Privacy policy

Last updated: 15 September 2026 · applies to the Blip Android app and https://goblip.co

Blip has no accounts of its own, no servers of its own, no ads, no analytics and no trackers. Your library lives on your device. The only things that ever leave it are the lookups that fetch box art, game details and achievement progress, plus whatever you go to your own RomM server for — described below, in full.

What Blip stores on your device

• Your library: the file and folder names of the games you point Blip at, the metadata and artwork it fetches for them, your favourites, your play history and your per-game choices.
• Your settings: theme, layout, controls and the rest.
• Optional credentials you enter: your RetroAchievements username and Web API key, your ScreenScraper username and password, your SteamGridDB API key, and the device token your RomM server issued when you approved the pairing. They are stored on the device and used only to talk to those services on your behalf.

None of this is sent to us — there is no “us” to send it to: Blip the app is the whole of the product, and this website is a static page that sets no cookies and runs no analytics.

What leaves your device, and where it goes

When Blip fetches artwork, game details or achievements, it queries these services directly from your device. A query carries the game’s title and platform — never your files, and never anything about you beyond what any internet request carries (your IP address, which each service receives and handles under its own policy). A service that needs credentials is never contacted until you have connected it:

• libretro thumbnails — box art, no account involved (policy).
• TheGamesDB — game details and box art (site).
• IGDB, a Twitch service — game details and artwork (policy).
• ScreenScraper — game details and regional box scans, queried with the username and password of the free account you connected (terms).
• SteamGridDB — posters, heroes and logos, queried with the API key you provided (policy).
• PlayMatch, by RetroRealm — SteamGridDB artwork without an API key, so it needs no credentials of yours (site).
• RetroAchievements — your achievement progress, queried with the username and key you provided (policy). Blip only reads it; it never writes anything back to your account.
• Your own RomM server, if you paired one — a machine of yours, at an address you typed, reached with a device token you approved in its web interface. Your RomM password never touches Blip.

Nothing else leaves the device. Blip never uploads your game files, your library, your app list or your settings anywhere.

Purchases

The Pro unlock is a one-time purchase handled entirely by Google Play. Blip never sees your payment details; it only learns from Play whether the unlock is owned, and caches that answer on the device so Pro works offline. Payments are governed by Google’s privacy policy.

Backups

If you use Android’s own backup, your library (favourites, play history, fetched metadata) is included so a new device can restore it. Your RetroAchievements, ScreenScraper and SteamGridDB credentials and your RomM device token are excluded from cloud backups on purpose; they only move in a direct device-to-device transfer, and otherwise you re-enter them.

Permissions Blip asks for

• Folder access: you pick each game folder yourself through Android’s file picker; Blip can read only what you granted, and only reads file names.
• Installed app list: Blip is a launcher — it lists your apps to show them and to find your emulators. The list is displayed on your screen and never transmitted.
• Internet: the lookups described above, nothing else.
• Uninstall requests: the app drawer can ask Android to uninstall an app; Android shows its own confirmation.
• Notifications: so a library scan, an artwork sweep or a ROM download can show its progress while you are doing something else. The work runs whether or not you allow them — refusing only hides the progress bar.
• Foreground service: so a ROM download runs to the end in one pass instead of being stopped at Android’s limit for background work.

Two more are optional special accesses, granted by hand in Android’s own settings and never at runtime. Both exist for the game companion on a dual-screen handheld, and it works without either:

• Usage access: lets the companion notice that you left the game without coming back to Blip first, so it can put the game’s card away. Blip only asks which app is in the foreground, only while a game it launched is open, and that answer is never stored and never sent anywhere.
• Modify system settings: lets the companion’s brightness slider change the brightness of the screen above. Refused, the slider stays disabled and says why.

Deleting your data

Everything Blip stores is on your device: uninstalling the app deletes it. Disconnecting RetroAchievements or RomM, or revoking the SteamGridDB key in Settings, deletes those credentials immediately. Data held by the third-party services you connected — your RetroAchievements account, for instance — is theirs to delete under their own policies.

Children

Blip is a general-audience utility. It does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, children included — it has no way to.

Changes and contact

If Blip ever gains a feature that handles data differently, this page changes first and the “last updated” date moves. Questions go to the developer contact on Blip’s Google Play listing.