Last updated: 2026-10-21
Footage Bin is a video-triage tool that runs almost entirely on your device. We do not collect or store your video files, filenames, thumbnails, or any personal data, and the app never uploads your videos. Only two things can ever leave your device, and both are off until you switch them on: a small amount of anonymous usage telemetry, which is off by default and only starts if you turn it on in the app's Settings screen, and — only if you set up the optional Analyze feature with your own Anthropic API key, confirm the prompt the first time, and run it — thumbnail images of the videos you choose to analyze, sent to Anthropic. Both are described below.
You pick an input folder and an output folder using Android's Storage Access Framework. Footage Bin reads video files from the input folder only to show thumbnails and let you trim/merge clips, and writes the clips you choose to keep into the output folder you selected. All of this happens on your device. Apart from the optional Analyze feature below, the app's network access is limited to the anonymous telemetry, and it never sends your videos, filenames, or folder paths anywhere.
Analyze is off unless you turn it on by entering your own Anthropic API key in Settings. The first time you start an Analyze run, the app tells you that thumbnails will be sent to Anthropic and asks you to confirm; nothing is sent until you do. When you run it, the app sends Anthropic's Claude API a few contact sheets for each video you chose to analyze: grids of small, low-resolution thumbnails taken from the video, along with fixed instructions asking which thumbnails show someone off the ground. These thumbnails are frames from your footage and can show people, so only analyze footage when everyone in it is fine with that. The app never sends the video files themselves, their filenames, folder paths, or anything else about your device. The answers come straight back to the app and are saved only on your device, as pre-marks for your own review.
These requests go directly from your phone to Anthropic, under your own API key and Anthropic account; we never see them, and they are billed to that account. Anthropic handles this data under its own terms and privacy policy (see anthropic.com/legal/privacy). If you choose the cheaper "Batch" mode, the request is held by Anthropic until the batch finishes and the app collects the answers.
Your API key is stored only on your device, encrypted with a key held in the Android Keystore, and is excluded from backups and device transfers. It is sent only to Anthropic, to authenticate your requests. You can remove it at any time in Settings.
There are no user accounts, no sign-in, no crash-reporting SDK, and no advertising in this app.
Anonymous usage telemetry is off by default. If you turn it on (Settings, "Share anonymous usage data"), the app sends a small number of anonymous usage events — for example, that the app was opened, or that an export or merge finished and how many clips were involved — to PostHog, an analytics provider, to help us understand which features are actually used. These events never include your video files, filenames, thumbnails, or folder paths, or anything sent to or received from Anthropic, and are not linked to your name, email, or any account — only a random identifier generated for this app install. As with any internet request, PostHog's servers can see the network address a request comes from. You can turn this off again at any time from the same Settings switch.
The app requests the permissions needed to run a foreground
export/merge job with a visible progress notification
(FOREGROUND_SERVICE,
FOREGROUND_SERVICE_MEDIA_PROCESSING,
POST_NOTIFICATIONS), folder access via the system file
picker (Storage Access Framework), and network access
(INTERNET), used only to send the anonymous usage events
(if you turned them on) and, if you use Analyze, the thumbnail sheets
described above — never
to transmit your video files or folder contents.
If this policy ever changes, the updated version will be posted at this same address with a new "Last updated" date.
Questions about this policy can be sent to footagebin@onlytabs.it.