Legal
Last updated 2 August 2026
Kiln is a podcast player made by Harigovind Valsakumar. This policy describes everything it collects, which is very little, and names the one case where anything at all leaves your device to a server we run.
There is no account, no tracking, no advertising, no analytics SDK, and nothing is sold or shared with anyone for marketing.
| What you use | What leaves your device | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Kiln, free | Nothing but the podcast feeds you subscribe to | The publishers' own servers |
| Discover | Your search terms | Podcast Index, and Apple for chart order |
| Transcripts | Nothing | Made on your device |
| Apple Intelligence | Nothing | Made on your device |
| Your own API key | The episode text you asked to summarise | The provider you chose, using your key. Never through us |
| Kiln Plus | The episode text you asked to summarise | Kiln's server, then Google Gemini. Not stored |
Your subscriptions, play positions, downloads, listening history, settings and any transcripts or summaries you generate live on your device. If you turn on iCloud sync they are stored in your iCloud account, which we cannot read.
If you add your own API key it is kept in your device's Keychain. It is sent only to the provider it belongs to, is never synced, and never reaches us.
Searching Discover sends your search text to Podcast Index to get results back. The Top Shows chart order comes from Apple's public podcast chart feed. Neither request carries any identifier for you or your device beyond the ordinary information any web request includes.
This is the only part of Kiln that talks to a server we run.
When you ask for a summary or chapters, the text of that episode is sent to Kiln's server, which passes it to Google Gemini and returns the result. Google's terms for the paid tier prohibit them from using it to train their models.
The episode text is not stored. Once the result comes back, the text is gone.
One row per request, containing:
That identifier is a random value. It is not derived from your name, your email, your Apple ID, your phone or your device. We cannot connect it to you, and it is the only thing tying any two requests together.
The episode, the show, the podcast, the text, your IP address, your location, your name or your email. We do not know what you listen to, and the log is not capable of telling us.
To enforce the monthly allowance you bought, and to see total usage across all subscribers.
Generated summaries and chapters are cached so that if another subscriber asks about the same episode it doesn't have to be made twice. Those entries are stored against a one-way hash of the episode and carry nothing about any person.
In the app: Settings → About → Delete my usage history. It removes every row described above, immediately.
Two things survive it, and both are stated plainly in the app:
Cancelling your subscription, or deleting the app, ends everything.
If you publish a podcast and would prefer generated summaries of your episodes were not cached, email the address below with your feed URL and they will be removed. Transcripts you publish yourself are never cached, altered or served — Kiln always uses yours in preference to making its own.
Kiln is not directed at children. Kiln Plus is not available to anyone under 18, because Google's terms for the Gemini API require it.
Kiln is not offered in the European Union.
For Kiln Plus subscribers only:
| Who | What they handle |
|---|---|
| Google (Gemini API) | Episode text, to produce a summary. Paid tier — not used for training |
| Cloudflare | Runs the server the request passes through |
| Supabase | Stores the usage rows described above |
| Apple | Handles the payment. We never see your payment details |
If this policy changes materially, the app will say so before the change takes effect.