to us, and not to any speech service. If you translate a piece, the translation is done on your iPhone by Apple's Translation framework; iOS may download a language from Apple the first time you use it, but your text is not sent.

Purchases

Aloud is free to use with a shelf that holds three pieces. Removing that limit is a single purchase handled entirely by Apple's App Store. We never see your name, payment details, or Apple Account. Aloud only asks the App Store whether this Apple Account has bought the unlock, and stores the yes-or-no answer on your device.

Children

Aloud is not directed at children and collects no personal information from anyone, including children.

Your rights

Privacy laws such as the GDPR and CCPA give you rights to access, correct, export, or delete personal data a company holds about you. We hold none, so there is nothing for us to retrieve or erase. The data in Aloud is in your hands already: it lives on your device (and in your own iCloud, if you sync), and deleting the app removes it from your iPhone completely.

Third parties

Aloud contains no advertising, no analytics, and no third-party tracking software. The only third parties involved are Apple (which handles purchases, app distribution, optional iCloud sync, and on-device translation languages), Hugging Face (which hosts the voice-model files), and the websites whose articles you choose to share to the app. Each of those has its own privacy policy governing requests your device makes to it.

Changes

If this policy changes, the revised version will be posted here with a new date. Material changes to how Aloud handles information will also be described in the app's release notes.

Aloud is an independent app. This policy covers the Aloud iPhone app and its share extension.

Contact

Questions about privacy in Aloud: cistron.support@icloud.com