Is Tumblr safe to use?

Tumblr integrates 21 third-party SDKs spanning advertising, analytics, and social. Its App Store privacy label declares cross-app tracking via Location, Contact Info, Identifiers, and Usage Data. It collects data linked to your identity including Location, Contact Info, User Content, and Search History and 3 more categories. It includes 15 advertising or attribution SDKs. Whether this is acceptable depends on your personal privacy preferences.

What permissions does Tumblr need?

Tumblr requests 8 iOS permissions: App Tracking Transparency, Camera, Microphone, Photo Library, Location (When In Use), Location (Always & When In Use), Calendars, and Save to Photo Library.

What data does Tumblr collect?

According to its App Store privacy label, Tumblr declares cross-app tracking via Location, Contact Info, Identifiers, and Usage Data. It collects data linked to your identity including Location, Contact Info, User Content, Search History, Identifiers, Usage Data, and Diagnostics. It collects Identifiers not linked to your identity.

How many SDKs does Tumblr have?

Tumblr integrates 21 third-party SDKs. 15 for advertising, 2 for analytics, 1 for social integration, and 3 for other.

Does Tumblr use Facebook tracking?

Yes. Tumblr includes 3 Facebook SDKs: Facebook AEM, Facebook SDK, and Facebook Share. These are used for ad measurement, attribution, and integration with Facebook's advertising platform (developers.facebook.com).

Does Tumblr use Google SDKs?

Yes. Tumblr includes 3 Google or Firebase SDKs: Google AdMob, Firebase Analytics, and Google App Measurement. These are used for ads, analytics, and cloud services.

Does Tumblr use App Tracking Transparency?

Yes. Tumblr requests the App Tracking Transparency permission, which means it asks for your consent to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites.

Does Tumblr access your location?

Yes. Tumblr requests location access. The developer states: "Tumblr does not use location. It does include libraries that have include location code, but they are not used by the app.".

Does Tumblr access your camera or microphone?

Tumblr requests access to both your camera and microphone. The developer says camera access is for "Enabling access to your camera will allow you to take and post pictures with the app". Microphone access is for "Enabling access to your mic will allow you to take and post videos with the app". These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does Tumblr run in the background?

Yes. Tumblr registers 3 background modes, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

What are some alternatives to Tumblr?

Other social networking apps include Yik Yak , 3F , AM , Backbone , BeReal. , and BiP . Each app takes a different approach to social networking and varies in its data collection and SDK usage.

Social Networking · Privacy report

Tumblr: Social Media & Art

Free · ★4.2 · Tumblr, Inc.

Is Tumblr safe?

It leans heavily on third-party trackers.

Our take. Tumblr is built with more third-party tracking code than 91% of the social networking we have scanned.

Privacy footprint · vs 97 social networkingHeavy

Trackers from other companies17 · a lot

typical social networking: 4

Data the app links to you7 types · some

typical social networking: 5 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

Tumblr links 7 categories of your data to you.

From the developer's own App Store privacy label. These are the kinds of data Tumblr ties to your identity, and it also declares it shares data to track you across other apps.

LocationContact 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.

🏢Other third partiesadvertising

A third-party SDK.

SDKs

🇺🇸MetaAdvertising

Facebook advertising SDKs, built to link app activity to Facebook and Instagram ad profiles.

SDKs

🇺🇸GoogleAnalytics

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

SDKs

How it compares

Where it sits among social networking.

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 social networking app. Tumblr sits to the right, carrying more third-party tracking than most.

Other signals

One more flag.

Each is a fact read straight from the app. The same checks run on every app we scan. Only the ones that apply here are shown.

It declares cross-app tracking

Its own App Store label says it tracks you across other companies apps and websites using your advertising identifier.

The evidence

What it's built from.

All 21 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. 17 are third-party trackers.

15advertising

2analytics

4standard libraries

17 of the 21 are third-party trackers. The rest are the app's own code and standard open-source building blocks.

Show the full SDK list

Other third partiesadvertising

Amazon Publisher Services (DTB) · LiveRamp ATS · Moloco Ads · Nimbus Ads Core · Nimbus Ads · Nimbus Ads Render · Nimbus Ads Render Static · Nimbus Ads Render Video · Nimbus Ads Request · Open Measurement SDK (Nimbus) · Google UMP (Consent) · Google App Measurement

MetaAdvertising · USA

Facebook AEM · Facebook Audience Network · Facebook SDK

GoogleAnalytics · USA

Google AdMob · Firebase Analytics

Standard libraries4 · 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 v43.9, 2026-04-03.

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 97 social networking in our corpus. Trackers: median 4. Data linked to you: median 5.