Last updated 10 November 2026
Bard is a podcast player. It needs an account so your listening position follows you between devices, and it needs to talk to podcast publishers to fetch shows. This page describes everything it collects and everyone it sends data to. There is no advertising network in Bard, and nothing here is sold.
| Your account | Your email address and an account identifier. If you use Sign in with Apple and choose to hide your address, Apple gives us a relay address instead and we never see the real one. |
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| Your listening | Which episodes you have played, how far into each one you are, and when. This is the feature: it is what lets you pick up where you left off on another device. |
| What a show's makers see | The people who make a show can see totals about that show's listeners on Bard: how far into each episode people got, how many finished a season or a story arc, and where in Bard they found the show. A number appears only once it counts at least 5 listeners. Someone who has claimed a show can also see how many people have followed it since they claimed it, at any number. Makers never see your name, your email, your account, or your own listening, and they can't contact you through Bard. |
| Visits from a show's link | When you open a show's page from a link outside Bard, we add one to that show's daily totals: one visit, and whether you then followed it, played it, or made your Bard account to follow it. We keep the show, the day, the platform, and the kind of site the link was on (for example, Bluesky or a search engine), never the link itself. Nothing in those totals is tied to you or your device. |
| Your library | Shows you follow, episodes and shows you shelve, and what you mark Not Interested. |
| Your feedback | Notes you send through Send Feedback, kept with your account, your app version, and your platform, so a person can read them and reply to you. |
| Your ratings | The thumbs ratings you give shows. Aggregate counts are shown to other listeners; your individual ratings are not attributed to you publicly. |
| How you use Bard | A short record of the moments that tell us whether the app is working: when you finish setting it up and which genres you picked, when you follow a show and from which screen, when you start or finish an episode and from which screen, when you play a show's trailer from its recommendation card and whether you then followed it, when a search finds nothing (we keep how long the search was, never the words), when the upgrade sheet opens and what opened it, when our own feedback or Bard Pro card appears in your feed and when you tap it, when you tap a new-episode notification and what it named, whether the list of recommended shows appeared each time you open the app, when the subscription screen opens and what opened it, and when you buy or restore a subscription. This is internal measurement: it tells us where people get stuck, and it is never used to target you. The only people outside Bard who see any of it are a show's makers, as totals of 5 listeners or more (see “What a show's makers see”). It is deleted with your account. |
| If you use Bard without an account | Daily totals only: how many people opened the app, finished setting it up, followed a show, and started an episode, on each platform. There is no identifier of any kind attached, not a device id and not a cookie, so nothing in those totals is yours, and there is nothing to delete. If you later make an account on the same device, we note that you had been using Bard without one, and nothing else from before. |
| Your subscription | Whether you have a paid subscription, what tier, and where you bought it. Bard never sees or stores your card details: Apple, Google, or Stripe handles payment, depending on where you subscribe. |
| A promotion, if you buy one | The show, the words you wrote for it, the price, your email address, and how it was reviewed. It is the receipt for a payment. |
| Patreon, if you connect it | Bard keeps a token from Patreon, encrypted, so it can see which creators you support and show you their shows. We don't see your payment details or how much you pledge. Disconnect from Account and the token is deleted. It is also deleted with your account. You can also remove Bard from your Patreon settings, under Apps. |
| Notifications, if you turn them on | A token that lets a notification reach your phone, stored against your account with the phone's platform and when the token was last refreshed. Bard uses it to tell you when a show you follow has a new episode. Turn off New Episodes under Account, or sign out, and that phone's token is deleted. It is also deleted with your account, and when the phone stops accepting notifications. If you sign out while your phone can't reach Bard, the token stays, and that phone can still get notifications for your shows until someone signs in on it or you delete your account. |
Bard uses a small number of service providers. Each one receives only what it needs to do its job.
| Supabase | Hosts the database and handles sign-in. Everything in the table above is stored there. |
|---|---|
| Apple | Handles Sign in with Apple, and payment if you subscribe on an iPhone. Search terms you type are also sent to Apple's podcast search service to find shows that aren't yet in Bard's own index. |
| Handles payment if you subscribe on an Android phone. | |
| Stripe | Handles payment if you subscribe on the web or buy a promotion for a show. It receives your email address and your card details. Bard keeps a reference to the payment, never the card. |
| RevenueCat | Tracks subscription status so your paid features stay unlocked. |
| Rollbar | Receives crash reports so bugs get fixed. A report includes your account identifier, the app version, and the platform. |
| Resend | Sends Bard's email, such as sign-in links and receipts. It receives your email address and the message. If you sign up for Ad Alerts, your address is also kept on that list there until you unsubscribe or delete your account. |
| Netlify | Serves the web player and this site, so it can see the IP address of anyone visiting them. |
| Gravatar | Supplies your profile picture. Bard sends a one-way cryptographic hash of your email address, never the address itself, and Gravatar can see the request's IP address. If you have no Gravatar account, Bard shows your initial instead. |
| Expo | Sends new-episode notifications, if you turn them on. It receives your phone's notification token and the notification itself: the show's name, the episode's title, and which show and episode it is about. Expo passes the notification to Apple or Google, which deliver it to your phone. |
| Podcast publishers | Episode audio and show feeds are fetched directly from whoever hosts them, exactly as any podcast app does. Those servers can see your IP address and that you requested a file. Bard has no control over what they log. |
Bard does not track you across other companies' apps or websites, does not use advertising identifiers, and does not sell your data. Where Bard promotes a show, always labelled “Promoted” or “Ad”, the placement is chosen on the server from aggregate listening activity, not from a profile of you.
You can delete your account from inside the app, under Account → Delete account. It removes your account and every row of the data described above, permanently and immediately. It cannot be undone. The exception is a promotion's receipt: it stays, with your email address on it, and is no longer tied to your account.
One thing it cannot do: cancel a subscription bought through the App Store or Google Play. Apple and Google own that relationship, so cancel it in your account settings there, otherwise billing continues after your Bard account is gone. A subscription bought on the web is canceled for you.
Bard is not directed at children under 13, and accounts are not knowingly created for them. Podcasts in the index are made by third parties and some carry mature themes.
If this policy changes in a way that affects what is collected, the date above changes and the app will say so. Questions, or a request for a copy of your data: reach out through the contact form.