PodScope — Privacy Policy

Effective date: June 30, 2026 Last updated: June 30, 2026 Version: 1.2.0

Magic Box Software Solutions LLC (“we”, “our”, “us”) publishes PodScope, a macOS app available on the Mac App Store. This policy describes what information PodScope does and does not collect.

Summary

PodScope is an on-device app. It does not require an account, does not include third-party analytics, tracking, or advertising SDKs, and does not upload your podcast data, transcripts, voice prints, or AI recaps to any server. It fetches the public podcast RSS feeds and audio files you choose to analyze. If you turn on the optional cloud-transcription feature, audio you transcribe is sent to your own Microsoft Azure account, under your control — see “Optional cloud transcription” below. With your consent, Apple may share anonymized crash reports and diagnostic metrics with us through its built-in developer tools.

Information we collect

We do not collect personal information.

We do not collect feature-usage telemetry, navigation events, or any record of which podcasts, episodes, transcripts, recaps, voice prints, or static sites you analyze, generate, or publish.

Network activity

PodScope makes network requests directly from your Mac to:

the RSS/Atom feeds you choose to add (to fetch the episode list and metadata), and
the audio file hosts referenced by those feeds (to download the audio you choose to analyze).

These requests are made directly between your Mac and the third-party servers that host those feeds and files. We do not proxy, log, or record them.

PodScope’s fast transcription engine is part of macOS and is not downloaded. Its optional higher-quality transcription model and its recap model are delivered through Apple’s App Store (Background Assets) — the higher-quality engine downloads in the background after install, and the recap model downloads the first time you generate a recap. These downloads are handled by Apple and governed by Apple’s privacy policy; we do not operate a server in this path and receive no record of them.

PodScope does not phone home and does not check for license activation against any server of ours. Except for the optional Azure feature described below, it does not upload audio, transcripts, recaps, voice prints, or generated websites.

Optional cloud transcription (Azure)

Transcription runs on your Mac by default. PodScope also lets you optionally connect your own Microsoft Azure Speech account to transcribe in the cloud. This feature is off by default. If you enable it and supply your Azure credentials (stored in your macOS Keychain):

Audio you choose to transcribe is sent from your Mac directly to your own Azure account for transcription. It is not routed through, proxied by, or logged by Magic Box.
That data is handled under your agreement with Microsoft and Microsoft’s privacy terms.
Speaker voice prints and AI recap analysis still run entirely on your Mac even when Azure transcription is enabled — they are never sent to Azure or to us.

You can turn this feature off and remove your credentials at any time in the app’s settings.

On-device processing

The following all run locally on your Mac and never leave your device unless you export and share them yourself (or, for transcription only, enable the optional Azure feature above):

Audio downloads of episodes from feeds you choose
Transcription via an on-device speech-recognition model
Speaker separation (diarization) and voice-print matching
AI recaps generated by an on-device language model
Static website generation: output files are written to a folder you choose; nothing is uploaded.

Diagnostics and crash reports (Apple-mediated, opt-in)

If you have enabled “Share Mac Analytics” and “Share with App Developers” in your macOS Privacy & Security settings, Apple may share the following with us through its standard developer reporting tools:

Crash reports — anonymized stack traces and device/OS metadata generated when the app crashes.
Diagnostic metrics (MetricKit) — aggregated, anonymized performance metrics such as launch time, hang rate, memory and energy use.

These reports are collected, anonymized, and delivered by Apple. They do not contain personal information, do not identify you, do not include the names or contents of your podcasts/transcripts/recaps, and are governed by Apple’s privacy policy. You can disable this at any time in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements.

We do not use any third-party crash-reporting or analytics SDKs (no Sentry, Crashlytics, Firebase, TelemetryDeck, or similar).

Purchases

PodScope is a paid-upfront app, purchased once through the Mac App Store. There are no in-app purchases and no subscriptions. Purchase, Family Sharing, refund, and receipt handling are performed entirely by Apple; we receive purchase information only in the aggregated form Apple provides in its developer dashboard (number of purchases, refunds, regions). We do not receive your Apple ID, name, email, payment method, or transaction-level identifiers.

To confirm the app was purchased from the Mac App Store, PodScope validates the App Store receipt locally on your Mac at launch. This check runs entirely on-device and makes no network request.

There is no advertising ID usage, advertising tracking, or attribution SDK.

Information stored on your Mac

The following are stored locally on your Mac using macOS’s standard application data storage:

Your project list, feed URLs, and downloaded audio
Transcripts, speaker labels, voice prints, AI recaps
Phrase lists, preferences, window state, generated static sites
Any Azure credentials you choose to provide (stored in the macOS Keychain)

This data never leaves your device except via your own backups, syncing services, files you choose to export, or the optional Azure transcription feature you enable.

Children’s privacy

PodScope is a general-purpose tool for podcast listeners, researchers, and publishers, and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect any personal information from anyone.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The “Effective date” and “Version” above will reflect the most recent revision. Material changes will also be noted in the app’s release notes.

Contact

Questions about this policy can be sent to:

support@magicboxsoft.com