Privacy Policy — Clipsmith

Short version: Clipsmith does not collect, transmit, or share any personal data. It has no network access. Everything happens on your Mac. No accounts, no tracking, no analytics, no third-party services.

1. Who we are

Clipsmith is a macOS menu bar utility developed and distributed by Ahmet Çetin (the "Developer"), based in Warsaw, Poland. This privacy policy applies to the Clipsmith application available on the Mac App Store.

2. Information we do not collect

Clipsmith is designed so that data collection is technically impossible. Specifically, the app:

Does not collect personal information (name, email, phone, address, contacts).
Does not collect usage analytics, telemetry, or diagnostics.
Does not collect device identifiers, advertising identifiers, or location data.
Does not track you across apps or websites.
Does not use cookies or any web-based tracking technology.
Does not include any third-party advertising or analytics SDKs.

3. No network access

Clipsmith is distributed with the macOS App Sandbox enabled and does not request the network entitlement. This means the operating system itself prevents Clipsmith from sending or receiving data over the internet. There is no server-side component. There is no backend.

4. Clipboard contents

Clipsmith reads the macOS clipboard when you invoke the command palette (default hotkey: ⌥⌘V). This is essential to its core function: detecting what you copied (JSON, JWT, base64, color, timestamp, etc.) and showing the matching transforms.

Clipboard contents are processed in memory only while the palette is open or a transform is running.
Clipboard contents are never transmitted — there is no network connection to transmit them over.
Clipboard contents are not written to disk unless you have explicitly turned on the optional Clipboard History feature (see Section 6).

5. On-device AI

Some transforms (log summaries, GitHub issue drafts, Slack status drafts) use Apple Foundation Models, which run entirely on your Mac via Apple's on-device machine-learning frameworks. The text you submit to these transforms is processed locally. No content is sent to Apple, the Developer, or any third party.

6. Clipboard history (optional)

Clipboard History is off by default and must be explicitly enabled in Settings. When enabled:

History entries are stored in a local SQLite database inside the app's macOS sandbox container, on your Mac only.
Clipsmith's secret detector automatically identifies content such as API keys, JWTs, .env values, and private keys, and excludes them from history before they would be written.
You can pin, search, or delete history entries at any time, and you can clear or disable history entirely.
You can exclude specific installed apps (for example: 1Password, Bitwarden, your banking app) from contributing to history at all.

History data never leaves your Mac. It is not synced, not backed up by Clipsmith, and not transmitted anywhere.

7. Permissions Clipsmith does not request

For transparency, here are powerful macOS permissions that Clipsmith deliberately does not request:

Accessibility: not requested. Clipsmith does not monitor keystrokes.
Screen Recording: not requested. Clipsmith does not observe other apps.
Automation / Apple Events: not requested. Clipsmith does not control other apps.
Full Disk Access: not requested. Clipsmith only reads files inside its own sandbox container.
Network: the App Sandbox network entitlement is not enabled.

8. Third-party libraries

Clipsmith includes the following open-source libraries, both of which operate entirely offline:

GRDB.swift (MIT license) — a Swift wrapper around SQLite, used for local Clipboard History storage. No networking.
Yams (MIT license) — a YAML parser and emitter, used for JSON ↔ YAML transforms. No networking.

No third-party advertising, analytics, crash-reporting, or attribution SDKs are included.

9. Children's privacy

Clipsmith is rated 4+ on the Mac App Store. It does not collect any data from any user, regardless of age. It is not directed at children, but it is safe for them in the sense that no personal information is collected from anyone.

10. Your rights

Because Clipsmith collects and stores no personal data on any server, there is no remote data to access, correct, export, or delete. Any data created locally by Clipsmith on your Mac (such as optional Clipboard History) is under your direct control and can be deleted by you at any time from within the app, or by uninstalling Clipsmith.

11. Data retention

The Developer retains no data about you, because no data is collected. Local data on your Mac (such as opt-in Clipboard History) is retained until you delete it or uninstall the app. Uninstalling Clipsmith removes its sandbox container, including any local history.

12. International users

Clipsmith is available globally. Because no personal data is collected or transferred, there is no cross-border transfer of personal data, and obligations under GDPR (EU/UK), CCPA (California), LGPD (Brazil), and similar regulations are met by default through technical design (data minimization and "privacy by design").

13. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in the future, the new version will be posted at this URL with an updated "Last updated" date. Material changes (for example, the introduction of any feature that would collect data) will be announced inside the app or in release notes before they take effect. The current policy version is always the one published here.

14. Contact

Questions about this policy or about Clipsmith's privacy posture in general: ahmet@cetin.info.