Overview
Muse Shelf is a personal media library. Your library, categories, statuses, profiles, notes, ratings and preferences are stored on your device. Optional accounts, cloud sync, purchases and other online features are described below. Muse doesn't sell your information, and it doesn't track you across other companies' apps and websites.
Information you add
You may add titles, custom items, categories, profiles, notes, ratings, statuses and backup files. Muse uses this information to run your library, organize it, suggest things to discover, and make backups.
Imports and backups
When you import from another app, such as Letterboxd or Goodreads, the file or text you choose is read on your device. Muse then looks up the titles it finds through its metadata service to add covers and details. The import file itself isn't uploaded.
If you export a backup, the file is created for you to store or share outside the app. If you import a backup, Muse uses the file you choose to add library data on your device.
Optional accounts and cloud library
If you create a Muse account, Muse uses your email address and account identifier to sign you in. Signing in with Google or Apple also shares the identity information you authorize, such as your name and email address, with Muse through Supabase Authentication. Muse never receives your Google or Apple password. Apple may provide a private relay address if you choose Hide My Email.
Signing in doesn't copy your device library to your account. If you choose to use the cloud library, the profiles, titles, notes, ratings, covers and other library data you copy or add there are stored using Supabase and processed by Muse's Cloudflare-hosted service. Cloud changes can keep previous versions to support version history and undo.
Friends
Friends are optional and need a Muse account. To use them, you choose an @handle, a name and an avatar, and you can add a short bio. People signed in to Muse can find you by your handle or name and see your handle, name and avatar; the rest of your profile, including your bio, is for friends only.
Unless you turn off Friends can see your shelf, your friends can see the titles on your shelf that are current, Up Next or finished, with their covers and your star ratings. Your notes, dates and progress are never shared, and the titles you've shelved are shared only if you turn on Show friends what you've shelved. Muse keeps a copy of what your friends see on its servers (Supabase) and updates it when your shelf changes; turning sharing off deletes that copy. Friends only see each other after both agree.
You can remove a friend, block someone or report a profile at any time. Blocking ends any friendship or request between you and stops you seeing each other in Muse. Reports go only to the Muse team, who may hide profiles that break the Community Rules. Deleting your Muse account deletes your profile, friends and shared shelf.
The Muse team can see how many people use Muse and, for each Friends profile, what anyone signed in to Muse can see of it, plus when it was made and how many friends it has. It never sees friends-only or private shelves, or anyone’s email, this way.
Connected apps and AI services
If you connect another app or AI service, it can access the Muse profiles, and the read or edit permissions, that you authorize. You can revoke that access in Muse. Information shared with a connected service is also covered by that service's privacy policy.
Ask Muse
Ask Muse answers many questions on your device from your own library. On iPhones with Apple Intelligence, some answers are written by Apple's on-device model, and your question and library stay on your device.
With Muse Pro, and only after you allow it, Ask Muse can answer with cloud AI. Your question, the last few messages of that chat and a summary of your library are sent through Muse's Cloudflare-hosted service to Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, to write the answer. The summary includes titles, kinds, release years and ratings from your library, your favorite genres and creators, and Muse's For You picks for you. Notes and reviews aren't sent. Muse doesn't keep your questions or answers on its servers; your chats stay on your device. Anthropic processes them to provide the answer under its commercial terms, which don't allow using them to train its models, and may keep them for a short time for safety monitoring. To keep within daily limits, Muse counts how many cloud answers your account uses. You can turn cloud answers off at any time in Settings, under Ask Muse & your AI.
Anonymous usage counts
To learn what to make better, Muse counts how its features are used: for example, which screens are open and for how long, how often things are added, rated or set aside, and how many people tap or skip a suggestion. Each count is sent with only the app version, the platform and whether Muse Pro is on, and is added up by day on Muse's Cloudflare-hosted service. The counts carry no account, device or advertising identifier, no titles from your library and nothing you type, and they aren't used for advertising or shared. You can turn this off at any time in Settings, under Privacy & data.
