1. Who we are and what this covers
Librera applications are published by Ivan Ivanenko, an individual developer ("we", "us"). We are the data controller for the processing described here.
This policy applies to the website librera.app and to the following applications, on every platform each is distributed for:
- Librera Reader — Android (Google Play, F-Droid, direct APK)
- Librera1 Reader — web, Android, macOS, Chrome extension, VS Code extension
- Sound Icon — macOS
- Screenshot: Take and Drag — macOS
The apps differ from one another, and this policy does not pretend otherwise. The general sections below describe each kind of data we may handle and say which apps it applies to; section 19 restates the position for each app on its own. Where a general section and the annex differ, the annex governs for that app.
2. At a glance, per app
| App | Account required | Leaves your device | Ads | Analytics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Librera Reader (Android) | No | Ad and analytics requests in the Google Play build only | Yes, free version | Play build only; none in the F-Droid build |
| Librera1 Reader | Optional | Only if you sign in: reading progress, marks, and books you choose to sync | No | No |
| Sound Icon (macOS) | No | Nothing | No | No |
| Screenshot: Take and Drag (macOS) | No | Nothing | No | No |
3. Our principles
- Local first. Every app works on the device in front of you. Nothing is uploaded because an app wants it uploaded — only because a feature you turned on needs it.
- We never sell your data, and we never share it with data brokers.
- We do not read your books, documents or screenshots. We have no ability to open the content you keep in these apps.
- The narrowest permission that works. Where a platform offers a scoped permission, we ask for the scoped one — see section 6 on Google Drive.
- No account unless a feature needs one. Three of the four apps have no sign-in at all.
4. Data kept on your device
Applies to: all apps.
Every Librera app stores its own settings locally, in the private storage the operating system gives it. This data is not transmitted to us, and other apps cannot read it. Depending on the app it includes:
- your library: the books you have opened, your position in each, bookmarks, highlights, notes, tags and shelf marks such as favourite, finished and want to read;
- appearance and reading settings — theme, fonts, margins, scrolling mode;
- security-scoped bookmarks and file references, so an app can reopen the folders and files you previously chose;
- audio device preferences, starred devices and custom device icons (Sound Icon);
- capture and export preferences (Screenshot: Take and Drag);
- a cached flag recording whether a paid entitlement is currently active, so the app does not misreport your purchase before the store answers.
Uninstalling an app removes this data, subject to how your operating system handles app backups. Section 13 explains how to remove it deliberately.
5. Account data
Applies to: Librera1 Reader only. The other three apps have no accounts and no sign-in.
Librera1 Reader can be used entirely without an account. If you choose to sign in — which is what enables syncing your library between devices — you sign in with Google, through Firebase Authentication. In that case we receive and store:
- your Google account's email address and, where Google provides it, your display name and profile picture;
- a user identifier (the Firebase UID) that ties your synced data to you;
- timestamps for account creation and last sign-in.
We never receive your Google password. Authentication happens with Google and returns a token; we see the result, not your credentials.
With an account active, the app stores your reading progress and book marks
in Google Cloud Firestore, under a document path private to your user identifier
(users/{uid}/books/{bookId}). The fields are the ones the app shows you: which
book, how far through it you are, and the marks you set. Only your signed-in devices can read
these documents. Sign out, and the app keeps working on local books alone.
6. Your books and files
Applies to: Librera1 Reader (Google Drive sync). All other file handling in all apps is local.
If you connect Google Drive in Librera1 Reader, books you explicitly choose to synchronise are uploaded to your own Google Drive, in your own account. They are not uploaded to us, and we operate no book storage of our own.
The app requests drive.file — access limited to files the app itself creates
or that you explicitly open with it. It cannot list, read or touch the rest of your Drive,
and it never has that ability to lose.
Removing a book from sync deletes it from that Drive folder. Disconnecting Drive, or revoking the app's access in your Google account permissions, ends the app's access immediately.
In every other case — books opened in Librera Reader, images captured by Screenshot: Take and Drag, audio files played by Sound Icon's local player — the files stay on your device and are opened only to be displayed, played or saved where you asked. They are never transmitted anywhere.
7. Purchases and subscriptions
Applies to: Librera Reader (paid version), Librera1 Reader (premium), Sound Icon (Sound Icon Pro). Screenshot: Take and Drag has no purchases of any kind.
All payments are handled by the store you bought from — Apple on the App Store, Google on Google Play. We never see, receive or store your payment card, billing address or store account credentials.
