App Permissions Explained

This is the primary way Scucha tracks your immersion. Most media apps (YouTube, Spotify, Podcast players) show a notification when media is playing.

Scucha monitors these notifications to read the title and creator of the content you are consuming. This allows us to log your time automatically without you having to manually start a timer.

Crucial for: Seamless, automatic tracking of most media apps.

This permission allows Scucha to show the floating tracking button and the overlay UI while you are using other apps.

The overlay gives you immediate feedback that your session is being tracked and allows you to quickly adjust settings or categorize your immersion without leaving your current app.

Crucial for: Real-time tracking visibility and control.

To ensure tracking doesn't stop unexpectedly, Scucha runs as a "Foreground Service" which shows a persistent notification while tracking is active.

Requesting to be ignored by battery optimizations ensures that Android doesn't "kill" the app in the middle of a long immersion session to save power. Scucha is very lightweight and in our experience doesn't result in noticeable battery drain.

Crucial for: Reliable, long-term tracking sessions.

Some apps, like Instagram Reels or certain video players, do not provide standard media notifications. For these apps, Scucha can optionally use Accessibility Services to "see" what is on your screen.

We only use this to extract the specific text needed for tracking (like the Video Title or Creator name). We never log keyboard input, passwords, or personal messages.

Optional to: Track apps that don't use standard Android media notifications. This is a very sensitive permission, and malicious developers do use this permission to spy on users and hijack your phone. We promise to never use this permission for anything other than track your input.