Privacy

Fractal Remote · last updated 8 November 2026

This app collects as little as it can. Your phone talks to your unit over Bluetooth, or through your computer, and what passes between them is control messages — a preset, a scene, a knob — passed along and not written down. The demo, and the computer app on its own, need no account and send nothing about you anywhere, and a phone that opens the computer's own address on the same wifi sends nothing anywhere about you either. Besides the computer app checking GitHub for its own updates, the one thing they ask the internet for is the price of the full version, so the demo can show it: from the payment company, under a made-up number rather than anything about you (see Unlocking the full version). On an iPhone, Safari itself may also ask Apple for the App Store banner at the top of the page.

Everything below is about the parts that do use the internet. Each one is something you choose to turn on, except three: the phone app asking whether it is unlocked when it opens, and a browser or the computer app asking the price of the full version as the demo or Settings opens, both described under Unlocking the full version, and the apps checking for updates, at the end of Where it is kept. None of them carries a name or an email address.

What is collected, and only if you ask for it

An account — only if you make one

The demo needs no account, and neither does the computer app on its own. Joining the two — so the phone can drive the unit plugged into your computer — is what an account is for: the two ends find each other by both being signed into the same account. The same account is what carries a full version you bought, and your setlists, to your other devices. Anybody can make one, before buying or without buying at all.

A phone on the same wifi as the computer can still reach it directly, with no account and nothing signed into, by opening the address the computer shows.

The commands between your phone and your computer pass through a relay while you are connected this way — a preset change, a scene, a knob. They are passed along, not written down. Over Bluetooth they go from the phone to the adapter on your unit, through no relay and no internet at all, and on a USB cable from the phone to your unit they go straight down the cable, the same way.

Unlocking the full version — a purchase record only if you buy it

The unlock is a one-time purchase. On a phone it is made through the App Store or Google Play, and in a browser through a checkout run by RevenueCat and Stripe. Your card details go to them and never to this app or its builder.

RevenueCat keeps the record of the purchase so the unlock follows your account to your other devices. It holds which account or device made the purchase, when, and through which store — not your name, card or address. Apple's, Google's and Stripe's own privacy policies cover the payment itself.

To know whether a phone is unlocked, the phone app asks RevenueCat each time it opens, bought or not, under a number: the account's if you are signed in, otherwise one made up for that phone. Never your name or email address. So RevenueCat also notes when the app last asked, which version of the app and of the phone's system it was, and which country it was in.

In a browser or the computer app, the demo shows the price of the full version beside UNLOCK, and Settings shows it on the Unlock row. To know it, the page asks RevenueCat as the demo opens, or as Settings opens for somebody signed out, under a made-up number kept in that browser, never your name or email address; signed in, it asks under the account's number. RevenueCat then sees which browser it is, its language, time zone and screen size, and the page's address and title and the page you came from. The checkout itself, if you press Buy, is RevenueCat's and Stripe's.

Help getting connected. The app drives your unit over Bluetooth with no computer, or through the desktop app on your computer. If your account has connected neither way two days after the full version arrives on it, one email goes to your address saying how to set up each, and one reminder at least a week later if it still has not. Never more than those two, none at all once a computer has signed in or the app has connected over Bluetooth, and none to an address that was never confirmed. A reply goes to Justin. To know when to send them, a few dates are kept with your account: when it was first seen with the full version, when each of those two emails went or was refused, and when Justin left you out of them, if he did. So is the first time a computer app signed in with it, which is kept for every account (see An account). And so is the first time the app connected to your unit over Bluetooth while you were signed in: that date alone, not the unit, the adapter or anything else about it, sent once by the app.

The free trial — only if you start one

The full version can be tried free for 7 days, once per account and once per device. When you tap Start 7-day free trial, the server keeps, with your account, when the trial started and ends, which kind of app started it (iPhone or iPad, Android, the website or the computer app) and how. On an iPhone or iPad the trial is a free item in the App Store ($0), so a record of that item is kept by RevenueCat with your purchases, as described above.

To allow one trial per device, the app sends the number it already uses for its update check (the install number described under How long it is kept; in a browser or the computer app, the made-up number kept in that browser), and the server keeps only a scrambled, one-way code made from it (a salted hash), never the number itself. Deleting your account deletes the trial record. The scrambled code is kept on its own, with the date it was first used and nothing that names you or your account, so that a device that has had a trial does not get another on a new account.

