Privacy Policy

What stays on your Mac

Capture, editing, cursor smoothing, zooms, backgrounds, and export all run locally. Your source recordings and project files are stored on your own disk and we have no access to them.

• Recordings and edits — stored locally. We never receive them unless you create a share link (see below).
• Exports — written wherever you choose to save them.

Captions

Captions are generated through Apple's speech recognition built into macOS. SmoothCast requests on-device recognition wherever your Mac and chosen language support it, in which case the audio never leaves your machine.

On hardware or in languages where macOS does not offer on-device recognition, Apple's speech service may process the audio to produce the transcript. That processing is governed by Apple's privacy policy, not ours — we never receive the audio or the transcript either way.

Cloud sharing — the one time a recording leaves your Mac

If you choose to create a share link, SmoothCast uploads that specific recording to our storage so the link can play in a browser. This is opt-in per recording and never automatic.

• The video, and a poster image generated from it, are stored in private object storage and served only through the share link.
• Anyone with the link can watch the recording. Treat a share link as public.
• We count views on a share so you can see it was watched. We do not record who watched it.
• You can delete a share at any time from your dashboard, which removes the stored files.
• Shares created on a free trial expire automatically; paid shares persist until you delete them.

If you never create a share link, no recording of yours is ever uploaded.

Account and registration

SmoothCast requires registration before use. We collect:

• Your email address — to verify you, issue your licence, and send your key and receipts.
• A hardware identifier for your Mac — the platform UUID macOS provides. We use it to enforce the device limit on your licence and to prevent one person taking unlimited free trials. It does not identify you personally and is not used for advertising.
• An app version — so support can tell which build you are running.

If you sign in to the web dashboard, authentication is handled by Clerk, and your email address is stored in our database to link your account to your licences.

Licensing and updates

• Licence validation — the app contacts our licensing service to check your licence is valid and to register device activations. A previously validated licence keeps working offline for a grace period, so a dropped connection does not lock you out.
• Update checks — the app periodically requests our update feed to see whether a newer version exists. This reveals your IP address and app version to the server hosting the feed, as any software update check does.

Payments

Payments are processed by our payment providers. We never see or store your full card details. We do store a record of your order — provider, transaction reference, amount, currency, and the email address used — so we can provision your licence, honour renewals, and handle refunds.

Email

We send transactional email through Resend: verification codes, licence keys, receipts, and support replies. We do not add you to a marketing list from a purchase alone.

This website

Separately from the app, this website uses Google Tag Manager and a Google Ads tag to measure which pages lead to downloads and purchases. These set cookies and share your IP address and browsing on this site with Google, subject to Google's own policies. They run on the website only — they are not part of the macOS app, and they never have access to your recordings.

What we never do

• We never access recordings stored on your Mac.
• We never upload a recording you have not chosen to share.
• We never sell or rent your personal data.
• We never read the contents of your recordings, captions, or microphone audio on our servers, including for shared recordings.

Retention and deletion

Local files are yours to keep or delete; uninstalling SmoothCast leaves your exports where you saved them. Shared recordings are deleted when you delete the share, and trial shares expire on their own. To have your account, licences, and order records deleted, email us and we will confirm once it is done — note that we may need to retain a minimal record of a transaction where tax or accounting rules require it.

Your rights

You can ask us what personal data we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email us and we will respond within one month.

Children

SmoothCast is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal data.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes we will update the date above. Where a change materially affects how your data is handled, we will say so on this page rather than changing it quietly.

Contact

Questions about this page? Email support@smoothcast.net or use the contact form. We aim to reply within one business day.