What DeskTrack sees, and where it goes.

Screenshots never leave your Mac. When DeskTrack analyzes your screen visually, it does so with Apple's on-device model — the image is held in memory, read, and dropped. It is never uploaded, and never written to disk.

If you use the OpenAI mode instead, DeskTrack doesn't take a screenshot at all. It tracks from the app name and window title, and sends only that text. There is no mode in which a picture of your screen is transmitted anywhere.

Meeting notes are separate, off by default, and are the one feature that can send audio off your Mac — see below.

• On-device (Apple Intelligence): DeskTrack captures your screen periodically and analyzes it with Apple's built-in model, running locally. Perceptual hashing means an unchanged screen isn't re-analyzed. The image is discarded immediately; only a short text summary ("writing a PR description in VS Code") is saved to a local file.
• OpenAI: no screen capture happens, and DeskTrack doesn't request Screen Recording access for it. What's sent to OpenAI is text: the frontmost app name, the window title, your recent activity summaries, and the daily intention you set.
• Off: no AI at all — app-name tracking only, entirely local.

You choose during setup. On Macs that support Apple Intelligence, on-device is the recommended and pre-selected option.

DeskTrack can transcribe meetings. This is off by default and never turns itself on — you enable it, and you confirm consent before each recording starts.

• It records other people. Transcription works from your Mac's system audio, so it captures the voices of everyone on the call, plus your microphone. No bot joins the meeting, and participants aren't notified automatically — telling them is your responsibility, and in some places it's a legal requirement. DeskTrack gives you an announcement script, but can't verify you used it.
• Audio is never saved. It's held in memory, transcribed, and dropped. No audio file is ever written to disk or retained after transcription.
• Transcription is on-device where your Mac supports it. That needs a recent Apple-silicon Mac with Apple Intelligence. On Macs without it, transcription falls back to OpenAI, which means the meeting audio is uploaded for transcription. You can also choose OpenAI deliberately for AI summaries and action items.
• Transcripts are kept for 30 days, locally, then the words are deleted automatically. The summary, decisions, action items, and participant names are kept until you delete them. You can delete any meeting, or drop just its transcript, at any time.
• If you use the live assist panel during a call, the running transcript is sent to OpenAI to generate suggestions.

OpenAI is the only third party DeskTrack talks to, and only when you have supplied your own API key. Depending on your settings, it may receive:

• App names, window titles, and activity summaries — in OpenAI screen mode.
• Your day's activity summaries and open task titles, to write the evening digest. This is long-form synthesis that runs once a day, so it prefers OpenAI even when screen analysis stays on-device. You can point the digest back at your screen provider in Settings.
• Meeting audio, when on-device transcription isn't available or you chose OpenAI.
• Meeting transcripts, for summaries, action items, and live assist.

Never sent: images of your screen, audio recordings kept as files, or anything at all if you run in off mode without meeting notes.

Everything DeskTrack keeps lives in a folder in your Application Support directory, as plain files you can read or delete yourself: the activity log (swept after 30 days), tasks, daily digests, meeting transcripts and summaries, and your settings.

Your OpenAI API key is stored in that settings file in plain text, not in the macOS Keychain. Anyone with access to your user account could read it. You can remove it from Settings at any time.

DeskTrack has no server, no account, and no sign-up. It sends no analytics, no crash reports, and no usage data — there is no "phone home" of any kind, and no update or licence check. We have no way to see your activity log, because it never reaches us.

• Choose on-device, OpenAI, or no AI at all — and switch whenever.
• Turn off screenshots entirely and track from window titles alone.
• Exclude apps and window titles by name or keyword (banking, passwords, incognito, and so on). This protection is off until you switch it on and add what you want skipped.
• Pause tracking at any time.
• Keep meeting notes off, or enable them per-recording with consent.
• Delete a single meeting, all meeting transcripts, or every piece of data DeskTrack holds, in one click.

If this policy changes in a way that affects what data is captured or where it goes, the "last updated" date above will change and, for material changes, the app will surface a notice on next launch.

Email founder@desktrack.io — a person reads and answers these, not a support queue.