Your setlists — only if you are signed in

So the setlist you built on the couch is on your phone at the gig. It holds the names and order of the songs you saved and which presets you starred. Nothing else about your presets, and no audio of any kind.

Free access for a tester — only if Justin gives it to you

Justin, who builds the app, sometimes gives a tester the full version for nothing, using the email address the tester gave him. If that address already has an account, the full version is added to it straight away. If it has none yet, the address goes on a short waiting list — the address and the date it was added, nothing else — and the first time somebody signs in with it, the full version is added and the address comes off the list.

Either way, one email goes to that address to say so, headed "You have full access to Fractal Remote", with how to sign in and where to get the apps. It is sent when the access is given, and that is the only time, apart from the help setting up the computer described under Unlocking the full version.

Which gear works — only if you say yes

So we can put together a list of the units, computers and Bluetooth adapters that work with Fractal Remote, the phone and tablet app asks once, “Help make Fractal Remote better?”, with two buttons: Yes, share and No thanks. It is off unless you tap Yes, share, and you can turn it on or off any time in Settings → Troubleshooting → Share what gear works. The computer app and the website never send it.

When it is on and your unit connects, the app sends one short note: which unit it is, and its firmware when it connects through the computer app (it cannot be read over Bluetooth or a USB cable), whether it is connected through the computer app, Bluetooth or a USB cable, the kind of computer, its system and whether it is Apple silicon, ARM, 32- or 64-bit (such as macOS 15 on Apple silicon, Windows 11 24H2, or a Raspberry Pi 5 running Debian 12, 64-bit; never its name) and the computer app’s version, or the Bluetooth adapter’s or the cable’s name (the name it gives itself, never its Bluetooth address; where that name carries an owner’s, such as “Justin’s WIDI Jack” or “Maria’s iPad”, the app takes the owner’s name off, but a name somebody made up for an adapter cannot be told from a maker’s and is sent as it is), whether the unit answered, how long it took to connect, and how quickly the unit answers a tap when it connects through the computer app (rounded, to a tenth of a second and a hundredth of a second, and timed from the presets, scenes and effects you tap anyway: nothing extra is asked of your unit), which system your phone or tablet runs and its version, its make and model on Android (on an iPhone or iPad, only which of the two), and the app’s version. The same combination of gear and versions is sent at most once every 30 days, a little while after the unit connects, at a moment picked at random; the app keeps a list of what it has sent, and when, on your device, and that list is never sent. A VP4 over Bluetooth or a USB cable sends no note: the app cannot hear a VP4, so it cannot say whether it answered. If you said yes before 4 November 2026, when the note said nothing of a USB cable or of how long things take, the app asks you once more, and until you answer it sends only what it did before.

It is not linked to you. The note has no account, no email address, no name you gave your device and no install number, and it is sent without signing in, so nothing in it or with it says whose it was, and the internet address it came from is not stored with it. Supabase, which stores the notes, keeps its own record of every request it receives, with the internet address it came from, for a limited time, for running the service, as it does for everything the app sends; nothing joins that record to the notes, and it is never used to find whose note was whose. It carries no preset or song names, nothing you have typed, and nothing about where you are. It is used only to make the list of gear that works and to find what does not; it is never used for advertising and never given or sold to anyone, and never put beside a bug report to find whose it was. Turning it off stops any more notes; because nothing in a note says whose it was, the ones already sent cannot be picked out to delete, and they go at the end of their two years like the rest.

Bug reports and suggestions — only when you press Send

In the phone and tablet app it is one form, Leave feedback or report a problem: a box for what you want to say, up to five pictures and one video if you add them, and two tick boxes, both ticked to start: Include my email and Include the log and what I’m using. On the website the Feedback form has two kinds, Problem and Idea, and they carry different things, deliberately.

The log is a record of what the app did — buttons pressed, requests made, errors. It is gathered the moment you press Send and at no other time, you can read the whole thing first (See what is sent), and you can send the report without it. A suggestion from the website never carries one, and the database itself refuses to store one against a suggestion.

Sent anonymously. With Include my email unticked, the report carries no account and no email address, and it is sent with no sign-in at all, so nothing links it to you, and deleting your account cannot find it either. If the log goes with it, the log still says what the app saw, such as the name your computer goes by on your network.

