Soundgun — Privacy
Effective: 2026-10-13.
Soundgun has no accounts of its own, no servers and no telemetry. Everything it keeps sits in one folder on your PC, apart from one number the demo also keeps in the registry, described below. The one thing in that folder that identifies your Steam account is its ID, which Soundgun gets from the Steam client on your PC and keeps sealed to your Windows account. Soundgun never sends it anywhere. The same folder also identifies your Windows account and your PC: your Windows user name appears in the file paths Soundgun records, and your PC's name in its settings and library. The table below says where. Like everything else here, none of it leaves your PC unless you send it yourself.
What is stored on your PC
All of it lives in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Soundgun, which is usually C:\Users\<your Windows user name>\AppData\Local\Soundgun; the demo's copy of demo.bin in the registry is the one exception.
| File | What is in it |
|---|---|
config.json | Your settings: the trigger and hotkeys — keys, mouse buttons or controller buttons — and whether to name controller buttons the Xbox or the PlayStation way, which microphones you enabled and how, the output you listen on, overlay layout, gains, whether Soundgun starts with Windows, whether Soundgun is switched on, and the folders you asked it to watch. Also the programs you added to the Games pane — their full paths and the names you gave them — and any autokeys you made. And a machine id: your PC's name plus the serial number of the drive this folder is on, used only to notice a settings file that came from a different PC |
library.db | Your library, as an SQLite database: the paths and names of your sound files; each file's size, date, a fingerprint of its contents, its length and format, its measured loudness and a small waveform the trim editor draws; your edits to each sound (gain, trim, fades, looping, its hotkey); your playlists, their colours and their order; your slot and page layout; the folders you asked Soundgun to watch and which playlist each one feeds; and the same machine id as config.json. SQLite's working files sit beside it, and so does any copy Soundgun kept before upgrading the file or after finding it damaged. The audio files themselves stay where they are — Soundgun never copies, moves or changes them |
licence.bin | What Steam last said about ownership on this PC: your Steam ID (the number that identifies your Steam account), the app id, whether your copy came through Steam Family Sharing or a free weekend, when Steam last confirmed it, and — if Steam has been refusing — when that started, when it last happened, how many times, and whether Steam said outright that the account does not own Soundgun. The refusals are removed from it when Steam confirms your copy and, unless one of them was that outright answer, the first time Soundgun starts or checks after Steam has gone three days without refusing again. It is the only file here that keeps your Steam ID; a crash dump can catch it only by accident, as its row says. It is sealed with Windows' own data protection (DPAPI) to your Windows account, so a copy taken to another PC or another Windows account cannot be opened; the exception is a managed network account whose Windows keys are set to follow it between PCs. Deleting it costs nothing but a fresh check with Steam. A version that does not act on Steam's answer never writes it |
logs\ | What each program did, in Soundgun.log, SoundgunOverlay.log and SoundgunSetup.log: your microphones' names and Windows endpoint ids, driver details, which effect slot was used, errors with their Windows error codes, what Steam answered about ownership (without your Steam ID), when the connection to Steam opened and closed and, when it applies, that Steam and Soundgun were running with different administrator rights, and the paths of any sound files and folders involved, which include your Windows user name when they are inside your user folder. They also name the program an autokey was pressed for. SoundgunOverlay.log also notes which of your shortcuts was used and when, and the kind of controller Soundgun reads — a DualSense, say — but never anything you typed. SoundgunSetup.log names a Windows account, by its name or its security identifier (SID), only when uninstalling could not remove that account's auto-start entry. Rotating: 4 MB per file, three older files kept. SoundgunSetup.log is written into the folder of whichever Windows account approved the administrator prompt |
crashes\ | Only if Soundgun.exe or its overlay, SoundgunOverlay.exe, crashes: a crash dump named Soundgun-<version>-<time>.dmp or SoundgunOverlay-<version>-<time>.dmp. It records each of that program's threads at the moment of the crash — their call stacks and the small pieces of memory those stacks point to — along with the list of program files that were loaded and basic facts about Windows and the processor. It is not a copy of all of the program's memory, but it can hold anything the program had in those pieces: file paths with your Windows user name in them, sound and program names, in principle your Steam ID, and a fragment of the audio being mixed — or, in Compatibility Mode, of your voice — or, in the overlay's, the keys and buttons held at that moment. The five newest are kept and older ones are deleted. Nothing sends them; one leaves your PC only if you attach it to a message yourself |
demo.bin | Only in the free demo: how much of its 30 minutes of use has been spent, and nothing else. The demo keeps the same number in the registry too, in a value named Demo under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Soundgun, so that deleting this file does not start the 30 minutes again. Both copies are sealed with Windows' own data protection (DPAPI) to your Windows account. The full version never writes or reads either |
WebView2\ | The browser profile Microsoft's WebView2 runtime keeps for the settings window: its cache and its own housekeeping files. Soundgun stores nothing of its own there — the settings page uses no cookies and no browser storage — and it switches autofill and password saving off |
Outside that folder, Soundgun writes only what section 4 of the licence agreement lists: the audio effect, its registration, and a record of each enabled microphone's original effect slot — facts about your PC's audio devices. If you turn on auto-start, the startup entry it adds holds where Soundgun.exe is and nothing else. A diagnostics export is a file on your Desktop.
