Privacy policy

The rest of this page is the Scrollwheel app’s privacy policy, the same text as in the app’s source repository.

Last updated: 29 October 2026

Scrollwheel collects no data about you unless you turn on the optional games leaderboard (below). It has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising and no crash reporting, and it sends nothing about you, your phone, your iPod or your music to the developers or to anyone else.

What stays on your phone

Backups. Before any action that changes an iPod’s firmware area or database, Scrollwheel saves a backup of that area (and copies of the iPod’s music database) in the app’s private storage on the phone. Other apps cannot read it. It is excluded from Android cloud backup and from device-to-device transfer, and it is deleted when you uninstall the app. You can share a backup yourself from Settings; nothing is shared automatically.
Activity log. What the app did is shown on screen, kept in memory and written to Android’s system log on the phone. It is saved to a file only when you tap Share, so that you can send it where you choose. If the app crashes, or ends during a video conversion, a short note of the error or of the conversion’s progress is kept in the app’s private storage and shown in the log the next time it starts, then deleted. The app also reads Android’s own record of why its last run ended, to show it in the log.
Downloads and conversions. Rockbox files you download and songs being converted are kept in the app’s private cache while they are needed. Videos converted with Add Video are kept in the app’s private storage until they are copied to the iPod (or you delete them in Files), then removed.
Your music and files are read only when you pick them with Android’s file picker, and only to copy them to the iPod or back.

Network use

Scrollwheel uses the internet mainly for the Rockbox features. When you tap Download, open the Rockbox themes, fonts and games, or install one of them, the app fetches those files and pages from rockbox.org (download.rockbox.org and themes.rockbox.org), through a built-in web view and HTTPS. rockbox.org’s browser check runs in that web view and may set a cookie there. These requests carry what any web request carries (your IP address and the web view’s browser identification), and rockbox.org’s own policies apply to them. Scrollwheel sends no information about you or your iPod with them, and refuses to contact any other address.

On the Hardware Mods page, Check for Updates fetches the latest mods list from the Scrollwheel server (the leaderboard’s, on Cloudflare Workers), only when you tap it. That request sends nothing about you or your iPod; the connection carries your IP address, as any does. Links on that page open in your browser or the YouTube app, whose own policies apply.

Album artwork and lyrics are looked up only when you tap Find Artwork, Find Missing Artwork, Get Lyrics or Get Lyrics for My Library. For artwork the app sends the album’s name and artist to MusicBrainz (musicbrainz.org) and downloads the cover from the Cover Art Archive (coverartarchive.org, served by archive.org). For lyrics it sends each song’s title, artist, album and length to LRCLIB (lrclib.net). These are free public services with their own policies; the requests carry your IP address, as any do, and an app name in place of your phone’s details, and nothing else about you or your iPod. Lyrics are for your personal use.

If you never use the Rockbox download features, the leaderboard, Check for Updates or the artwork and lyrics lookups, the app makes no network connections. Apple firmware is never downloaded: you supply the .ipsw file yourself.

Games leaderboard (optional, off until you turn it on)

Scrollwheel’s own Rockbox games keep their best scores in small files beside them on the iPod. When the app reads an iPod with Rockbox, it notes those scores on the phone (in its private storage), to show them in Settings > Leaderboards.

If you choose a name there and tick “Post my best scores”, the app sends to the Scrollwheel leaderboard server, over HTTPS:

the name you chose (checked for bad language on the phone and again on the server);
your best score in each of Scrollwheel’s games;
a random id made on your phone the first time, so that your name and scores stay together. It is not linked to your phone, your Google account or anything else, and is never shown.

The leaderboard shows your name and scores publicly, to anyone using the app, with the date each best was set. Nothing else is sent: not your iPod’s contents, serial numbers or phone details. The server keeps your name, scores and id until you ask for them to be removed (open an issue at the address below with the name you used; the developers can remove it). To limit abuse the server counts posts per connection for an hour, using a one-way hash of your IP address that is deleted after that hour. The server runs on Cloudflare Workers, whose own privacy policy applies to the connection itself.

Untick “Post my best scores” to stop sending; scores already on the board stay until removed.

Scrollwheel OS’s games show a score code when a game ends instead of saving a score. Only when you tap “Set up score codes on this iPod” does the app send your random id to the server to get a key, which it writes to the iPod (/.scrollwheel/scorekey) and keeps on the phone. Only when you type a code and tap “Post code” does it send your id, your name and that code; the server reads the game and score from the code and shows them like the others.

Permissions

USB device access, granted by you for each iPod, to read and write the iPod.
Internet, used only for the Rockbox downloads, the mods list’s Check for Updates and, if you turn it on, the games leaderboard, all described above.
Foreground service, wake lock and notifications, so a long transfer to or from the iPod, or converting a video for it, keeps running when you leave the app or the screen turns off, with its progress shown in a notification. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Children

Scrollwheel is a utility for managing iPods and is not directed at children. Apart from the nickname and scores a user chooses to post to the optional leaderboard, it collects no personal information from anyone.

Changes and contact

Changes to this policy are published in this file in the app’s source repository, with the date at the top. Questions: email hello@scrollwheel.co.uk.