SecureMacApps
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Security

How we keep your data on your Mac

Most privacy pages describe what a company promises to do with your data. This one describes why our apps never have it. Everything here is checkable with tools you can download for free.

Files uploaded0No code path sends file contents or names
Analytics SDKs0No usage tracking of any kind
Third-party servers0Apps talk only to securemacapps.com
Network requests5Activate, renew, free trial, price, update check
Full disclosure

The complete list of network requests

This is everything any SecureMacApps app sends. An app with additional needs (say, checking for an update you asked for) lists them on its own page.

  1. ActivateKey / hash only
    securemacapps.com/api/v1/activate
    Sends
    Your activation key and a one-way hash of this Mac’s hardware ID
    When
    Once, when you enter a key
  2. RenewKey / hash only
    securemacapps.com/api/v1/refresh
    Sends
    The same key and hash
    When
    Once a day at most, when the app opens and the Mac is online
  3. Free trialKey / hash only
    securemacapps.com/api/v1/trial
    Sends
    Only the one-way hash of this Mac — no email, no name, no card
    When
    Once, if you press Start free trial
  4. Update checkSends nothing
    securemacapps.com/api/v1/apps/<app>/latest.json
    Sends
    Nothing — a plain request for the latest version number
    When
    At most once a day, unless you turn update checks off
  5. PriceSends nothing
    securemacapps.com/api/v1/prices
    Sends
    Nothing — a plain request for the current price
    When
    When you open the upgrade screen

What the server stores

For each subscription: your email, the activation key, the plan and its paid-through date, the payment provider’s reference, and the machine hash of each Mac you activated. That is the whole record.

What it never receives

File names, file contents, scan results, which apps you installed, which features you used, your Mac’s serial number, its hardware UUID, or your IP address in our database.

Licensing

A licence that works without phoning home

Subscription software usually checks in constantly. Ours signs a licence once per paid period and lets your Mac verify it on its own.

  1. You subscribe. The payment provider takes the payment; we never see card or bank details. You receive an activation key like SM-4KQ2-9WTX-7M3B.
  2. You activate. The app sends the key and a SHA-256 hash of the Mac’s hardware ID. We return a licence signed with an Ed25519 private key that never leaves our server.
  3. Your Mac verifies it. Every app holds only the public key, checks the signature, the machine hash and the expiry date — offline, every launch.
  4. It renews quietly. Once a day, when it opens online, the app swaps its licence for a fresh one lasting up to 30 days. Offline? It keeps working on the one it has.

A licence, decoded. This is the entire payload.

{
  "apps": ["*"],
  "email": "you@example.com",
  "expires": 1767225600,
  "id": "b8f1…",
  "issued": 1764547200,
  "machines": ["9f86d081884c7d65…"],
  "plan": "monthly",
  "product": "suite",
  "seats": 1,
  "v": 1
}

Signed with Ed25519. Changing a single character — the expiry, the Mac — breaks the signature, so a licence cannot be forged or moved to another computer.

Engineering rules

How every app is built

Native Swift

Written in Swift and SwiftUI against Apple’s own frameworks. No web views wrapping a website, no bundled browser engine.

No third-party SDKs

No analytics, advertising, attribution or crash-reporting libraries — the usual way data leaves an app without its developer noticing.

Signed & notarized

Signed with our Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, with the hardened runtime enabled. macOS verifies both before an app first opens.

Least privilege

Apps request only the permissions their job needs, explain why in plain language, and degrade gracefully when you decline.

Nothing to log in to

No customer accounts or passwords exist. Your key and email manage your subscription, so there is no credential store to breach.

Short, signed licences

A licence is checked on your Mac, offline, and lasts up to 30 days; apps renew it once a day while online. If our servers vanished, every app would keep working for that long. The only Mac we ever lock is one you freed from your key.

Verify it yourself

Check our claims in five minutes

  1. Install LuLu, a free open-source firewall that asks before any app connects anywhere.
  2. Open a SecureMacApps app and use every feature. LuLu will stay silent — there is nothing to ask about.
  3. Activate a key. LuLu asks once, for securemacapps.com. That is the only destination you will ever see.
  4. Prefer the command line? Run nettop -P -m tcp in Terminal while you use the app.

Found something we did not list? That is a bug in our promise. Email privacy@securemacapps.com and we will fix it and say so publicly.

More detail on the method: how to check which Mac apps are sending data.

Can SecureMacApps see my files?

No. The apps process files on your Mac and have no code that uploads them. The only requests they make carry an activation key and a one-way hash of the Mac.

What is the machine hash?

A SHA-256 digest of your Mac’s hardware UUID and model name. It lets a licence be bound to one Mac without us learning the UUID itself, and it cannot be reversed.

What happens if securemacapps.com goes offline?

Your apps keep working. Licences are verified on the Mac with a digital signature. Only activating a new Mac, starting a trial and renewing at the end of a paid period need the server.