Privacy

Launch Today doesn't collect your name, email address, location or viewing history. There are no accounts and no sign-ins, no advertising, no analytics and no tracking. It asks for no permissions: not your location, contacts, camera or microphone. It sends no notifications.

This policy covers Launch Today on Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro. Launch Today is made by Gordon McDowell.

Finding liftoff happens on your device

To start replays just before liftoff, Launch Today analyses public launch videos on your own device: it reads the countdown clock in a sample of frames, or looks for the moment of ignition. It does this in the background while you browse, for the past week's launches (you can change how far back, or turn it off, with Find launch start times while browsing in Settings). The frames are looked at and thrown away; nothing from the video is uploaded.

iCloud

Analysing videos takes time and battery, so Launch Today shares the results through Apple's iCloud rather than having every device repeat the work. Each result is a launch-time record containing only:

• the public video it describes: a YouTube or X video ID, or the web address of a news site's launch video,
• where liftoff (T−0) falls in that video, and the video's length,
• how it was found (from the countdown clock or from the picture), and how much backed it up: how many clock readings or frames were checked on each side of liftoff, over how many seconds, and whether movement in the picture confirmed it,
• when it was found, and which version of the analysis found it.

Your devices. If you're signed in to iCloud, the launch-time records your devices find are saved in your own private iCloud database. Your other devices running Launch Today use them instead of analysing the same videos again. Only you can see your private database. To pick up launch times your other devices already found, Launch Today asks your private database about the videos of the launches it lists and the ones you've watched or bookmarked, using a coded form of each video's ID.

Everyone's devices. Launch times that pass stricter checks (several clock readings on both sides of liftoff, or a liftoff confirmed by movement in the picture) are also added to a shared, public iCloud index of launch times, which every copy of Launch Today can read. This way one device's analysis can help everyone's. The shared records hold only the video details listed above. Like all iCloud data, each one also carries the time it was added and an iCloud ID that only Launch Today uses: it isn't your name, email or Apple Account, but every record you add carries the same ID. A device that reads a launch time from the shared index still checks it against the video before using it.

If you're not signed in to iCloud, Launch Today saves nothing to iCloud and keeps its results on the device. It can still read launch times from the shared index, which needs no account.

Launch Today never stores your viewing history, where you stopped watching, your bookmarks, hidden channels, settings, name or email address in iCloud. Which videos show the same launch is worked out on each device and stays there.

Kept on your device

Your settings, bookmarks, hidden channels, where you stopped watching each video, recently watched videos, the Activity log, and cached launch schedules, thumbnails and launch times are stored by Launch Today on the device. Deleting the app from Apple TV, iPhone, iPad or Vision Pro deletes them. On a Mac, the app's data folder can stay in your Library after you delete the app. Launch times saved to your private iCloud stay there until you delete Launch Today's data in your iCloud storage settings. Launch times added to the shared index stay in it.

The services it connects to

To show launches and play videos, Launch Today connects directly to public services: The Space Devs' Launch Library and SpaceX for schedules; YouTube, X, ESA and Vimeo, and Spaceflight Now for video; launch companies' websites for their broadcast links; The Paper and Weibo (both in China) for footage of some Chinese launches; and the image servers these services use for thumbnails. Like any website, they see your device's internet address, what's being requested, and the basic details video players normally send, such as the system version. Launch Today never signs in to them and doesn't keep their cookies.

Unless you turn off Use YouTube in Settings, YouTube videos open in the YouTube app (or your web browser on a Mac), starting just before liftoff when Launch Today knows it. If you turn on Use Twitter/X app (iPhone, iPad and Mac), X broadcasts open in the X app. Event links open the launch's website (or Space Launch Now) in your web browser; on Apple TV they appear as a QR code instead. From then on, that app's or site's own privacy policy applies.

Questions

Email gord@launchtoday.app with questions or requests about your data. If you email, your address and message are used only to reply.

Last updated October 5, 2026.