Privacy

Privacy Policy

Effective 16 October 2026

What the app records

Every few seconds NotchTime notes what's in front of you, so it can show where your time went. It records:

• The app in front, and how long since you last touched the keyboard or mouse (so time away isn't counted).
• The front tab in your browser (Safari, Chrome, Arc, Brave or Edge), only after you allow it in macOS's Automation prompt. It reads the address and title of the active tab in the front window. It keeps the site (for example youtube.com) and the page's title, never the full address, never what's on the page, and never your other tabs. For mail, banking and health sites it keeps only the site, never the title (see below).
• What's playing: the title and artist or channel that macOS shows as Now Playing, and which app is playing it. This is how it tells watching from just having a tab open.
• When you unlock your Mac, and which nudges it showed you.
• Your settings: categories, goals, keyword rules and preferences.

Sites that keep no titles: page titles can say a lot (an email's subject, an account, a health search), so for mail, banking and health sites NotchTime keeps only the site's name. A list of common ones is built in, and you can add or remove sites in Settings › Privacy › Page titles. Adding a site also erases any titles already kept for it.

Private windows: incognito windows in Chrome, Arc, Brave and Edge count only as time, under “Private browsing”. Their sites, page titles and anything playing in them are never recorded. Safari doesn't tell other apps whether a window is private, so Safari private windows are recorded like any other window. Use Pause Tracking in the menu bar if you'd rather they weren't.

It never records keystrokes, screenshots, screen contents, files, or the contents of web pages.

Where it's kept

All of it is stored on your Mac, in ~/Library/Application Support/NotchTime/ (your activity in tracking.sqlite, and cached site icons), plus the app's preferences. Detailed samples are kept for 7 days and per-minute summaries for a year. None of it is uploaded, synced or shared, and we can't see it.

What leaves your Mac

Only these three things, and none of them include your activity:

1. License checks, with Dodo Payments. When you activate a license, the app sends Dodo your license key and your Mac's name (the one in System Settings › General › About). About once a week it sends the key again to confirm it's still valid, and deactivating sends it once more. If you're offline, the app keeps working with the license it has.
2. Update checks. The app checks for new versions using Sparkle, reading an update feed hosted on GitHub Pages and downloading updates from GitHub. Those requests carry the app's name and version, nothing about how you use it.
3. Site icons. For a site without a built-in icon, the app downloads that site's own icon (such as example.com/favicon.ico) directly from the site, never through a third-party icon service. The site sees a request from your Mac, as it did when you visited it.

If you connect an AI app. NotchTime includes an optional MCP helper that AI apps such as Claude or Cursor can use to answer questions about your screen time. It does nothing until you add it to an AI app yourself. Once you do, that app can read your totals, categories, apps, sites, videos and pickups (never page titles) when you ask it something, and what it reads goes to that app's provider under their privacy policy, not to us. Remove it from the AI app's settings to stop it.

Like any request on the internet, these reveal your IP address to the server that answers them. There's no usage analytics, crash reporting, advertising or tracking of any kind in the app.

Buying a license

Purchases are handled by Dodo Payments, which is the merchant of record: it takes the payment, handles tax and sends the receipt. Your card and billing details go to Dodo, not to us, and are covered by Dodo's own privacy policy. From Dodo we see your order: your name, email address, country and license key. We use them only to send your license, answer you and handle refunds.

Emailing us

If you write to support, we keep your email to reply and to help if the same problem comes back. We don't add you to any mailing list.

This website

This site has no analytics or cookies. It loads its font from Google Fonts, and the pricing section asks our server how many launch-price licenses are left; both see your IP address like any server would, and neither is used to track you.

Delete your data

To erase your history and keep using the app: Settings › Privacy › Delete All Data, in the menu bar icon's Settings or the analysis panel's. It deletes every app, site, page and video recorded, with pickups, nudges, cached site icons and categories you set for single pages, then compacts the file so nothing is left in it. Settings, goals and your license stay.

To remove NotchTime and everything it keeps:

1. If you have a license and are leaving this Mac for good, first deactivate it (below) so it can be used elsewhere.
2. Quit NotchTime: menu bar icon › Quit NotchTime.
3. Turn off Launch at Login in the app's Settings, or remove NotchTime in System Settings › General › Login Items.
4. In Finder, choose Go › Go to Folder…, enter ~/Library/Application Support/NotchTime and move that folder to the Trash. That's all of your recorded activity.
5. To remove preferences too, run defaults delete com.tylernam.NotchTime in Terminal. The license key sits in your login Keychain as com.tylernam.NotchTime.license; delete it in Keychain Access if you like.
6. Move NotchTime from Applications to the Trash, and empty the Trash.

Browser access can be revoked any time in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Automation.

Deactivate a license

Open the menu bar icon › Settings › License › Deactivate on This Mac. This frees that activation with Dodo so you can use the key on another Mac. It needs an internet connection. If the Mac is lost or already wiped, email us and we'll free it for you.

Children

NotchTime isn't directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect anything from them. Since activity never leaves the Mac, there's nothing about a child's use for us to hold.

Changes

If what the app collects or sends changes, this page will change first, with a new effective date at the top.

Contact

Questions about privacy: support@notchtime.app.