Uninstalling through Steam removes the program and undoes the system changes described in section 4 of the licence agreement, as far as section 5 there says it does. That includes the auto-start entry of every Windows account signed in at the time. One left behind — an account that was signed out, or an entry the uninstall step could not remove, which its log names — can be switched off in Task Manager's Startup apps from that account.
Uninstalling also does not delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\Soundgun: to remove everything in the table above, licence.bin included, delete that folder yourself after uninstalling.
What is not collected
- No Soundgun account. There is nothing to sign up for or log in to, and we hold no email address or password. The only account Soundgun knows about is the Steam account signed in on your PC, and it keeps that account's ID only on your PC, in
licence.bin. - No telemetry of ours. There is no Soundgun backend to send anything to, so nothing is counted, timed, sampled or phoned home by Soundgun. The playtime Steam keeps for Soundgun is Steam's own; the Steam client below says how it is counted.
- Your voice is never recorded. Microphone audio passes through the audio effect as you speak — and, in Compatibility Mode, through Soundgun itself on its way to the virtual cable — and nothing saves it. The one exception is a crash dump, which can catch a fragment of whatever was in flight.
- Soundgun does open your microphone, twice, and keeps nothing either time. It opens one briefly to check that its audio effect is really running inside your microphone — that is what the walkthrough's check and the Devices page's status report — and it holds one open while the settings window is on screen, so the Your mic bar can show how loud you are. Windows shows its "microphone in use" indicator for as long as either is open. Neither reads what arrives: the number on that bar is measured by the audio effect inside Windows' own audio program and reaches Soundgun already as a number. Closing the settings window closes the second one, and Bluetooth microphones are left out of it, because opening one drops the headset to hands-free quality.
- A phone you connect is only ever listened to, never recorded. The Phone page lists the phones already paired with this PC in Windows, and shows each one's Bluetooth name. Connecting one asks Windows to receive what that phone plays, and Soundgun mixes it into your microphone while it is connected. Nothing is saved, and nothing about the phone leaves this PC — Soundgun never reads its contacts, messages, files or anything else, and cannot: the only thing it asks Windows for is the sound. Pairing itself happens in Windows' own Bluetooth settings, not here.
- What you press is never recorded. While something in Soundgun is set to a key, a mouse button or a controller button, Soundgun watches your keyboard, mouse or controller for it — the way push-to-talk in a voice chat app does — and every press still reaches whatever you are using. The overlay does the same with the keyboard and the mouse while it is open. Each press is compared with your shortcuts and then forgotten: nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere, and the log notes only which of your shortcuts was used. The one exception is a crash dump of the overlay, which can catch the keys and buttons held at that moment.
- Your sound files stay yours. They are read to play them and to measure them. Soundgun never uploads, copies, moves or changes them.
- No advertising, profiling, analytics SDK or third-party tracker. Nothing is sold or shared.
- No payment details. Steam takes the payment; we never see a card, a billing address or an address of any kind.
What can reach the network
Soundgun makes no network connections of its own. Three things are still worth knowing.
