Privacy policy

Last updated: 2026-05-26

TL;DR Earwise stores what you choose to listen to. We don't track what you browse, sell your data, or share your saved content with third parties. The browser extension only reads pages you actively click to save — never anything else.

Who we are

Earwise is operated by Earwise LLC, a California limited liability company. Earwise reads text — articles, books, PDFs, and similar — aloud, so you can listen while you walk, drive, or otherwise look away from a screen.

Reach us at hello@earwise.app with any questions about this policy.

What we collect and why

Account information

When you sign up, we store your email address and any profile data your sign-in provider (Google / Apple) hands us. We use this to identify your account across sessions and devices and to contact you about your account if needed.

How we use your email internally: only for account identification, billing, and the emails we explicitly send you (sign-in links, sponsorship receipts, password resets). Our admin tooling that aggregates statistics (active accounts, library usage, pronunciation flags) does not query or display individual email addresses — we work from anonymized user identifiers (UUIDs) so the operator running the dashboard never sees, for example, "person at example.com listened to Pride and Prejudice today." If you want zero-email signup, use Apple Sign-In with "Hide My Email" — we get a relay address and never see your real one.

Content you save

Earwise is a "save articles for later" service. When you save an article, book chapter, or PDF, we store on our servers:

When you delete an item from your saved list, the associated content is removed within 30 days. Generated audio that's content-addressed and shared across users is not deleted individually, but the audio bytes are not linkable to your account after your save row is removed.

Usage data

We track your monthly synthesis volume (characters of text we've converted to audio for you) so we can enforce per-account character caps. We do not maintain a per-page reading-progress profile beyond what's needed to resume playback where you left off.

What we DON'T collect

Browser extension specifics

Earwise ships browser extensions for Chrome (desktop) and Safari (macOS and iOS). Both follow the same architecture and privacy model. The permissions below apply to both:

Paywalled content and subscriptions

If you're a paid subscriber to a publication (NYT, WSJ, FT, Bloomberg, Substack, etc.), your browser is already authenticated and has fetched the article on your behalf when you click "Save to Earwise." The extension reads the page your browser already rendered — Earwise's server never sees your subscription credentials, cookies, or login session. We never bypass paywalls, never store third-party login credentials, and never share saved content with other Earwise users. Your saves are yours.

If you're saving from a public page, the extension still uses the same pattern — we read what your browser rendered locally. For certain content types (browser-rendered PDFs), the extension falls back to having our server fetch the URL directly, but this fallback never includes your browser cookies.

Who else processes your data

We rely on these third-party services. Each is bound by a data processing agreement that limits use to providing the service to us:

Your rights

You can access, export, correct, or delete the data we hold about you at any time. For accounts in the EU, UK, California, and other jurisdictions with applicable laws, you have a legal right to do this, but we extend it to all users by default. Sign in to your account and use the in-app settings, or email hello@earwise.app and we'll handle it within 30 days.

Children

Earwise is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has provided us data, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We update this page when our practices change. Material changes get a banner in the app and an email to active users. Substantive changes are dated above.