Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 26, 2026

Aether is a player for media you already have. There is no Aether account, and your films, shows and music never pass through any server of ours — Aether streams them straight from your own servers and devices. Some data does leave your device, though, and this page lists all of it: what is sent, to whom, and how to turn off what can be turned off.

Usage statistics by version

From version 2026.10.2 build 556, Aether sends no usage statistics. Version 2026.10.1 and other builds still containing TelemetryDeck, including 2026.10.2 builds before build 556, use the disclosure below.

Aether sends usage statistics to TelemetryDeck (TelemetryDeck GmbH, Germany). This is on by default, from the first launch. You can turn it off at any time with the Anonymous Usage Statistics switch:

• iPhone, iPad and Apple Vision Pro: Settings ▸ Help & About ▸ Anonymous Usage Statistics (under Support)
• Apple TV: Settings ▸ Support & About ▸ Anonymous Usage Statistics (under About)
• Mac: Settings ▸ Help & About ▸ Privacy ▸ Anonymous Usage Statistics

It takes effect immediately, without a relaunch: from then on Aether records nothing new. Events recorded before that and not yet delivered — including any kept while the device was offline — may still be sent afterwards.

What is sent:

• Which features are used — app sessions; the first-run introduction started and finished; adding a source started and finished, with the kind of source (Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, SMB, WebDAV and so on); a source's library loading; playback started, past 30 seconds and finished, with the kind of item (film, episode, track and so on); a diagnostics report sent; sign-ins transferred from another device (counts only).
• What playback looked like — when playback starts: which player engine was used and why another one passed, the kind of source, whether it played from a download, the video and audio codec, the container, SDR/HDR/Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos or not, the kinds of subtitles, and a rough count of audio tracks.
• Crashes — when Apple reports a crash or hang to Aether on the next launch: its type, the exception type, signal and termination reason the system gives, and the app version and build — without the call stack.
• Device and settings, added by the TelemetryDeck SDK — app version and build; device model, operating system and version, architecture, screen size and orientation; time zone; language, region and locale; light or dark mode; some accessibility settings (such as Reduce Motion, Bold Text and text size); whether it is an App Store or TestFlight build; the day of the week and hour; the day of the month and year, the week, month and quarter; usage counters such as the date of first use, number of sessions, days used (in total and last month) and the length of the previous and average session; whether it is a debug or simulator build, text direction, further accessibility settings and the SDK version; plus an event when a new installation is detected.
• A pseudonymous identifier — a one-way hash of the identifier Apple gives Aether on your device (on the Mac, a random ID created on first launch). The raw identifier never leaves the device. It lets events from the same installation be counted together; it does not tell us your name or Apple Account. The app calls these statistics “anonymous”; strictly, they are pseudonymous.

Never sent: titles, file names, folder paths, server names or addresses, user names, passwords or tokens, search text, or anything else about what is in your library beyond the technical facts above. Like any internet connection, the request reaches TelemetryDeck from your IP address; Aether does not add it to the data. How TelemetryDeck handles its servers' data is described in its privacy policy.

Services Aether contacts on its own

To show artwork, ratings and recommendations, Aether contacts these services without you signing in to anything. They receive your IP address with each request, like any website.

• TMDb (The Movie Database) — for every title you open, from any source: its IMDb/TMDb/TVDB ID or, failing that, its title and year, to fetch details, artwork, trailers, similar titles, reviews and where it streams in your region. Files on SMB and WebDAV shares and files imported to the device are matched as soon as Aether scans them — including titles you never open; for these and for Nexus, the title and year are parsed from the file name — the file itself is never sent. Your search text and the people you ask Ask Aether about are searched on TMDb too. TMDb privacy policy.
• OMDb — a title's IMDb ID, for IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic ratings on its page.
• IntroDB — while you watch something your server has no skip markers for: its IMDb ID and the season and episode, to find intros, recaps and credits. Turn it off with Community Intro Data (IntroDB) in Settings.
• Simkl — when no Trakt account is connected, the Home recommendations ask Simkl about the TMDb IDs of the titles in your library you finished, favourited or rated highly; Up Next and the Calendar download Simkl's public airing schedule, which sends nothing about you.
• TheTVDB — for TV episodes imported to the device or in folders scanned by the Mac app: the show's title and year and the season and episode number.
• MusicBrainz and Cover Art Archive — for imported music, the track, artist and album from its tags. Turn it off with Enhance Metadata Online in Settings.
• YouTube — trailer thumbnails on title pages, and the trailer itself when you play it (on the Mac, also when a title page plays its trailer automatically). Gravatar serves the avatars of TMDb reviewers. On Apple TV and Mac, when a trailer is played inside Aether, its YouTube video ID can also go to a fallback service run by the author of YouTubeKit, the open-source library Aether uses to find the playable stream.
• Apple ShazamKit — when What's This Song? listens, a fingerprint of the sound from the film that is playing (never the microphone) goes to Apple to identify the song. For Supporters this can also happen automatically during playback (Recognize Music Automatically in Settings).
• Aether’s Sport proxy — in builds with this proxy, a Supporter without a key sends match and league requests here. The proxy receives the query, your IP address and a signed App Store Supporter entitlement to check access, then forwards the query to TheSportsDB.

