Privacy

This page explains, in plain words, what Octotune keeps, where it keeps it, and who else is involved. It describes the app as it works today.

The short version

• Your progress stays on your device. No account is needed.
• No ads, and no analytics. Octotune contains no advertising or analytics code, and nothing that follows you around the web.
• Children are never asked for anything. No name, no age, no sign-in, no chat.
• Signing in is optional, and for grown-ups. Sign in with Google or Apple and a copy of your progress is kept in your account, so it is safe and the same on every device.
• A few outside services are used for optional accounts, subscriptions and teacher courses. They are listed below.
• No microphone, no camera, no location. Octotune never asks for them.

What stays on your device

Everything Octotune needs to work is kept in your browser's own storage, on your device:

• Progress: which stops on the path are done and their tempo marks, stars for lessons and songs, how quickly and accurately you read each note, your practice days, and (in Kids mode) the notes your child has met.
• Preferences: things like tempo, finger hints, your daily goal and how you like songs shown.
• Settings for this device only: Kids or Adult, sound on or off, which keyboard you use, and, if a grown-up has signed in, a note that lets the website show your account link. These never leave the device, even if you sign in.
• Songs you open from your own files (MIDI or MusicXML). They are kept on the device and never uploaded.
• Files for playing offline: the app itself and its fonts, songs and lessons you have opened, and the instrument sounds.

Kids and Adult keep separate progress on the same device.

Backups. In Adult's settings and in the Kids grown-ups' drawer, "Save a backup" writes your progress to a file that you keep. Nothing is sent anywhere. "Restore from a backup" reads it back.

Reports for a teacher. A grown-up can make a one-page practice report for a player, for example to give to a piano teacher. The report is made on your device from the progress already kept there. It contains the name you choose to put on it, whether the player uses Kids or Adult, the days practiced and minutes at the piano, where they are on the path, the pieces played and how fluently, the notes that are strong or need more work, and your own note if you add one. It never includes an age, a photo, your email address or your account's identifiers. Octotune does not send, upload or store the report anywhere. It goes only where you send it yourself: through your device's share sheet, by copying the text, by printing it, or by saving it as a file. The only thing the app keeps is the time a report was last made for each player, on your device, so it can offer "since the last report"; that is never synced or sent.

To remove it all, clear this site's data in your browser's settings. If you have saved backup files, delete those too.

If a grown-up signs in

Signing in is optional. It sits in Adult's top bar menu and behind the hold in the Kids grown-ups' drawer, never on a screen a child uses. You can sign in with a Google account or with Apple (Sign in with Apple).

When you sign in, we use Google's Firebase services:

• Firebase Authentication keeps your sign-in profile: your name, your email address, and whether you signed in with Google or Apple. If you choose Apple's "Hide My Email", we receive a relay address from Apple instead of your own.
• Cloud Firestore keeps your account's progress and preferences listed above (not the device-only settings), and the time they were last saved. Each player on the device (up to six, each with their own book) has its own copy under the account, and all of them belong to the grown-up signed in on it. Optional studios and courses have the records described below.
• A plan record says which plan your account is on. The app can read it but never change it.
• Octotune Plus: for a signed-in grown-up, the app checks whether the account has an Octotune Plus subscription by asking RevenueCat, the service that keeps track of subscriptions, using only the account's id.
• Buying Octotune Plus on the web: when a grown-up chooses a plan, the app opens a checkout page run by Stripe, passed through RevenueCat with only the account's id. Link, by Stripe, is the seller on the web: it collects your email address, payment details and billing address to take the payment, work out any tax and send receipts, under Stripe's and Link's own privacy policies. Octotune never sees your card number.
• Buying in the iPhone or iPad app: Apple takes the payment through your Apple Account. We receive only whether the account has Octotune Plus, and until when.

Our security rules protect private account documents. A grown-up can also read information shared with their studio and the public teacher and course information described below.

When it syncs. When you sign in, when the app starts, a few seconds after your progress changes, and when the app goes into the background. Nothing is sent unless your progress has changed.

Signing out leaves this device's progress where it is.

Deleting your account. In your account ("Account and backup"), "Delete account" asks once more, then deletes your account's copy of the progress and then the account itself. If you signed in a while ago, Google or Apple asks you to sign in again first, to make sure it is you. The progress on your device stays until you clear it. Delete your account has the steps, what is deleted and what is kept, and how to ask by email without the app.

