Legal
Privacy Policy
The short version. Shadowtype runs entirely on your Mac. Your keystrokes, the text you write, your clipboard, and what's on your screen are processed locally and never sent anywhere. There is no account, no login, and no usage tracking. The only data that ever leaves your device is what's needed to update the app and download a model — described in full below.
1. Who this covers
This policy explains how the Shadowtype macOS application (the “app”) and the shadowtype.app website handle information. Shadowtype is free and open source. It applies to everyone who downloads or uses Shadowtype. By using Shadowtype you agree to this policy.
2. On-device by design
Shadowtype’s text completion runs as a local language model on your Apple Silicon Mac. The inputs to that model — the text before your cursor, optional on-screen text read via local OCR, and (if you enable it) recent clipboard text — are processed only in memory on your device and are never transmitted, logged, or stored on a server. There is:
- No telemetry — the app does not phone home with usage, analytics, or crash data about how you type or what you write.
- No account — you never create a login, and we hold no profile about you.
- No network call to generate a suggestion — completions work fully offline.
Password and secure-entry fields are detected and never read. Screen OCR and clipboard reads are throttled, kept transiently in memory, never written to disk, and never sent off the device. Every context source is individually toggleable in Settings.
3. Data stored on your Mac
Some data is saved locally on your Mac so the app can function. It stays on your device and is under your control:
- Personalization profile — n-gram frequencies and recent phrasings used to bias suggestions toward your style. Stored encrypted in Application Support. You can wipe it at any time in Settings.
- Settings — your preferences. Local only, never transmitted.
Uninstalling the app and deleting its Application Support folder removes all of this.
4. What leaves your device
To be fully transparent, here is the complete list of outbound network traffic the app makes, and what each one sends:
- Software updates. The app periodically checks an update feed for a newer version. Your request carries no personal content and no identifier — it asks only “is there a newer build?”. You can also grab releases directly from GitHub instead.
- Model download. The first time a model is needed, the app downloads it once from a content-delivery host. This transfers the model file to you; it sends no personal data.
That’s everything. There is no inference network call, no account, and no licensing server — ever.
Developer API & MCP — local-only. Shadowtype can expose an OpenAI-compatible HTTP endpoint
and an MCP server so your own scripts, editors, and agents can call the on-device model. Both are
bound to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) only — they don’t accept connections from outside your
Mac, no traffic crosses the network, and no telemetry is generated.
5. This website
The shadowtype.app website is a static site. We may use privacy-respecting, cookieless aggregate analytics (no cross-site tracking, no advertising identifiers, no sale of data) solely to count visits and understand which pages are useful. The website does not set advertising cookies.
6. Your rights
Because the app holds no account, has no backend, and collects no personal data, there is no information about you for us to access or erase. Depending on where you live, you may have rights under the GDPR, UK GDPR, or CCPA/CPRA; we honor valid requests under applicable law.
7. Retention & security
We keep no personal data, so there is nothing to retain. Data in transit to the update endpoint and model host is protected with HTTPS/TLS. On-device data security relies on macOS protections and, for the personalization profile, local encryption.
8. Children
Shadowtype is a productivity tool for general audiences and is not directed to children under 13 (or the equivalent age in your jurisdiction). We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.
9. Changes
We may update this policy as the product evolves. Material changes will be reflected by the “Last updated” date above and, where appropriate, surfaced in the app or on this page.
10. Contact
Questions about privacy? Open an issue on the project's GitHub repository.