MixBar
Legal

Privacy Policy

MixBar is a macOS menu bar app that gives every running application its own volume control. It collects no personal data, contains no analytics or advertising code, and processes all audio entirely on your Mac.

Effective date: 16 September 2026 · Applies to MixBar 1.0 and later.

Summary

What this policy comes down to

  • MixBar collects no personal data whatsoever.
  • It does not track you across apps, websites or devices.
  • Audio from your apps is read only to adjust its level in real time, then discarded. It is never recorded, stored, logged or transmitted.
  • There is no account, no sign-in, no advertising and no third-party SDK.
  • The app makes no network requests of its own. The only network traffic is Apple's own App Store purchase verification, performed by the operating system.

Who is responsible

MixBar is developed and published by an independent developer. For any privacy question, data request or complaint, contact:

cardinalys81@gmail.com

A postal address for formal legal correspondence is available on request by email.

How audio is handled

To give each application its own volume slider, MixBar must intercept each app's audio output. macOS provides this through the Audio Recording permission, which you grant explicitly in System Settings and can revoke at any time.

Within the app:

  • An app's output signal is read only to apply your chosen volume, balance, mute state or EQ curve, and is played straight back to your speakers.
  • The signal is processed in real time and then discarded. It is never written to a file, a database or a log.
  • Nothing about your audio is sent anywhere. The app has no networking code for this purpose and runs inside Apple's App Sandbox.
  • The level meters shown in the panel are computed from loudness and thrown away with the audio — they are not a recording.

MixBar does not use the microphone as a recording device, does not use the camera, contacts, calendar, location or files, and does not read your clipboard. It also never appears as a microphone input to other apps.

What is stored on your Mac

The app saves your own preferences locally using the standard macOS user defaults system, inside its own sandbox container. This includes items such as:

  • per-app volume levels, mute states and stereo balance;
  • output routing rules (which app plays through which device), device groups and priority devices;
  • EQ curves, selected headphone calibration and loudness settings;
  • saved profiles and Focus Mode links;
  • keyboard shortcut and MIDI controller bindings;
  • whether onboarding has been completed.

The names of running applications appear in these settings because levels and routing are saved per app. None of this is personal data, none of it is transmitted, and all of it is removed when you delete the app.

The headphone calibration catalog is static data bundled inside the app and derived from the open-source AutoEq project (MIT license). It involves no network service and collects nothing.

Purchases

The free trial and the one-time full unlock are Apple in-app purchases, handled entirely by Apple's StoreKit. Payment is processed by Apple; the developer never sees or receives your name, email address, payment card or billing details.

The app reads Apple's cryptographically signed purchase record on your device to determine whether access is active and when the trial began. That record stays on your Mac and in your Apple Account. Apple's own privacy policy governs the purchase itself: apple.com/legal/privacy.

Third parties and tracking

MixBar contains no analytics, crash-reporting, advertising or attribution SDKs. No data is shared with, sold to or brokered through any third party. There are no cookies or trackers in the app. Nothing is combined with data from other companies to build a profile of you.

This website is hosted on GitHub Pages, which — like any web host — may process standard server request data such as your IP address and browser type in order to serve the page. That processing is GitHub's, described in the GitHub Privacy Statement. The site loads no analytics, no advertising and no third-party fonts.

Your rights, retention and deletion

Because no personal data is collected, there is nothing held about you to access, correct, export, restrict or erase, and no data is retained on any server. In practice:

  • Deleting your data: remove the app from your Applications folder. Your locally stored preferences go with it.
  • Revoking permission: turn MixBar off under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Audio Recording.
  • Purchase history: managed by Apple through your Apple Account.

If you are in the EU/EEA, the UK, California or another region with statutory data rights, you may still contact us at cardinalys81@gmail.com and we will confirm in writing that no personal data about you is held.

Children

MixBar is rated 4+ and is suitable for all ages. It collects no data from anyone, including children, and contains no advertising, no user-generated content and no links out to social networks.

Changes to this policy

If a future version of the app changes how data is handled, this page will be updated before that version ships, and the effective date above will change. The current commitments — no collection, no tracking, no network use beyond Apple's purchase checks — are part of the product, not a temporary position.