Recovery copies. To recover cloud data after an error, Cloud Firestore keeps limited recovery history and daily backups for up to seven days. Deleting your account removes its active cloud records as described above. Recovery copies are restricted to service recovery, expire automatically, and are not used for running your account. We reapply account deletions before putting recovered data back into service.

The sign-in code isn't loaded until it is needed. Browsing public teacher profiles and courses can read Google's Cloud Firestore without signing in; Google receives the request's IP address. Browsing does not send your progress or what you searched for.

Studios (for adult students)

A piano teacher with an Octotune account can create a studio and invite adult students with a code or a link. Studios are for grown-ups only: a child's player can't join, be shown in, or share anything with a studio.

What we keep for a studio. The studio's name, the name the teacher chooses to show students, the teacher's avatar, and the current invite code. For each student: the name they choose to show their teacher, their avatar, which kinds of progress they share, and a short summary of only those kinds. The kinds are: where they are on the learning path, pieces finished with tempo marks, practice days and minutes over the last 7 days, and notes that are strong or need work. We also keep the teacher's notes to a student (up to 280 characters, the latest ten) and the student's replies, which are chosen from three set reactions. The summary is made on the student's device from their own progress. It never includes recordings, keystrokes, their email address or any child's progress.

Who sees it. A teacher sees only their own students and only what each student has switched on. Sharing is off until the student turns it on. Students never see each other, and nothing is ranked. Octotune doesn't show studio information to anyone else.

Your choices. A student can change what they share or leave a studio at any time; leaving deletes their studio summary and the teacher's notes to them at once. A teacher can remove a student or delete a studio, which deletes what the students shared with it. Deleting your account leaves every studio you're in and deletes every studio you teach.

Where it's kept. In Google's Cloud Firestore, with your account, under the same protections as your synced progress.

Teacher profiles and courses

These features are for grown-ups. A teacher can publish a profile with a handle, display name, avatar or photo, city, bio and teaching information. Published profiles and course listings are public, including to people without an account. Teachers choose what to put on them. Private course drafts and published course versions are stored in Cloud Firestore; a course's description, sample information and ratings may be public, while its full learning content is read by people who have added it or joined the relevant studio.

For a course you add, we keep its version, when you added or removed it, and practice counters used to qualify a rating. A rating may contain the display name and avatar you choose, stars, a comment, and practice-day information if you choose to share it. A teacher's reply is public with the rating. Reports about profiles, listings or ratings include the reporting account, reason, optional note and moderation outcome; these are restricted to moderation staff. We keep moderation restrictions and rate limits to protect the service.

If you arrive through a teacher's link or enter their code, we may record that teacher as the account's referral, with the source and time. You can remove that referral in settings. Teachers see aggregate referral and course counts, not a list of referred accounts.

Deleting your account removes your private courses and their versions, profile, ratings, course ownership and referral records. Public listing text, teacher identity snapshots, versions and teacher replies are erased. Minimal listing tombstones, reserved handles, aggregate counters and moderation records can remain to prevent impersonation, reconcile other accounts and handle abuse reports. These retained records can contain internal account identifiers; they do not keep your deleted profile or course text. Content somebody independently saved or shared cannot be recalled from their device.

Children

Kids mode is for children from about 2½. It asks a child for nothing: there is no name, no profile, no sign-in, no chat and nothing to buy. There is no voice, and the app never listens. Anything a grown-up might change, including signing in, sits behind a gear that has to be held down for a second and a half, and then a short sum, written in words, that only a grown-up can answer. A link that leaves the app asks the same sum first.

Outside services the app uses

Octotune serves its own sounds, fonts and pages. Optional account, course and purchase features also contact the services below. Each request tells that server your device's IP address, as every web request does. Our pages tell them only that the request came from Octotune, never which page you were on.

Hosting. Octotune's pages, the app and the sounds of every instrument are served by Firebase Hosting, a Google service. As with any website, the server receives your IP address and the address of each file requested, in order to send it.

MIDI keyboards

If you connect a MIDI keyboard, your browser asks first whether Octotune may use MIDI devices. The notes you play are used inside the app to check your playing. They are not sent anywhere.

Changes

If what Octotune keeps changes, this page will change with it, and the date at the top will show when.

The rules for using Octotune are in the terms of service.

Questions about privacy? Email us at hello@octotune.com, or see About Octotune.

The Octotune team · Updated October 3, 2026