What reaches an app is a signed receipt or entitlement telling it whether a purchase is active. In Librera1 Reader, subscription entitlements are managed through RevenueCat, which acts as our processor: it receives a purchase identifier from the store together with an app user identifier — your Firebase UID when you are signed in, or an anonymous identifier when you are not — so that a subscription bought on one device unlocks on another. RevenueCat receives no payment details either.
Your purchase is also governed by the store's own privacy policy and terms, and refunds are handled by the store, not by us. See our Terms of Use for the subscription terms themselves.
8. Advertising
Applies to: the free version of Librera Reader for Android only. No other Librera app contains advertising of any kind.
The free version of Librera Reader displays advertising supplied by Google AdMob. To serve and measure those ads, AdMob may process your device's advertising identifier, IP address, coarse location derived from it, and ad interaction events. This processing is Google's, under Google's policy for partner sites and apps; we do not receive the underlying data and use it for nothing.
You can limit it: on Android, use Settings → Privacy → Ads to delete or opt out of the advertising ID. In regions where consent is required, a consent prompt is shown before personalised ads are served, and you can change your answer later. Buying the paid version removes advertising entirely.
9. Analytics and diagnostics
Applies to: the Google Play build of Librera Reader only.
That build includes Google Firebase Analytics, which reports aggregate, app-level events — that the app was opened, that a screen was shown, crash-adjacent diagnostics — together with the device model, OS version and a generated app instance identifier. We use it only to know which features are used and where the app fails. It does not report what you read, and it never carries the contents of a book.
- The F-Droid build contains no analytics at all; the analytics component is replaced by a stub that does nothing.
- Librera1 Reader, Sound Icon and Screenshot: Take and Drag contain no analytics, no crash reporting and no telemetry.
10. Device permissions
Permissions are requested when a feature needs them, and you can revoke any of them in system settings. What each one is for:
| Permission | App | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Files and storage | Librera Reader, Librera1 Reader | To open the books you select and save your library. Only what you choose is read. |
| Microphone / audio input | Sound Icon | macOS classes reading and setting an input device's level as microphone access. Used to list, switch, mute and adjust input devices. No audio is recorded, buffered, analysed or transmitted. |
| Accessibility | Sound Icon | To observe the media keys and route play/pause and track changes. Key events are handled in the moment and never stored or sent. Not required unless you use the media key features. |
| Screen Recording | Screenshot: Take and Drag | Required by macOS ScreenCaptureKit for any screen capture. Captures are produced on demand and written where you save them. Nothing is streamed or uploaded. |
| Photos / Pictures and Downloads folders | Screenshot: Take and Drag | To save captures to the location you pick. |
| Network access | All apps | Sign-in and sync (Librera1), ads and analytics (Librera Reader Play build), and store communication for purchases. Sound Icon and Screenshot: Take and Drag make no network requests of their own. |
11. Third parties we rely on
We use no third party beyond those listed here, and each receives only what its function requires.
| Party | Role | Apps | Their policy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google (Firebase Authentication, Cloud Firestore) | Sign-in and sync storage | Librera1 Reader | Firebase privacy |
| Google Drive | Storage in your account, scoped to files the app creates or you open | Librera1 Reader | Google privacy |
| Google AdMob | Advertising in the free version | Librera Reader | Google partner policy |
| Google Firebase Analytics | Aggregate usage and diagnostics | Librera Reader (Play build) | Firebase privacy |
| RevenueCat | Subscription entitlement management | Librera1 Reader | RevenueCat privacy |
| Apple | App Store distribution and payment | Sound Icon, Screenshot: Take and Drag, Librera1 Reader | Apple privacy |
| Google Play | Distribution and payment | Librera Reader, Librera1 Reader | Google privacy |
12. Legal bases for processing
If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, we process personal data on these bases under the GDPR:
- Performance of a contract — account creation, sync, and delivering a purchase or subscription you bought.
- Consent — personalised advertising where consent is required, and connecting Google Drive. You may withdraw consent at any time, without affecting processing already carried out.
- Legitimate interests — aggregate analytics in the Google Play build of Librera Reader, to keep the app working and to decide what to build; and preventing abuse. We balance this against your interests, and the F-Droid build offers the alternative.
- Legal obligation — retaining what tax and consumer law requires of purchase records held on our behalf by the stores.
13. Retention and deletion
We keep account and sync data for as long as your account exists. Delete the account and the associated documents are deleted; we retain nothing afterwards except what a store keeps for its own legal purposes.
