The short version
MaxShot is an iPhone app that builds recap videos from photos and videos you already have. It has no user account and no servers. Your photos and videos are never uploaded anywhere, and neither is any record of what you did in the app.
I do not collect, store, see, sell, or share your personal information. There is no analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, no crash-reporting service, and no tracking of any kind in the app. Everything below is a description of what happens on your own device, plus the three narrow cases where a small piece of data goes to Apple or Google to answer a specific question you asked.
What the app uses, and why
| What | Why | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Photos and videos | To choose shots and build your recap. | Stays on your device. |
| Saving to your library | To put the finished recap in your camera roll. | Stays on your device. |
| Photo location data | To group photos by place and name those places. | Coordinates only, to Apple. |
| Microphone | Only when you ask the app to identify a song playing nearby. | An audio fingerprint, to Apple. |
| Speech in your own videos | Only if you tap it, so a clip is not cut mid-sentence. | Stays on your device. |
| Google Photos | Only if you connect it, to import photos you pick. | Downloaded to your device. |
Your photos and videos
With your permission, MaxShot reads photos and videos from your library so it can select shots, trim clips, and assemble a recap. All of this analysis — including detecting near-duplicate frames, noticing which shots contain people, and finding the best moment inside a long video — runs entirely on your iPhone, using frameworks built into iOS. No image, video, or frame is ever transmitted off the device.
When you export a recap, the app asks for permission to add the finished video to your photo library. That is the only thing it writes there.
Places
Photos you have taken may contain the coordinates of where they were taken. MaxShot reads those coordinates, already stored in your library, to group photos into trips and places. The app does not track your location and does not use your device's live GPS position.
To turn coordinates into a readable place name, MaxShot asks Apple's Maps service. Only the coordinates are sent, never a photo or anything that identifies you. This is covered by Apple's privacy policy.
Identifying a song
If you tap the button to identify music playing around you, MaxShot uses Apple's ShazamKit to listen. A mathematical fingerprint of the audio is sent to Apple to find a match; the audio itself is never recorded, saved, or sent anywhere, and the microphone is used only while you are on that screen. To show artwork and previews for a matched song, the app queries Apple's public iTunes Search service with the song's title and artist.
Speech in your own videos
MaxShot can optionally listen to what is said in your own videos, so that a trimmed clip keeps a whole sentence rather than cutting someone off mid-word. This never runs automatically — it happens only when you tap Listen to what's said, it runs on your device, and the audio is not recorded, saved, or sent anywhere.
Google Photos
Connecting Google Photos is entirely optional; the app's other ways of choosing photos work without it. If you do connect it:
-
MaxShot requests a single, narrow permission —
photospicker.mediaitems.readonly. This grants access only to the specific items you hand-pick in a picking session you started. It gives the app no ability to browse, search, or list your Google Photos library. - Only the items you pick are downloaded, and they are downloaded straight to your device.
- The access token Google issues is stored in the iOS Keychain on your device. It is never sent anywhere else, because there is nowhere else.
- You can disconnect at any time from within the app, or revoke access at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
Limited Use. MaxShot's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically: data obtained through Google Photos is used only to provide the photo-import feature you asked for; it is not transferred to anyone else except as necessary to provide that feature; it is not used for advertising; it is not sold; and no human reads it.
Crash diagnostics
MaxShot records crashes and freezes using MetricKit, which is built into iOS, so that a problem can be understood later. These reports are written to a log on your device only and are never uploaded. Separately, iOS itself may share diagnostics with Apple if you have turned that on in your device settings — that is an Apple setting, under your control, not something the app does.
Children
MaxShot is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect personal information from them. Since the app collects nothing, there is nothing for me to hold or delete.
How long anything is kept, and how to delete it
Your projects, settings, and any imported media live in the app's own storage on your device. Deleting MaxShot from your iPhone deletes all of it. Because nothing is transmitted to me, there is no copy elsewhere to request or erase. If you connected Google Photos, revoking access at the link above removes the app's permission as well.
Your rights
Privacy laws such as the GDPR and the CCPA give you rights to access, correct, delete, and port personal data a company holds about you, and to opt out of its sale. MaxShot holds none: there is no account, no server, and no collection, so there is no data for me to produce, correct, or sell. Your data is on your device, under your control. If you want to exercise a right anyway, or simply check this claim, write to me and I will answer.
Changes to this policy
If the app gains a feature that changes any of the above, this page will be updated and the effective date at the top will change. Material changes will also be noted in the app.
Contact
MaxShot is made by Max Bassett, an independent developer.
Questions about privacy, or anything else:
maxrbassett@gmail.com.