Is Headspace safe to use?

Headspace integrates 40 third-party SDKs spanning infrastructure, storage, and media. It collects data linked to your identity including Health & Fitness, Purchases, Location, and Contact Info and 5 more categories. It does not include any advertising or attribution SDKs. Whether this is acceptable depends on your personal privacy preferences.

What permissions does Headspace need?

Headspace requests 15 iOS permissions: Camera, Microphone, Contacts, Photo Library, Location (When In Use), Location (Always), Location (Always & When In Use), Calendars, HealthKit (Read), HealthKit (Write), Speech Recognition, Face ID, Save to Photo Library, Bluetooth, and Bluetooth Peripheral.

How many SDKs does Headspace have?

Headspace integrates 40 third-party SDKs. 4 for analytics, 1 for crash reporting, 1 for payments, 13 for infrastructure, and 6 for other. None are for advertising or attribution.

Does Headspace access your location?

Yes. Headspace requests location access. The developer states: "This app does not require your location to provide services. If you receive this message please contact our customer service representatives.".

Does Headspace access your camera or microphone?

Headspace requests access to both your camera and microphone. The developer says camera access is for "For people to see you during meetings, we need access to your camera". Microphone access is for "For people to hear you during meetings, we need access to your microphone". These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does Headspace access your contacts?

Yes. Headspace requests access to your contacts. The developer states: "Invite buddies to track each other's progress.".

Does Headspace run in the background?

Yes. Headspace registers 1 background mode, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

What are some alternatives to Headspace?

Other health & fitness apps include 75 Days Challenge , 75 Hard , Calo , AllTrails , MenuFit , and BetterHelp . Each app takes a different approach to health & fitness and varies in its data collection and SDK usage.

Health & Fitness · Privacy report

Headspace: Meditation & Sleep

Free · ★4.8 · Headspace Inc.

Is Headspace safe?

It collects a lot of your data itself.

Our take. Its own App Store privacy label declares Headspace links 9 categories of your data to your identity, including health & fitness, purchases, location and contact info. That collection, more than any outside tracker, is the story here.

Privacy footprint · vs 109 health & fitnessHeavy

Trackers from other companies4 · some

typical health & fitness: 6

Data the app links to you9 types · a lot

typical health & fitness: 5 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

Headspace links 9 categories of your data to you.

From the developer's own App Store privacy label. These are the kinds of data Headspace ties to your identity.

Health & FitnessPurchasesLocationContact InfoUser ContentSearch HistoryIdentifiersUsage DataDiagnostics

Who else is inside

It carries trackers from 3 companies.

Third-party SDKs found in the app, matched to the company that publishes each. Present in the code; we do not observe what they transmit.

🇺🇸AmplitudeAnalytics

Product analytics, built to record detailed behaviour inside the app.

SDKs

🇺🇸GoogleAnalytics

Firebase, AdMob and Google analytics SDKs, built to record how you use the app and serve ads.

SDK

🏢Other third partiesanalytics

A third-party SDK.

SDK

How it compares

Where it sits among health & fitness.

Every one of these apps we have scanned, on the two measures above: third-party trackers it carries (across) and data it links to you on its own label (up). Toward the top right is more invasive.

Each dot is one health & fitnes app. Headspace sits high on the left: it collects a lot itself but uses few outside trackers.

The evidence

What it's built from.

All 40 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. 4 are third-party trackers.

4analytics

1crash reporting

35standard libraries

4 of the 40 are third-party trackers. The rest are the app's own code and standard open-source building blocks.

Show the full SDK list

AmplitudeAnalytics · USA

Amplitude · Amplitude (Flutter)

GoogleAnalytics · USA

Google Analytics Connector

Other third partiesanalytics

Qualtrics

Standard libraries35 · on-device

The app's own code plus open-source interface, storage and networking libraries.

How we know this

Counterspy downloads the app from the App Store and statically analyzes its compiled binary. Embedded SDKs are matched against a signature database and resolved to the company that operates each. We also read the developer's App Store privacy label, which lists the data the app says it collects and links to you. We do not run the app or intercept its traffic, so we report capabilities present in the code and the developer's own disclosures, not proven transmission. We assess privacy and data collection, not malware, security flaws, or developer intent. Reports are automated and never edited for payment. Scan v8.6.3, 2026-04-01.

Third-party trackers are advertising, analytics and attribution SDKs detected by static signature matching. Presence shows a capability is compiled in, not that it ran or transmitted data.
"Data the app links to you" is the count of data categories the developer declares as Data Linked To You in its App Store privacy label. Labels are self-reported and not verified by Apple.
Comparison across the 109 health & fitness in our corpus. Trackers: median 6. Data linked to you: median 5.