Privacy Policy
Effective November 11, 2026
Smudged is an Android app that covers and mutes profanity in the apps you use. It is made by an independent developer in the United States ("we"). This policy explains what Smudged reads, hears, keeps and sends. If you have a question, write to support@smudgedapp.com.
The short version
- Smudged works on your phone. What it reads on your screen and hears from your apps never leaves your phone.
- It never saves screenshots, recordings or sound.
- It keeps a few things on your phone only: the times where profanity was found and which video, song or book they belong to, plus your settings, word lists and counts.
- Ads: if you choose to watch an ad for more free time, Google's ad service receives what it needs to show that ad. Ads are not personalized.
- We have no accounts and no servers that store your information, and we never sell it.
What Smudged reads
With your permission, Smudged uses Android's Accessibility service to read the words on screen in Kindle, YouTube, YouTube Music, Spotify and Audible, so it can find profanity and cover or mute it. To read those apps, it takes pictures of their screens, reads them on your phone and throws each picture away right after. In any other app, it only notes which app is open. Smudged shows what it uses this permission for, and asks you to agree, before you switch it on.
What Smudged hears
If you turn on listening or Listen ahead, Smudged hears the sound of those same apps through Android's audio capture (not the microphone, and never the room) and uses a speech model on your phone to time its mutes. The sound is never recorded, saved or sent anywhere. Android asks you to allow screen sharing each time listening starts.
Notification access and notifications
Notification access lets Smudged know what YouTube, YouTube Music, Spotify and Audible are playing, and where in the video, song or book they are. Smudged does not read your notifications. If you allow notifications, Smudged only uses them to warn you before your free time runs out. It never puts ads in notifications.
What Smudged keeps on your phone
- The times where profanity was found, with the video's, song's or book's title, its channel, artist or author, and its length, so it can mute them next time.
- Your settings and the lists you make (your own words, channels and artists marked clean, and so on).
- Counts, such as how many words were muted, and how much free time you have left.
All of this stays in Smudged's private storage on your phone. Uninstalling Smudged deletes it. If your phone backs up apps to your Google account, Android may keep a copy of Smudged's settings, lists and counts there, under Google's own privacy policy. The profanity times are never included in that backup.
Ads
Smudged's free version gives you some free time each day. You can choose to watch an ad to get more. Ads are shown by Google's ad service (Google AdMob) only when you tap to watch one, and only on Smudged's own screen. To show and count an ad and to prevent fraud, Google's ad software receives information such as your phone's model and system version, its advertising ID, your IP address (which suggests a general area) and how you interact with the ad. Smudged asks Google for non-personalized ads, rated for general audiences. Nothing Smudged reads or hears is shared with the ad service. Google's use of this information is covered by Google's Privacy Policy and how Google uses information from apps that use its services. You can reset or delete your advertising ID in your phone's settings.
Google Play
Downloads, ratings and reviews, and any future purchases, are handled by Google Play under Google's own policies. We never receive your payment details.
If you email us, we receive your email address and what you write, and use them only to answer you. We keep these emails only as long as we need them to help you.
Sharing and selling
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for targeted advertising. Apart from the ad information described above, which goes directly from your phone to Google when you watch an ad, Smudged sends nothing to us or anyone else.
Children and families
Smudged is for anyone who wants cleaner apps, and parents can set it up on their child's phone. It is not designed for or marketed to children under 13. Smudged itself collects no personal information from anyone, of any age: what it reads and hears stays on the phone, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. Ads, when someone chooses to watch one, are non-personalized and rated for general audiences. If you're a parent with a question about Smudged on your child's phone, write to us.
Your choices
- Each permission can be skipped in the app's setup and switched off in Android's settings at any time.
- Listening and Listen ahead are off unless you use them.
- You can delete everything Smudged keeps by uninstalling it, or by clearing its storage in Android's settings.
- Because we don't keep your information on any server, there is nothing about you for us to look up or delete. If you have a question or a request about your privacy, including under the laws of the state you live in, write to us.
Changes to this policy
If Smudged changes what it does with information, we will update this page and its date before the change reaches the app.