Last updated: August 2026
ListenUp is a system-audio recording utility for macOS. It runs entirely on your Mac. ListenUp does not collect, transmit, or store any personal information about you on any server we operate — there is no account, no sign-in, and no analytics.
ListenUp only ever touches the audio it records and the file you tell it to save. A recording lives in a temporary working file on your Mac while you trim it; nothing is written anywhere permanent until you click “Save Trimmed Audio…” and choose a location. Your recordings are never uploaded, copied off your Mac, or sent anywhere — ListenUp has no server to send them to.
This is the one permission prompt that surprises people, so it’s worth explaining plainly: macOS has no separate “record system audio” permission. The only public way to capture your Mac’s audio output is through ScreenCaptureKit — the same framework screen recorders use — configured to capture audio only. The permission exists because of how macOS is built, not because ListenUp does anything with your screen.
ListenUp collects no screen recording data. No video frames, screenshots, window contents, window titles, application names, or any other information about what is on your screen is read, recorded, saved, retained, transmitted, disclosed, shared, or sold — to us or to anyone else. ListenUp never requests screen output from the capture at all: the video side of the stream is configured down to a throwaway 2×2-pixel frame that the app never reads, and the only stream output the app subscribes to is audio. Because no screen data is ever collected, there is none to use, store, share, or retain.
The only data the capture produces for ListenUp is the audio your Mac is playing. That audio is written to a working file inside ListenUp’s own temporary folder on your Mac while you trim it, and it goes nowhere else — the app has no server, no analytics endpoint, and no upload path of any kind. When you choose “Save Trimmed Audio…” the trimmed selection is written to the location you pick; the temporary working file is left in the app’s temporary folder, which macOS clears. Nothing is ever copied off your Mac.
The direct-download version (from bendansby.com/apps/listenup) checks for software updates by fetching a public appcast.xml file from this domain. No identifiers are sent — just a plain HTTPS GET. The Mac App Store version has no updater of its own — it uses Apple’s own update mechanism and makes no such request.
Beyond that update check, the app makes no network calls. There is no analytics endpoint, no crash reporter, no “phone home.”
None. ListenUp embeds no third-party analytics frameworks, advertising libraries, or trackers. The direct-download build includes the open-source Sparkle updater, which runs on-device and only fetches the update feed and any update you choose to install.
Screen Recording (for the audio-capture reason above), and access to the specific save location you pick in the “Save Trimmed Audio…” panel — granted by your own action each time. ListenUp does not request the microphone, the camera, Contacts, Location, Accessibility, Full Disk Access, or any other privacy-protected resource.
ListenUp is a general-purpose utility, not directed at children. It does not knowingly collect information from anyone, of any age.
If this policy ever changes, the “Last updated” date above will change with it. This page is the canonical source.
Questions? ben.dansby@gmail.com.