The short version
The app collects nothing. It makes no network connections of any kind. There is no account, no analytics, no crash reporting and no server. Nothing you capture is transmitted anywhere. The one exception is one you set up yourself: a destination is a script on your Mac that Tyto runs when you press ⇧⌘C, and it sends the capture wherever you told it to. This website counts page visits, which is covered further down.
What stays on your Mac
- Captures. Images you take go to your clipboard, and are also written to your save folder. They are ordinary files on your own disk.
- Settings. Your shortcut, default tool, colour, thickness and save location are stored locally by macOS in Tyto's own container.
- Recent captures. This is on by default. Tyto writes a PNG of every
capture into your save folder –
~/Pictures/Tytounless you pick another – and lists the last 24 in the menu bar. They are ordinary files on your own disk; nothing is sent anywhere. Turn it off in Settings. Clearing the list from the menu bar leaves the files where they are.
Permissions
Tyto asks for Screen Recording permission because macOS requires it of every app that captures the screen. Tyto uses it to take a single still image when you press the shortcut. It does not record video, and it does not capture anything in the background.
If you choose a save folder outside your Pictures folder, macOS grants Tyto access to that folder specifically, and Tyto stores that grant so the folder keeps working after a restart.
This website
The app and this site are separate things. The app collects nothing. The site counts visits using Cloudflare Web Analytics – no cookies, no fingerprinting, nothing that identifies you, and no data sold or shared. It tells me roughly how many people looked at a page, and nothing else.
Third parties
The app contains no advertising, no tracking libraries and no third-party analytics, and shares no information with anyone. Nothing in this section is about the app; it is about this website, which unavoidably involves a few other companies:
- Cloudflare serves both pages and counts the visits described above.
- Google Fonts serves the typeface, so your browser requests it from Google when a page loads.
- Ko-fi supplies the support button on the home page, which loads from their servers. This page does not include it.
Each of those sees the request your browser makes, which includes your IP address, in the ordinary way any website you visit does. None of them is given anything by me.
Children
Tyto collects no personal information from anyone, including children under 13.
Changes
If this policy ever changes, the revised version will be posted here with a new date. Any change that affects data handling will also be described in the app's release notes.
Who is responsible
Tyto is made and published by Yevhenii Viniichuk, an individual developer, not a company. Since the app collects nothing, there is no database of yours to access, correct or delete – but if you have a question about any of this, or think something here is wrong, please ask.
How long anything is kept
Nothing from the app. A capture leaves your Mac only through a destination you set up. The website's visit counts are aggregate numbers held by Cloudflare and are not tied to a person, a device or an address.
Contact
Questions about privacy, or anything else, can go to the issue tracker.