1. The Steam client, on your own PC. While Soundgun runs, it stays connected to the copy of Steam running on your PC, through a second copy of Soundgun.exe that Task Manager shows beside it. That is a conversation between two programs on your PC. The connection starts when Soundgun starts, or when Steam starts if Soundgun was running first, and ends when either of them closes; while Steam is closed, Soundgun looks every few seconds for it to start, and reads nothing but whether it is running. For as long as the connection lasts, Steam treats Soundgun as running, the way it treats any app you start: it counts the time as your playtime for Soundgun, and it shows Soundgun as what you are using, which your Steam friends can see if your Steam privacy settings let them. It does that whether Soundgun's window is open or Soundgun is only in the tray. Over the same connection Soundgun asks whether the account signed in there owns Soundgun: when it connects, then at lengthening intervals that settle at about once an hour until Steam confirms your copy, and every twelve hours from then on. A version that does not act on Steam's answers records no confirmation, so it keeps asking about once an hour, however Steam answers, even while its About page says Owned on Steam. It also asks whenever you press Check again. What comes back is the ownership answer, whether it came through Family Sharing or a free weekend, and your Steam ID, which the About page displays. Each check also asks Windows whether the Steam client on your PC is running as administrator, because Steam cannot answer Soundgun across that difference. The answer is used for that check, noted in the log when Steam and Soundgun differ, and not stored anywhere else. Steam is connected to Valve on its own account, and what Valve does with your Steam account, the playtime and status it records for Soundgun included, is covered by Valve's privacy policy, not by this one.
2. Microsoft's WebView2 runtime. The settings window is drawn by WebView2, a Microsoft component that ships with Windows. Soundgun shows it only files from Soundgun's own install folder, refuses any navigation away from them, switches autofill and password saving off, and opens links in your own browser. It does not change WebView2's other settings, so SmartScreen, Microsoft's reputation check, stays at Microsoft's default, which is on. WebView2 can therefore contact Microsoft on its own — for SmartScreen and for its own updates. That traffic is Microsoft's, and Microsoft's privacy statement covers it.
3. Crash dumps and diagnostics leave your PC only when you send them. Soundgun never uploads a crash dump or a diagnostics file. It does not use Steam's crash reporting either — Valve documents that feature as 32-bit only and nearing the end of its life, and Soundgun is 64-bit — so Steam receives no crash data from Soundgun. What Soundgun deliberately does not do is hide a crash from Windows: Windows records it as it would for any program, and Windows Error Reporting can send its own report to Microsoft under your Windows settings. That is Microsoft's mechanism and Microsoft's privacy statement, not ours.
What a diagnostics export contains
Two things in the app hand you diagnostic text, and neither sends it anywhere.
Diagnostics → Save report writes a plain text file to your Desktop, or to the logs folder if Windows will not say where your Desktop is. It holds Soundgun's version and build, whether it starts with Windows, whether it is switched on, where its data folder is, and each microphone with its Windows endpoint id, driver details, effect slot, status and any manufacturer effect Soundgun displaced. It adds what the administrator helper reports about the registration; the file names and sizes of up to five of Soundgun's newest crash dumps, the names only, since a dump is a separate file you attach yourself or do not; Soundgun's most recent log lines; and the ends of the overlay's and the setup helper's logs. Those log lines can include what Steam answered about ownership, but not your Steam ID, and the paths of sounds and names of programs involved in whatever went wrong.
Paths inside your Windows user folder are written as %USERPROFILE%, which takes your Windows user name out of them. Paths anywhere else are written as they are, and a Windows account can still be named outside a path: in the setup helper's log lines, if uninstalling could not remove that account's auto-start entry.
About → Copy diagnostics puts a shorter summary on your clipboard: the build details, whether Soundgun is switched on, how many microphones it is driving, which checks need attention, and what Steam answered, including your Steam ID and the date Steam last confirmed your copy. It goes wherever you paste it and nowhere else.
Both are plain text on purpose. Read them, and take out anything you would rather not share before you send them.
Children
Soundgun is not directed at children. It is sold through Steam, and Steam account age rules are Valve's. We collect nothing from anyone, since what Soundgun stores stays on the PC it runs on, so there is nothing that could be knowingly collected from a child.
Changes to this statement
This statement is updated when the software changes — new network behaviour would land here first. The current version is published on the Steam store page and at soundgun.app, with its effective date at the top.
Contact
Write to contact@sketchub.in. The Steam store page for Soundgun and soundgun.app carry the same address and the current version of this statement. If you write to us, we have what you send — your email address, your message and anything you attach — and use it only to answer you.
If you want to know what Soundgun holds about you, the answer is the first table: it is on your PC, in that folder. config.json and the logs are plain text, and library.db opens in any SQLite viewer. licence.bin is sealed, but the About page shows the parts of it that matter — your Steam ID and when Steam last confirmed your copy. A crash dump needs a debugger to read.