Services you choose to connect

These are only contacted when you use them — after you sign in or enter your own key, or, for OpenSubtitles, when you open subtitle search. Each receives what it needs to do its job — under that service's own privacy policy.

• TheSportsDB — with your own key, match and league requests go directly to TheSportsDB.
• Trakt — what you watch (scrobbling), watched history, playback progress, ratings and your watchlist, depending on the switches you leave on. Simkl (account) — what you watch. MDBList — what you watch, watched state and progress, with your API key.
• OpenSubtitles — when you open subtitle search, signed in or not: the title's ID (or its name), season, episode and the languages you want; downloading requires your OpenSubtitles sign-in.
• Plex.tv and Emby Connect — your sign-in, server list and Plex Home users; with Plex, also your Plex watchlist.
• Your Seerr server — your Seerr sign-in (which can be your Plex sign-in) and the titles you search for and request.

Connected devices and links

Aether requests media from the servers and network shares you connect. Live TV playlist, Xtream and guide requests go to the provider addresses you add or that a playlist supplies. An accepted aether:// play link fetches the HTTP or HTTPS URL inside it, which may include a provider token. Remote Play and sign-in transfer exchange title identifiers or approved sign-ins with your Apple TV over the local network. Apple TV Top Shelf reads recent titles and artwork from Aether’s shared app container. On iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro, Aether also adds library titles, descriptions and music tags to the system Spotlight index so they appear in device search.

iCloud

Sync With iCloudis on by default: resume positions, Home layout, watchlist and ratings, profiles (names, photos and kids settings), playback settings, appearance and Home settings (theme, Discover, streaming services, sports leagues, Music, app language), and Live TV playlists sync between your devices through your private iCloud. That data is in your iCloud account, not with us. A Live TV playlist address can contain a user name and password if your provider puts them there. Turn sync off, entirely or per category, in Settings ▸ Services & Sync ▸ iCloud Sync.

Sync Server Logins is off by default. When you turn it on, your server sign-ins — and other sign-ins Aether keeps in the Keychain, such as connected services — are stored in iCloud Keychain, end-to-end encrypted by Apple. It is not available on Apple TV.

Where the rest lives

• Server sign-ins — stored in the Keychain on your device and used only to talk to the server they belong to.
• Watch history — playback progress and watched state go to your own Plex, Jellyfin, Emby or Nexus server, as those servers are designed to work.
• Downloads and imported files — stored on your device.
• Ask Aether — runs on your device: on Apple Intelligence where it is available and switched on (not on Apple TV), otherwise as an on-device keyword match. Only the TMDb lookups above go out.

Diagnostics and bug reports

Only when you choose to. Send Diagnostics (Settings ▸ Help & About on iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro and Mac; Settings ▸ Support & About on Apple TV) sends a report to the developer through Apple's iCloud, which needs you to be signed in to iCloud and gives you a reference code; on iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro and Mac you can email it instead. Report a Bugworks the same way on iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro; on the Mac it opens an email with the report attached (or a plain email, if no mail app can take an attachment). The report holds the app version and build, device model and operating system, a log of what the app recently did (in an iCloud report, also the previous run), and what you write in a bug report. On iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Vision Pro it also includes recent crash summaries, the names of your sources (often your server's name) and whether they are reachable, library and download counts and sizes, cache size, your theme and your default audio and subtitle language. It contains no passwords or sign-in tokens. File names, paths and web addresses are stripped from the log as far as the app can recognise them; this is best-effort, so part of a file name can occasionally remain.

Debug Mode records more detailed playback, search, Live TV, library, source, Home and sync decisions in the local log. A report can include that log if you send it. CloudKit attaches an account identifier to an uploaded report, so reports from the same Apple Account can be linked; the report is not anonymous.

Apple may also share crash reports with developers if you allowed that in your device's settings.

Purchases

Supporter plans and tips are bought through the App Store. Apple handles the payment. For Sport through Aether’s proxy, the app sends a signed App Store Supporter entitlement with each request so the proxy can check access.

What Aether doesn't do

No advertising, no advertising identifier, no tracking across other companies' apps or websites, and no selling of data.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be published at this address with an updated effective date.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Write to support@aetherplayer.com.