Send logs to developer, on the log page itself, sends a bug report at once: this session’s log, with a note if you type one in the box beside the button and nothing written if you don’t. When the app is connected to the Fractal Remote app on a computer, it also carries the computer’s own record of its link to your unit — whether its connection to the unit is open, the ports it can see, and the last lines it logged — the same record the website’s Copy Logs puts in a paste.

Report a Bluetooth problem, on the Bluetooth page (and from Report this beside a fault there and on Play’s fault card, Report a problem under Play’s Bluetooth note, and Report a Bluetooth problem on the screen that waits for a computer), opens the same form. Nothing goes until you press Send; then, under what you wrote, the report says it was opened from Bluetooth and gives the line that was on the screen, and with the log ticked it carries this session’s log and the end of the runs before it, and, when the app is connected to a computer, the computer’s own record described above.

A log that goes with a report starts with the same few lines a copied log does: the app’s version, your unit (and, from the phone app, the preset), and which computer the app is connected to and its version, or, over Bluetooth, the name of the Bluetooth adapter it is connected to instead (its name, never its Bluetooth address). From the phone app it also says which store version of the app is installed. While the app is on Bluetooth, and on any report opened from Report a Bluetooth problem, those lines also say the unit picked, a unit that answered in its place, whether Bluetooth is off, not allowed or blocked on the device, and, for a unit other than the AM4 and the VP4, how each command is sent and the MIDI channel for Program Change. On a phone it also carries the end of the last few times the app was open (the app keeps the last 120 lines of each of its last three runs on the phone, so the run that ended in a crash can be read), under its own heading, the same as Copy Logs does.

Screenshots and photos. You can add up to five pictures to a report, on the log page, the phone’s report form, the website’s Debug log or the Feedback form. Only the ones you choose: on a phone you pick them in the phone’s own photo picker (Add a photo or video, or Choose a screenshot on the log page), which shows your photos to you and hands the app only the ones you pick, or copy a screenshot and paste it in (the app reads the clipboard only when you tap Paste a screenshot, and your phone may ask you to allow that); on the website you pick a file. Each is made smaller before it is sent. They are stored privately for a week, readable by nobody through the app, not even by you, and they go to the person who builds the app with the report’s email. A screenshot shows whatever was on the screen, so add only ones you are happy for him to see.

A video. On a phone or tablet you can add one video to a report, picked the same way, in the phone’s own photo picker. It goes as it is, up to 50 MB (an iPhone makes it 720p as it hands it over). It is stored privately for a week, readable by nobody through the app, not even by you; the report’s email carries a private link to it for the person who builds the app, the link stops working after that week, and the video is deleted. Deleting your account deletes the videos sent from it too.

The log holds no preset contents, no audio, no password, and nothing else you have typed into the app. A report sent while signed in is linked to that account, so that deleting the account deletes the report, and its screenshots, too. A copy of each report, with its log and screenshots, is also emailed to the person who builds the app when it is sent, and deleting a report from the database cannot reach that email: deleting the account tells him which reports went, and he deletes those emails too.

An answer. If you type an email address into the report, a reply goes there. If you leave it empty and are signed in, a reply goes to the email address of the account that sent it, the one you sign in with. Nothing else is done with it.