Feedback
If you send feedback from the app, Muse stores your message, the kind of feedback, the app version and the platform, so the developer can read it and reply. When you're signed in, it's linked to your Muse account. Otherwise it's linked to a random code saved on your device (the server keeps only a hash of it), so you can see replies.
Crash reports and diagnostics
If Muse closes unexpectedly, the next time it opens it asks whether to send a crash report. Nothing is sent unless you choose to, and you choose how much goes in it: when it happened and which version of Muse; your device's system version, screen size and language; and, if you pick everything, the kinds of screens you were on and things you did (never what was in them) and the error, if one was caught. You can add a note. A report arrives like feedback (above), and you can turn the asking off in Settings › Privacy & data.
To find and fix problems, the app also sends crash and error details (what went wrong, the app version, the device model and its system version) to Expo's EAS Observe service. These aren't linked to your Muse account and aren't used for ads or tracking.
Titles, Explore and alerts
When you search, browse Explore, view details, or open trailers, screenshots, wiki links, cast or crew, Muse requests that information from its metadata service and from third-party services such as TMDB, IGDB, AniList and Apple. Those services may receive technical information, such as your device's IP address and the search or title requested.
Release, new-episode and season-premiere alerts are scheduled on your device. To plan them, Muse asks its metadata service for the episode calendars of shows in your library.
Purchases
In the iPhone app, Muse Pro and earlier purchases are paid through Apple. Muse uses RevenueCat to check purchases and manage Pro access. RevenueCat receives purchase and receipt details and an app user ID, which is your Muse account ID when you're signed in, so Pro follows your account. Muse never sees your payment card details.
Muse Pro can also be bought on the web, through a checkout run by RevenueCat. Stripe processes the payment, by Apple Pay, Google Pay or card. Stripe receives your payment details, the email address you enter for the receipt, and your country or billing address when tax or fraud checks need it. RevenueCat receives that email address to send your receipt and let you manage the subscription. Neither shares your card details with Muse.
Ads and ad measurement
Without Muse Pro or the earlier Remove Ads purchase, Muse shows ads from Google AdMob, in cards marked "Sponsored". Before the first ad, Muse shows Google's consent form where the law requires one (in the EU, the UK and Switzerland), then asks whether you allow tracking, using Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt.
If you allow tracking, Google may use your device's advertising identifier to show ads that match your interests and to measure how they perform. If you don't, Muse asks Google for non-personalized ads only. Either way, AdMob may process information such as your device's IP address to deliver ads, limit how often you see them and prevent fraud, as described in Google's policies. You can change your tracking choice at any time in your iPhone's Settings › Privacy & Security › Tracking. Where Google's consent form applies, you can change that choice in Muse Shelf under Settings › Muse Pro › Ad privacy choices.
If you found Muse through an Apple Search Ads ad, Apple's AdServices framework provides a campaign attribution token. RevenueCat uses it to report which ad campaign led to downloads, trials and purchases. It doesn't identify you personally or follow you across other apps.
Children's privacy
Muse Shelf isn't intended to collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has shared personal information with Muse, contact support so it can be removed.
Deleting your data
You can remove library data by deleting items, using Settings › Delete all data, or uninstalling the app. Backup files you exported must be deleted from wherever you saved or shared them.
To delete your Muse account, open Settings › Muse account › Delete account. It permanently deletes your account and what's stored with it: your cloud library and covers, version history, AI connections and feedback. The library on your device stays. Deleting your account doesn't cancel a subscription. Cancel an App Store one in your Apple account, and a web one from the link in your receipt email.
Changes
This policy may change when Muse's features, services or legal requirements change. The latest version is always on this page.
Contact
For privacy questions, send feedback from Settings › Feedback in the app, or write to us on the contact page. Only the Muse team reads what you send there, and an email address you leave is used only to reply to you. Please never send passwords or sign-in codes.