Privacy Policy
Last updated: 9 October 2026
1. Summary
Channel Timeline Viewer keeps your data on your device. There is no account, and no server operated by us receives what you watch. The Android version measures how the app itself is used (Google Analytics for Firebase) so we can improve it: it records screen names and the kind of action, never the channels or videos you watch, and you can switch it off in the app. The iOS version contains no analytics at all. The free version shows ads from Google AdMob (see section 8); Pro shows none.
2. What is stored on your device
The following are saved locally (iOS UserDefaults / app cache) and never sent to us:
• Identifiers of videos you marked as watched or skipped, with timestamps
• Per-channel progress (total count, watched count, last opened video)
• Recently used channels (channel ID, name, thumbnail URL, last used time)
• Notes you write for a video
• Playback position (in seconds) for each video
• A cached copy of the video list of channels you opened
Deleting the app removes all of it.
3. YouTube and Google
The app uses two official YouTube (Google LLC) services:
• YouTube Data API v3 — to fetch the public list of uploads for the channel you enter.
• Popular videos — the first screen of the app shows videos that are popular in your country. To keep API usage low, the app gets this list from our server (channeltimeline.jewelrysunflower.com), which fetches it from the YouTube Data API once an hour. The app sends only a two-letter country code (such as JP); nothing that identifies you or your device. As with any web request, Cloudflare, which hosts the server, may log standard connection information (such as IP address); we do not use it to identify you.
• YouTube IFrame Player — the official embedded player used for playback. During playback YouTube and Google may collect and process information under their own policies.
The app does not download videos, block ads, scrape, play in the background, or use a custom player.
Google Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
YouTube Terms of Service: https://www.youtube.com/t/terms
4. The relay page used for playback
To display the official embedded player correctly, the player screen loads a small static page we publish on GitHub Pages (https://kataming.github.io/ChannelTimelineViewer/player.html) and embeds the official player inside it. That page only displays the player; it contains no analytics or tracking. As with any web request, GitHub may log standard connection information (such as IP address).
5. Sharing from other apps
The share extension receives only the URL (or text containing a URL) you share. It is parsed on the device and used to look up the channel through the official API. It is not sent anywhere else. Non-YouTube URLs are ignored.
If you use “Add via Share in YouTube” in the app, then when you copy a link in YouTube and return to the app, the app reads only the copied YouTube link, on the device (on iOS, a confirmation appears before it is read). What it reads is not sent anywhere, and nothing other than YouTube links is used.
6. Notifications
iOS does not allow a share sheet to launch an app directly. If — and only if — you allow notifications, the app posts one local notification right after you share, so you can tap it to open the channel. It contains only the shared YouTube URL and is handled on the device. No promotional, re-engagement, or server push notifications are ever sent.
7. Purchases (Pro)
Channel Timeline Viewer is free and offers a single optional one-time in-app purchase called “Pro”. Purchases are handled entirely by Apple through the App Store; we never see or receive your payment details. The app only asks the operating system whether that purchase belongs to your account and stores the answer on the device so it also works offline. There is no subscription and no recurring charge.
8. Advertising (free version)
The free version shows ads from Google AdMob (Google LLC): a banner at the bottom of the video list and one ad below the saved-channel list on the first screen. The player screen also shows one banner below the playback buttons; ads are never placed over the video player. Pro shows no ads, and the ad SDK is not started for Pro users.
To show and measure ads and to prevent fraud, Google AdMob collects your IP address (which may be used to estimate your approximate location), your interactions with the app and with ads (such as app launches, taps and ad views), diagnostic information about the app and the SDK, and device identifiers such as the app set ID. The app does not give AdMob the channels or videos you watch, your notes, or the URLs you enter.
The app does not use the advertising identifier: on iOS it does not use App Tracking Transparency or the IDFA, and on Android it does not request the AD_ID permission.
In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, the app asks for your consent with Google’s consent form before requesting ads. You can change your choice at any time from “About this app” → “Ad privacy settings”.
How Google uses this information: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
9. Tracking and usage measurement
The app does not use the advertising identifier (IDFA on iOS, Advertising ID on Android) and does not use App Tracking Transparency, because it does not track you.
The Android version includes Google Analytics for Firebase to count how often each screen and action is used. What is sent is limited to: the screen name; the kind of action (for example “a channel was opened”, “autoplay was switched on”, “a video finished”); the number of videos in the list; the option you pick in the optional one-question survey shown after you stop buying Pro (for example “No payment method I can use”); and the information Google Analytics collects automatically (app version, OS version, device model, coarse location such as country, and a randomly generated app instance ID). The channels and videos you watch, your notes, and the URLs you enter are never sent.
Advertising ID collection and ad personalisation signals are switched off, and the app does not request the AD_ID permission.
You can turn this off at any time in the app: “About this app” → “Allow usage measurement”. Turning it off stops the measurement completely.
Data collected this way is processed by Google on our behalf; see the Google privacy policy linked above.
The iOS version contains no analytics.
10. Children
The app does not knowingly collect personal information from children.
11. This website
This site is a set of static pages. It sets no cookies and runs no analytics.
The interactive pages of this site, such as the web trial (/try/), work as follows:
• The channel you enter, the videos you mark as watched or skipped, your progress, your notes, and playback positions are stored in your browser (localStorage) on the device you are using. They are never sent to us, are not shared with the app on your phone, and are deleted when you clear the site data for this site.
• To build the video list, the page asks a small relay on this site, which calls the YouTube Data API v3 with our key. Only the identifiers of the channel, playlist, or videos to show are passed on; nothing about you is sent.
• Playback uses YouTube’s official embedded player, and video thumbnails are loaded from YouTube’s servers. While you use the player, YouTube and Google may collect and process information under their own policies.
• There is no account, no sign-in, and no payment on this website.
12. Changes
This policy may be updated. Significant changes will be announced with an app update.
13. Contact
Email:
YouTube is a trademark of Google LLC. This app is an unofficial app that uses the official API and player; it is not endorsed by or affiliated with Google or YouTube.