What is never collected

• No advertising, no analytics kit, and no tracking of any kind. There is no analytics kit in this app, no advertising identifier, and no third-party tracking code. Nothing tells anybody which screens you open, what you press or how long you play (the one note about your gear, described under Which gear works, is sent only if you say yes, and names nobody): the debug log described above stays on your phone or computer unless you send it with a report. What is counted names nobody, and these counts are what the App Store's privacy label means by Analytics. The builder's own pages, described below, count how many accounts there are and how many were made lately, and how many were used lately, on which kinds of device, app versions and versions of the phone's system, from the sign-in and check-in times and the time, app version and phone system RevenueCat last saw, which are kept anyway; and they add up the sales. Once a day, a few minutes before the day ends (UTC), that day's totals are kept, as numbers that name nobody, so he can see them day by day. RevenueCat's own dashboard shows the builder the purchase records described above as sales totals and charts, and how many phones and accounts opened the app, and how many were new, in the last 28 days, from the check the app makes each time it opens. And Expo's own dashboard shows him how many installs took each update, how many launches crashed, and how many different installs that was, counted from the update check's install number described below.
• No location. The app never reads where you are from the phone, and does not ask for Location, with one exception that is Android's rule rather than ours. Bluetooth lets the phone talk to your unit through a Bluetooth MIDI adapter, with no computer. From version 1.89.0 it is in the app for everyone with the full version; earlier versions show it only on the developer's own account. There is one gap: the first time version 1.87.1 opens after it is installed or updated, before its first update has arrived, an account with the full version can still see a Bluetooth card under Settings → Phone & computer. It goes once the app has downloaded that update, usually from the next time it is opened. Version 1.87.11 and later do not show it at all. Nothing is asked for unless Connect is tapped on the Bluetooth page. On Android 11 and older, Android lets no app look for a Bluetooth device without the Location permission, so on those phones the app asks for it when you tap Connect on the Bluetooth page, and uses it only to find the adapter, never to read where the phone is. Newer Android phones ask for Nearby devices instead, and an iPhone asks only to use Bluetooth. The country RevenueCat notes, under Unlocking the full version, is worked out by RevenueCat from the internet connection, not from the phone's location.
• No contacts, camera or microphone, and nothing read from your photos. None of them are used. The only pictures the app ever sees or sends are the profile photo you may choose for your account, and the screenshots and photos you choose to add to a report, described above, and the one video you may add with them: the phone’s photo picker shows your photos and videos to you, not to the app.
• No audio. This app sends control messages to your unit. It does not record, stream or process sound.
• Nothing is sold or shared with anyone for advertising or any other purpose.

Where it is kept, and who can see it

Purchase records are kept by RevenueCat. Accounts, profile photos, setlists and reports are stored with Supabase, on servers in the United States. Every row is behind rules that tie it to the account that made it, and a profile photo can be put in, read or removed through the app only by its own account. Bug reports, and the screenshots added to them, can be written by anybody and read back by nobody through the app — only by the person who builds it.

What the person who builds it can see. Justin has a few pages in the app, under Settings → Developer, that open for his own account and nobody else's — the server checks which account is asking, not only the app. On them he can see:

• Everyone with an account — each account's email address and name, when it was made, whether the address was confirmed, when it last signed in, and whether it has the full version. And the waiting list above.
• One account, looked up by its email address — the same, plus what it bought, when and through which store; which kinds of device it is signed in on (the phone app, the computer app, or the website, told apart by the name the app or browser gives when it signs in) and when each last checked in; and the app version and phone system RevenueCat last saw.
• How many people — how many accounts were used today, in the last 7 days and in the last 30, on which kinds of device, on which app versions and on which versions of the phone's system; and the same totals for each day, kept once a day. Counts, naming nobody.
• Sales — each purchase: when, through which store, for how much, and by which account; and anybody who has paid twice, or paid on an account whose email was never confirmed, so he can put it right. Once he has, he can mark it handled. Then the account, which of those two it was, when he marked it, the time of the newest purchase it was about, and how many purchases it counted (with any card sale beside it) are kept, so it is not shown again unless they pay again.
• Messages — the bug reports and suggestions described above, with their screenshots, and a link to a report’s video for its week, in his email.
• What works — the notes about gear described under Which gear works, added up by unit, by computer system, Bluetooth adapter or USB cable, and by whether the unit answered, with how long it took to connect and, through a computer, how quickly a tap was answered. Nothing in them names anybody.
• Paid but no computer yet — each account with the full version that no computer app has signed in with: its email address and whether it is confirmed, how and when it got the full version (which store, a test purchase, or given by hand), and which of the emails about setting up the computer have gone to it or been refused. He can leave an account out of those emails.
• Free trials — each trial: the account's email address, when it started and ends, which kind of app started it, and whether the account has bought the full version since; and how many trials started each day, week and month. Never the scrambled device code.

All of it is read from what the account service and RevenueCat already keep in order to sign you in and to know whether you have paid, apart from the dates kept for the help setting up the computer, under An account and Unlocking the full version, the marks on Sales described above, and each day's totals on How many people, which are numbers that name nobody. Nothing else new is recorded for these pages: no screens, no buttons, no time spent in the app. Two pages read something more: What works reads the notes about gear that only people who said yes send, described under Which gear works, and Free trials reads the trial records described under The free trial. To help somebody who cannot sign in, he can also send their address a new confirmation or password-reset email, or mark the address as confirmed by hand.

