Effective 2 October 2026
About Witbound
You do not need a Witbound account to read or sync books. Witbound has no advertising and does not sell your personal data. Your library, reading statistics, settings and notes are stored locally. This policy covers Witbound on Apple platforms and Android; available features depend on the platform and app version.
Your books and audio
Imported books and audiobooks are stored on your device. Speech processing and word alignment run locally. Witbound does not upload your book text or audio to its community-sync service. Android may download its speech model from Hugging Face before the first local sync; this downloads a model, not your books. Apple platforms may download speech or language resources through Apple's system services.
You can delete imported books in the app. Copies you exported, shared or backed up are separate. Your operating system's backup and device-transfer settings may also apply to local app data.
Community sync
Community sync is on by default. It connects to Witbound's service hosted on Cloudflare to find and contribute reusable timing maps. Requests can contain hashed fingerprints derived from ebook and audio files, ebook content and short sequences of recognised speech. These fingerprints help match the same content, including compatible editions; they are not a Witbound account or device identifier.
Contributed maps contain word positions, word start and end times, counts, alignment flags and information about the app version and speech engine. They contain no book text, titles, authors, audio recordings, reading history, name or email address. Other readers with matching content can download these maps. Exact-file matches reuse validated timings directly. For content-based chapter matches, Witbound checks samples of the audio on the receiving device before using the shared timings.
Cloudflare necessarily handles ordinary connection information, such as your IP address and request headers, to deliver and protect the service. Cloudflare's own handling is described in its privacy policy.
Turn community sync off in Settings to stop new community lookups and contributions; a request already in progress may finish. This setting does not disable purchases, model downloads, optional server connections or sharing. Turning it off or deleting a local book does not remove maps already contributed to the shared library.
Discover: your to-read list, synced books and free classics
Your to-read list is stored on your device. While sharing is off, nothing about it leaves your device. To tell you when a book on it becomes quick to sync, Witbound downloads the public list of synced books and compares it with your to-read list on your device.
If you turn on “Share my to-read list with the community”, Witbound sends the catalogue id, title and author of each book on your to-read list to its service hosted on Cloudflare, together with a random installation identifier created on your device. The service stores only a one-way hash of that identifier, so it can count each installation once; it has no account, name or email address to attach it to. Other readers see how many people want a book, never who. While sharing is on, when a book on your to-read list finishes syncing on your device, Witbound also tells the service which edition and narrator it synced (as named inside your files), so other readers can find a matching copy. Nothing else about the book or your reading is sent. Turning sharing off asks the service to delete your shared to-read list. Do this before deleting the app: once the app is gone, Witbound can no longer tell which entries were yours.
When one of your own books finishes syncing and its timing map is on the community service, Witbound may show a card under it on your shelf offering to share it. Nothing is sent unless you tap Share. Then Witbound looks up the book’s title and author in Open Library to name it, and sends the service the Open Library id of the book (or, if Open Library has no clear match, its title and author), the edition and narrator as named inside your files, and the random installation identifier described above, of which the service keeps only a one-way hash. The book can then appear on the public Synced list, so readers with the same files can sync it almost instantly; the list never shows who shared it. “Not now” and “Don’t ask again” send nothing, and “Offer to share books I sync” in Settings turns the card off. A shared book stays on the Synced list; to have one removed, contact us at the address below.
To add a book to your to-read list, you type its title (and, if you like, its author). When you tap Add, Witbound looks the book up in Open Library, a public catalogue run by the Internet Archive, and, if Open Library has no match, in Google Books. Only the title and author you typed are sent, and only when you tap Add. See the Internet Archive’s terms and privacy policy and Google’s privacy policy. If neither has the book, it is added exactly as you typed it.
Shared titles are checked before they appear in the public Wanted or Synced lists: by a word filter and, for titles that are not in a catalogue, by an automated safety check run by Cloudflare. Flagged titles wait for a person to review them. Edition and narrator names you share are checked the same way. You can report or hide any book in Wanted or Synced.
Book covers in Discover are loaded from the public catalogues that hold them: covers.openlibrary.org (served from the Internet Archive), standardebooks.org, gutenberg.org and books.google.com. Like any website, they receive ordinary connection information such as your IP address. A cover for a book on your to-read list is saved on your device after the first time, so it can show again without asking anyone.
The Synced list is information only. It names editions and narrations that Witbound can sync almost instantly if you already own them. Witbound does not provide, host or link to those books.
When you tap Get on a free classic, Witbound downloads the ebook from Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org) and the LibriVox recording from the Internet Archive (archive.org), directly from those sites. Like any website, they receive ordinary connection information such as your IP address. Witbound hosts none of these files.
Optional library and progress services
If you connect Audiobookshelf, Calibre, BookOrbit, Grimmory or another compatible OPDS server, Witbound sends library requests and the necessary authentication information to the server you select. Files and artwork are downloaded from the addresses supplied by that service. Credentials are kept on your device; they are not sent to Witbound's community-sync service.
Plex sign-in connects to Plex and then your selected Plex server. Plex requests include a generated installation identifier used for that connection. If you enable KOReader progress sync, your chosen KOReader sync server receives the login information needed to authenticate you, book fingerprints, reading positions, a device label and an installation identifier. These services have their own privacy practices. Use a trusted server and HTTPS where available.
Sharing and device transfers
Sharing is initiated by you. Progress cards, selected passages, notes or audio clips go to the destination you choose, such as a Discord webhook, an Obsidian folder or another app through the system share sheet. Your chosen app or folder may sync those files using its own services. A local device transfer sends the books or audio you select to the other device.
Android translation
Android's optional translation feature uses Google ML Kit. Language recognition and translation run on the device, with language models downloaded when needed. Google documents that its SDK collects installation identifiers, device and app information, performance and error information, feature events, input/output sizes and language settings for diagnostics and usage analytics. Translation also uses Firebase services for model configuration; Google documents country-level information derived from connection addresses for this service. This is separate from Witbound's local reading statistics and the community-sync setting. See Google's ML Kit data disclosure, Firebase's Remote Config disclosure and on-device translation documentation.
Purchases
Witbound Plus is a one-time lifetime unlock sold through the App Store or Google Play. Apple or Google handles payment information. Witbound receives the purchase and entitlement information needed to unlock Plus, restore purchases and confirm a transaction. Witbound does not receive your card or bank details. The stores process purchase data under their own privacy policies. Any older Apple subscription can be managed through Apple's subscription settings.
Support, retention and your choices
If you contact support, we receive your email address and whatever you include in your message. We use it to respond, investigate problems and keep necessary support records. Please send only information relevant to the issue. Shared timing maps are retained for reuse; local app data stays until you remove it or the app's storage is cleared. Third-party services and backups have their own retention rules.
Where data-protection law applies, you may have rights to access, correct, delete or restrict the use of your personal data, and to complain to your data-protection regulator. Contact us using the address below. We may need enough information to locate the relevant data; a shared content fingerprint does not identify a Witbound user account. To remove your shared to-read list, turn off “Share my to-read list with the community” in Discover.
Children
Witbound does not ask readers for their age or build advertising profiles. If you believe a child has sent personal information to support, contact us so we can review and remove it where appropriate.
Changes
We will update this page when features or data practices change, and show the effective date above.
Contact
Privacy questions and requests: zarksided@gmail.com