IDReel listens to the videos on your iPhone or Mac to find which of your tracks play in them. That work happens on the device. Your videos and your music never leave it.
The short version. IDReel has no sign-up: no account, no password, no email. Your videos, your music files and the results all stay on your iPhone. We cannot see them, and neither can anyone else. The app sends anonymous usage numbers (counts and timings, never titles, files, video, audio or places) so we can make it better, and you can switch that off in the app. Crew cards are the one thing that uses our server: if you make one, the artist name you type, the track titles you choose to show and audio fingerprints of those tracks go there, under an anonymous login with no email or password. If you open a friend's card, only numbers (how many clips you found and sent) and the handle you choose to add go there. What they are, how long we keep them and how to delete them are below.
IDReel for Mac is the same idea on a Mac: your masters, your footage folders, your Photos library and your Dropbox, read on the Mac, where the results stay too. What it does is below.
When you scan, IDReel asks Photos for each video in its small form, listens to the audio, and turns it into a short mathematical fingerprint. The video copy is discarded straight away. Matching your fingerprints against your own track files uses Apple's on-device audio recognition, which also runs locally.
IDReel for Mac reads the folders you add, on the Mac or on a drive, your Photos library if you add it, and the Dropbox folders you add. It only reads: it never changes, moves or deletes your files, and never writes next to them. For each video it listens to the sound, makes the same short fingerprint and matches it against your own tracks, on the Mac.
Anonymous usage numbers, and nothing about your music. To see where the app is slow or confusing, IDReel sends short events such as "a scan finished: 240 videos, 12 minutes, 3 found" or "a clip was confirmed". Each event carries:
Never: track titles, file names, video, audio, fingerprints, locations or place names, anything you type, your name, email or contacts. The numbers are not used for advertising, not sold, not shared, and not linked to you across other apps or websites. Only we can read them. They are not tied to your name, with one exception you control: feedback you send from the app carries the first 6 characters of that random number (your install code), so we can find your numbers when you ask for help. Delete that line from the message if you'd rather we couldn't.
On unless you switch it off: on the iPhone, You, then Feedback, then "Send anonymous numbers"; on the Mac, IDReel, then Settings, then Privacy, then "Send anonymous numbers". The app tells you the first time you open it. Switch it off and nothing more is sent.
The app also receives Apple's crash and performance reports when your iPhone is set to share them with developers; you control that in iOS Settings, Privacy & Security, Analytics & Improvements.
If IDReel for Mac closes unexpectedly or stops responding, it keeps a short report on the Mac for 30 days: when, which version, where in IDReel it stopped and the last lines of its own log. Never track names, file names or video. Only how many there were, and the error's code, go out with the anonymous numbers. A report itself leaves the Mac only in an email you send (Help, then Send a Report), with your user name, the Mac's IDs and file names taken out. Delete them any time in Settings, then Privacy.
Once a day IDReel for Mac asks getidreel.com which version is the newest. The request carries nothing about you or your Mac: no install number, no cookies. When there is a newer one, Home says so with a Download button; nothing downloads or installs by itself. Switch the check off in Settings, then Privacy.
The Places screen groups your videos by where they were filmed. That location comes from the metadata Photos already saved with each video. IDReel does not track your location and does not run in the background to follow you. Place names are looked up through Apple's maps service using only a coordinate, and the result is cached on your phone.
If your videos live in iCloud Photos, your phone downloads each one from Apple to listen to it, exactly as the Photos app does when you open a video. That is a download to your device, never an upload from it.
Moments and posts you save go into your Photos library with the original's date and place, and sync with iCloud Photos if you use it. Clips you share or send to a friend carry no location.
Like any app's data, what IDReel keeps on your phone (its index of your videos, a thumbnail of each one that matched, and copies of your tracks) is part of your iPhone backup, in iCloud or on your computer, if you back up.