Emails this app sends (a link to confirm your address or reset a password, the desktop download link you asked for, the one telling a tester they have been given full access, the email about setting up the computer and its one reminder, and bug reports, with their log and screenshots, on their way to the person who builds it) go through Resend. RevenueCat, Supabase, Resend, Expo (the phone app's update checks) and GitHub (the desktop app's update checks) each hold only what is described on this page, use it only to provide their part of the service, and protect it at least as this page describes.

The desktop apps check for their own updates from GitHub, and the phone app checks for updates from Expo. The phone's update check carries a random number for that install, made up the first time the app runs, so Expo can tell one install from another; never your name or email address. The desktop's check carries no number at all. On the phone, the photographs on the gear pages are fetched from this website as you look through them. Besides that number, the phone's check sends what any app update needs: which phone system it is, the app's version and the update it already has, and, after a launch that crashed, the error message the app stopped on, so a broken update can be found and taken back. Nothing in it says who you are. Once a day the phone app also reads a small file from this website that says which version is the newest in the App Store and on Google Play, so it can tell you when the copy on your phone is older. That request carries nothing about you or your account.

How long it is kept

• Your account, the name and photo on it, and setlists — until you delete the account, or ask for it to be deleted. A photo is also gone as soon as you tap Remove photo, and the copy on a phone or tablet when you sign out there.
• An address the desktop download link was sent to — kept only as a one-way scrambled fingerprint, to stop the link being sent to it over and over.
• An address on the testers' waiting list — until somebody first signs in with it, or until the access is taken back or you ask for it to be removed.
• The dates kept for the help setting up the computer, and when a computer app first signed in — until you delete the account.
• A sale marked handled — the mark is kept until you delete the account.
• Each day's totals on How many people — numbers only, naming nobody, kept two years, then deleted.
• The free trial — the record with your account until the account is deleted; the scrambled device code on its own for as long as the app offers a trial.
• Bug reports — until the problem is fixed and long enough afterward to be sure, then deleted, and the email of each with them.
• The notes about which gear works — two years from when each was sent, then deleted. The list on your device of what it has sent keeps each entry for 30 days.
• Screenshots added to a report — the stored copy is deleted a week after it was sent, or an hour after if its report never arrived. Until the report itself is deleted, the only other copy is in that report’s email.
• A video added to a report — deleted a week after it was sent, or an hour after if its report never arrived, which is also when the link to it in the report’s email stops working. No other copy is kept.
• The purchase record, and the record of the app's checks, at RevenueCat — those under your account until you delete it, which deletes them there too. Checks made while no account is signed in on a phone (before signing in, after signing out, or after deleting the account) are kept under that phone's made-up number, and a price asked in a browser or the computer app with no account signed in under that browser's made-up number, which name nobody, for as long as the app uses RevenueCat.
• The update check's install number, and a crash's error message, at Expo — only for as long as is reasonably needed to provide the updates, under Expo's own privacy policy.

Deleting your data

In the app: Settings → your account → Delete account. It deletes your account and the name and photo on it, your setlists, bug reports sent from that account and their screenshots, and every other record kept under it, straight away and for good. Each of those bug reports was also emailed to the person who builds the app when it was sent, with its log and screenshots, and the app cannot reach his inbox: Delete account sends him a note listing them, and he deletes those emails too. A full version bought in the App Store or on Google Play stays with your Apple ID or Google account, and Restore a purchase brings it back on a new account. One bought on the website or in the computer app, or given to you, belongs to the account and is deleted with it.

Deleting your account also deletes its free trial record. The trial's scrambled device code is kept on its own, naming nobody, so that a device that has had a trial does not get another on a new account (see The free trial).

If you have not bought the full version, the app opens on the purchase page instead of Settings. Delete account is at the bottom of that page, and does the same.

Or by email: email justinnewbold@gmail.com and say what you want removed — your account, your setlists, a report you sent (and the email of it he received, with its screenshots), an address on the testers' waiting list, or all of it. No form and no account needed to ask. It will be done and you will get a reply confirming it.

You can also delete your setlists from inside the app at any time without asking anyone.

Children

This app is for people with guitar hardware and is not directed at children under 13. No account is knowingly created for one. If you believe a child has signed up, email the address above and it will be removed.

Changes

If what this app collects ever changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. Anything that would collect materially more than the above would be announced in the app before it happened, not buried here.

Who to ask

Fractal Remote is built by Justin Newbold. justinnewbold@gmail.com