Privacy

Needle is made to stay on your Mac. There's no account, no analytics, no tracking and no ads. This page says exactly what leaves your Mac, and why.

What leaves your Mac

• Lyrics. To show the words of a song, Needle sends its title, artist and length to LRCLIB, a public lyrics library, and gets the lyrics back. Nothing else is sent.
• Weather. If you turn the weather on, Needle sends your approximate location (rounded to about a kilometre) or the city you typed to MET Norway, the Norwegian weather service, to get the forecast. macOS turns your location into a place name.
• Album art. The cover of the song playing is loaded from your music app's servers, the same way the app itself loads it.
• Buying Needle. When you buy a licence, the payment is handled by our payment provider. We receive your email address to send you your licence key.

What stays on your Mac

• What you listen to. Needle reads what's playing from Spotify or Apple Music on your Mac. Your diary of songs and your weekly recap are stored only on your Mac.
• Face Unlock. The picture of your face that Needle remembers, and your Mac password, are kept in your Mac's Keychain. Camera images are never saved or sent anywhere.
• Typing. Keyboard sounds and the typing buddy only notice that a key was pressed, to play a sound and count your speed. What you type is never read or stored.
• Settings. Everything you set in Needle stays in Needle's settings on your Mac.

Permissions Needle asks for

macOS asks you before Needle can control Spotify or Music, use the camera (Face Unlock and the mirror), hear your Mac's sound (Beat Glow), notice key presses (keyboard sounds), see your location (weather) or read your calendar (the big island). You can say no to any of them and turn them off later in System Settings › Privacy & Security.

Contact

Questions about privacy: hello@needle.example

Last updated October 2026.