Connecting Dropbox is optional. If you connect it:
In IDReel for Mac you can paste a Dropbox link someone sent you, such as a gig's folder from the videographer. IDReel reads the sound of the videos behind it through your own Dropbox sign-in. Nothing is saved to anyone's Dropbox and nothing is uploaded. The link, and its password if it has one, are kept only in your Mac's Keychain. On your Mac, IDReel keeps the folder's name, the names of its videos, their fingerprints and the sound it read, as it does for your own Dropbox. Whoever shared the link may see in their Dropbox that its videos were opened, and the reading counts toward their Dropbox's daily allowance, so IDReel stops at a daily limit for each link. Remove the link in the app and everything kept for it is deleted, apart from clips you exported.
Crew cards are in the iPhone app; IDReel for Mac doesn't have them yet.
A crew card is how you ask friends to find footage of your tracks. If you make one:
A friend who opens your card checks their own videos on their own phone. Their videos are never uploaded. Opening a card makes the same kind of anonymous login on their phone, so the card can count them, and it keeps the handle they choose to add. IDReel pre-selects the clips it is sure of; the friend can leave any out, and only the clips they send leave their phone. The file they send holds those clips, their handle, when they agreed to share, and for each clip the track, the night it was filmed and the part cut, never where it was filmed. It also carries the random number their phone uses for your card, so your phone can tell IDReel that the clips arrived and that you said thanks: a count and a yes, nothing else.
Cards follow the card terms: no offensive names or titles. Names, titles and handles are checked against a list of blocked words, and anyone can report a card from the card itself, in the app or on its web page. Reported cards are closed within 24 h.
If you leave your email on getidreel.com (the beta list or launch news), we keep it, together with what you typed in that form (on the beta page, your DJ name and what you play on), so we can write to you about IDReel. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and you can ask us to delete it. The app never asks for your email.
The usage numbers and the crew-card data are stored for IDReel by Supabase, our database provider: usage numbers on servers in the United States, crew cards in Ireland. Supabase processes them only to run that service for us, under its data processing terms, and must protect them at least as well as this policy does. It doesn't use them for anything of its own. The email list from this website is kept for us by Klaviyo, our email service, in the United States, under its data processing terms.
Send feedback (on the iPhone, You, then Feedback; on the Mac, Help, then Send Feedback) opens your mail app with a short technical summary: app version, system version, device model, your install code (the first 6 characters of the random install number) and counts such as how many videos are indexed. On the iPhone, if a scan stopped on an error, the summary can name the video it stopped on. On the Mac it also carries the last lines of the app's journal: events and numbers, no file names or folders; in version 0.3 a line could name a release or artist you were looking at; version 0.4 removed that. No audio, no video, no location. You can read and edit the whole message before sending it, or delete it.
On your phone. Deleting the app removes everything IDReel keeps there: fingerprints, matches, notes, your track copies and the install number. To keep the app and start over, You, then Reset library index removes the fingerprints and matches. Your videos in Photos and Dropbox are never touched by either.
On your Mac. Quit IDReel, then delete the app and its folder, ~/Library/Application Support/IDReel for Mac: that removes the index, the fingerprints, your track copies, the kept Dropbox sound, the crash reports and the install number. Settings, then Privacy, then Delete removes the crash reports alone. Your files, your Photos library and your Dropbox are never touched. Your install code is in Settings, then Privacy.
Crew cards. In the app, You, then Delete my card data deletes your cards, their fingerprint files, the handles and counts, and the anonymous login from our server at once. Do it before you delete the app: deleting the app alone doesn't reach our server, and the card data then goes on the schedule above.
Ask us. Email support@getidreel.com with "Delete my IDReel data". The quickest way is from the app (on the iPhone, You, then Feedback, then Send feedback; on the Mac, Help, then Send Feedback), because that message already carries your install code, which is how we find your usage numbers. For cards made on a phone you no longer have, add their 6-character codes. We delete it within 30 days and write back when it's done.
IDReel is made for working DJs and producers and is not directed at children under 13.
Questions about this policy: support@getidreel.com. IDReel is made by Yaffa Records.