Privacy Policy
Last updated: June 4, 2026
Archive Watch is a free Apple TV app for browsing and watching public-domain films and television from the Internet Archive. It is built to respect your privacy completely: there is no analytics, no advertising, no tracking, and nothing about you is ever sold or shared.
What we collect
Nothing is collected by us. Archive Watch has no servers of its own and no developer-run backend. We never receive, see, or store any information about you or how you use the app.
Information stored on your device
To make the app useful, some information is stored locally on your Apple TV and never leaves it except as described under iCloud sync below:
- Your Continue Watching progress (where you stopped in a title).
- Your Favorites and any playlists you create.
- Your preferences, such as the mature-content filter and autoplay settings.
Optional Sign in with Apple & iCloud sync
Signing in is entirely optional. Browsing and playback work fully without an account. If you choose to Sign in with Apple, it is used only to sync your own Favorites, playlists, and watch progress across the Apple TVs in your household, using your personal iCloud private database. That data lives in your own iCloud account — we have no access to it. The name and email associated with your Apple ID are handled by Apple and are never sent to us.
You can remove this synced data at any time from Settings → Account → Delete Account in the app, which deletes your records from your iCloud private database and signs you out.
Network requests to public services
To show artwork, descriptions, cast, and to stream video, the app makes requests directly from your device to these public services:
- The Internet Archive (video and metadata)
- The Movie Database (TMDb) (posters, cast, synopses)
- Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons (fallback metadata and images)
- The Library of Congress (fallback imagery)
These requests carry only what any internet request carries (such as your IP address) and are handled by those services under their own privacy policies. Archive Watch sends them no information that identifies you.
Children
Archive Watch does not collect personal information from anyone, including children. A mature-content filter is on by default.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted on this page with a new date.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Email ben@learningischange.com.