Magnetite
Privacy
Updated 28 October 2026
The short version
Magnetite has no advertising, analytics SDK, telemetry, crash reporter, or user account. It does not sell personal data. Audio used by the visualizer stays on your Mac.
Audio and playback
With your macOS permission, Magnetite reads system audio to animate the ferrofluid surface. It processes that signal in memory on your Mac. Magnetite does not upload or save the audio.
Basic Spotify and Apple Music control uses local macOS Apple Events through ScriptingBridge, with the Automation permission also used by AppleScript. This reads now-playing information and sends playback commands to the selected desktop app. A Spotify Web API connection is optional.
If you connect Spotify, Magnetite communicates directly with Spotify's
authorization and Web API services. The scopes user-library-read
and user-library-modify read, save and remove liked tracks;
user-read-playback-state and user-modify-playback-state
support shuffle and repeat; user-read-private checks account
capability before offering those controls. Spotify's own terms and privacy
policy govern what Spotify receives. Authorization uses PKCE without a
client secret.
Magnetite may also download the current track's artwork from the URL the selected music player supplies. The artwork is used to color the interface; it is not sent to the developer.
To show time-synced lyrics, Magnetite looks up the current track's title, artist, album and length on LRCLIB (lrclib.net), a free public lyrics database. When LRCLIB has no synced lyrics for the song or cannot answer, it asks NetEase Cloud Music (music.163.com) for the same title and artist instead. Each answer is kept in its Application Support folder so a song is looked up once. No account or identifier is sent. Turn off Lyrics in Player in the M menu and no lookups are made.
What stays on your Mac
Preferences are stored in macOS UserDefaults. A connected Spotify refresh token is stored in Magnetite's Application Support folder with owner-only file permissions. Disconnecting Spotify deletes that credential. Magnetite does not send either item to the developer.
Website and downloads
magnetite.app adds no cookies, tracking pixels, or analytics scripts. The site and downloads are served by GitHub Pages and GitHub Releases, so GitHub may process request information under its own privacy statement. The developer may view the aggregate traffic, referral, star, and download counts GitHub provides; Magnetite receives no visitor profiles or in-app events.
The page uses local storage to remember a soundtrack pause and this tab's session storage to restore scroll position. Neither is used to identify you across sites or sent to the developer. The optional soundtrack is separate from the app's system-audio tap.
Contact
Privacy questions can be sent to
scrystyt@gmail.com. Magnetite has no
server-side account to delete. Disconnecting Spotify removes its local
credential; remaining local data lives in
~/Library/Application Support/Magnetite and the
com.laks.magnetite macOS preferences domain.