- Librera1 Reader account and synced data — use the account screen in the app to sign out and delete your account, or email us and we will delete it within 30 days. Revoke Drive access at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
- Local data, any app — uninstalling removes it. On macOS you can also
delete the app's container in
~/Library/Containers/. - Advertising identifier — reset or delete it in Android settings.
- Purchases — subscriptions are cancelled in the store, not in the app, and deleting an app does not cancel one. See the Terms of Use.
14. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you have some or all of these rights: to access the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to its processing, to portability, and to withdraw consent. Under the CCPA/CPRA you also have the right to know what is collected and to not be discriminated against for exercising these rights — and we note that we do not sell or share personal information as those laws define it.
To exercise any of them, email librera.raeder@gmail.com. We answer within 30 days. For apps with no account, we hold nothing that identifies you, so there may be nothing for us to return — the data is on your device and under your control.
If you are in the EEA or UK you may also complain to your national data protection authority.
15. International transfers
Where sync, advertising or entitlement services are used, the providers named in section 11 may process data on servers outside your country, including in the United States. Those transfers rely on the safeguards those providers offer, principally the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and, where applicable, the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. We operate no servers ourselves.
16. Security
Connections to sign-in, sync and store services use TLS. Sync documents are readable only by the account that owns them, enforced by server-side security rules. Desktop and mobile apps run inside the sandbox their platform provides, with the minimum permissions listed in section 10, and store builds are signed and — on macOS — notarized.
No system is perfect. The strongest protection here is structural: for three of the four apps there is no server holding your data to be breached in the first place.
17. Children
Librera applications are general-audience software and are not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13, or under the higher age of consent that applies where you live. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact us and we will delete it.
18. This website
librera.app is a static site. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and has no tracking pixels or third-party scripts. Web fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which receives the request for the font file and your IP address as a technical necessity of serving it. Our host keeps standard server logs. Links out to app stores and to GitHub take you to those companies' own sites, under their own policies.
19. Annex: app by app
The position for each app on its own. Where this annex differs from the general sections, the annex governs.
- Account
- None. There is no sign-in.
- What stays on your device
- Your library, reading positions, bookmarks, highlights, notes, tags and all settings.
- What leaves your device
- In the Google Play build: advertising requests to AdMob (free version only) and aggregate analytics events to Firebase Analytics. Nothing else. The F-Droid build sends neither.
- Purchases
- The paid version is bought through Google Play and removes advertising.
- Your books
- Read from your device only. Never uploaded.
- Account
- Optional. Google sign-in via Firebase Authentication; we receive your email address, display name and a user identifier. Without signing in, the app is entirely local.
- What leaves your device, if you sign in
- Reading progress and book marks, stored per-user in Cloud Firestore; and books you
explicitly choose to sync, uploaded to your own Google Drive under the narrow
drive.filescope. - Purchases
- Premium is sold by Apple or Google and managed through RevenueCat, which receives a purchase identifier and your app user identifier — never payment details.
- Ads and analytics
- None of either.
- Deleting your data
- Delete your account from the account screen, or email us. Revoke Drive access in your Google account permissions.
- Account
- None.
- What leaves your device
- Nothing. No analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising, no third-party SDKs, no servers of ours. Its App Store privacy label is "Data Not Collected".
- What stays on your device
- Starred audio devices, custom device icons, bookmarks to music folders you selected, and a cached flag for subscription status.
- Permissions
- Audio input, to list and adjust input devices — no audio is ever recorded or transmitted. Accessibility, only if you use the media key features.
- Purchases
- Sound Icon Pro is sold by Apple through the App Store. The app receives only a signed entitlement saying whether it is active.
- Account
- None.
- What leaves your device
- Nothing. No analytics, no advertising, no network features.
- Your screenshots
- Captured with ScreenCaptureKit, edited in memory and written only where you save or share them. We never see them.
- Permissions
- Screen Recording, required by macOS for any capture; and access to the folders you save into.
- Purchases
- None. The app has no in-app purchase and no paid tier.
20. Changes to this policy
We update this policy when an app's behaviour changes. The effective date and version at the top always reflect the current text. Material changes — a new category of data, a new third party, a new purpose — are announced in the release notes of the app concerned, and where the law requires it we will ask for your consent before the change applies to you.
21. Contact
For any privacy question, request or complaint:
Ivan Ivanenko — individual developerEmail: librera.raeder@gmail.com
Web: librera.app
Please say which app you are writing about — it is the first thing we need to know.