Privacy policy — ScrobbleDock
Last updated: 15 September 2026
ScrobbleDock is a Mac menu bar app that shows what you are currently listening to on ListenBrainz, lets you rate it, and uploads the listening history that Rockbox records on a portable music player.
ScrobbleDock has no servers of its own. There is no ScrobbleDock account, no analytics, no crash reporting service, no advertising and no third-party SDKs. Nothing is sent anywhere except to the two services listed below, and only because you asked the app to talk to them.
Controller
Patrick Stigler, Stigler AI Innovations Goethestraße 38, 70736 Fellbach, Germany Email: kontakt@stigler-ai.com
What stays on your Mac
| Data | Where it is kept | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your ListenBrainz user token | macOS Keychain | Authenticates every request to ListenBrainz |
| Your ListenBrainz username | App preferences | Shown in Settings and used for the profile link |
| Your settings | App preferences | Popup timing, appearance, device behaviour |
| Known devices | App preferences | Remembers which player was already imported, and how far |
| Ratings that could not be sent | App container | Retried once the connection is back, then discarded |
| Backed-up scrobbler logs | App container, Archive folder | Only if you chose “back up and remove” |
| Diagnostics | Memory only, never written to disk | Shown in the Diagnostics window; gone when you quit |
The app is sandboxed. It can read a connected music player only after you have picked that device once in the standard macOS open panel, and it never reads anything else on your disk.
What is sent to ListenBrainz
ScrobbleDock talks to api.listenbrainz.org, operated by the
MetaBrainz Foundation. Your token accompanies every
request. Depending on what you do, these requests carry:
- Now playing: nothing but your token. ScrobbleDock only reads.
- Ratings: the recording identifier and whether you loved or hated it.
- Device import: artist, track title, album, track number, duration and the time each track was played, taken verbatim from the log your player wrote.
- History: nothing but your token. ScrobbleDock only reads.
The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR: this transfer is exactly the function you use the app for. ListenBrainz decides what happens to that data afterwards; its own privacy policy applies at metabrainz.org/privacy. Listens submitted to ListenBrainz are public by default — that is how the service works, no matter which client submits them.
What is sent to the Cover Art Archive
To show album artwork, ScrobbleDock requests images from coverartarchive.org,
a joint project of MetaBrainz and the Internet Archive. Those requests contain
the release identifier of the album and nothing else — no token, no username.
Downloaded artwork is cached in memory only.
What ScrobbleDock never does
- It does not collect, transmit or sell personal information to anyone.
- It does not track you across apps or websites.
- It does not contact any server other than
api.listenbrainz.organdcoverartarchive.org. - It does not upload your diagnostics, your log files or your preferences.
Under Apple’s App Privacy definitions, ScrobbleDock collects no data: everything described above is either stored only on your device or sent to ListenBrainz on your behalf, as the sole purpose of the app.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right of access (Art. 15), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20) and objection (Art. 21). Because ScrobbleDock stores no data with the developer, towards the developer these rights concern only your support correspondence. For your listens, ListenBrainz is the controller. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR).
Deleting your data
Removing the token in Settings (Remove Token) deletes it from the Keychain. Deleting the app removes its container, including preferences, backed-up logs and the pending-ratings queue. Listens already submitted live on ListenBrainz and can be deleted there, in your ListenBrainz account.
Children
ScrobbleDock is not directed at children and collects nothing from anyone.
Changes
Material changes to this policy will be noted here with a new date. The current version is always available at stigler.de/en/apps/scrobbledock/privacy.
Contact
Questions about this policy: kontakt@stigler-ai.com
ScrobbleDock is an independent client. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the MetaBrainz Foundation.