Notchorious Privacy Policy
This policy describes features in both earlier Notchorious releases and Notchorious 2.0. Each section applies only when that feature exists in your installed version and you use it. The Windows and Mac Portals sections apply to Notchorious 2.0, not earlier versions. See privacy controls and deletion for practical steps.
Overview
Notchorious is made by Fotis, an independent developer. The macOS application requires no Notchorious account and includes no advertising, analytics or tracking SDK. The developer does not operate a relay for Portal sessions or automatically receive your remote screen, files, credentials, or clipboard. Some optional features contact Apple, the artwork address supplied by your music player, or a Windows PC or Mac on your network that you choose. If you contact support, you voluntarily share the information in your message. The website hosting provider may separately process standard connection logs; see Website visits and support below.
Data stored on your Mac
Notchorious stores settings and the content you create locally in its app sandbox: theme layouts and appearance, display/notch calibration, alarms and timers, World Clock cities, Weather location selection and cached weather, Quick Notes drafts, Capture folder selection, Drop Shelf state, tutorial and permission flags, app purchase/trial status, and small widget caches including accessory names and battery values. Portals additionally save selected device addresses, viewer preferences, icon layouts and optional wallpapers locally, while approved identities and login secrets are kept separately in the macOS Keychain. Local settings are not sent to the developer, although optional Apple services and remote connections transmit the information needed for the feature to work.
Location and weather
Location is used only when the Weather widget is set to Current Location, and only after you allow it in macOS. Notchorious gets your location from macOS, requests the forecast from Apple Weather through Apple’s WeatherKit service, and asks Apple’s geocoding service for the place name shown on the card. The most recent coordinate, place name, and time zone are kept locally so weather keeps working through brief Location outages, and they are cleared if you deny Location access. If you choose a City instead, or add a World Clock city, the name you type is resolved to coordinates by Apple’s geocoding service and Location permission is not needed. Location is never sent to the developer and is never used for advertising, analytics, or profiling. After the trial ends, Apple Weather current conditions and the six-day forecast remain available at no charge using your chosen Weather location.
Weather data notice
YOUR USE OF THIS REAL TIME WEATHER GUIDANCE APPLICATION OR WEBSITE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. WEATHER DATA MAY NOT BE ACCURATE.
Weather data is provided by Apple Weather. Apple Weather data sources and attribution.
Now Playing
Now Playing works with Spotify and Apple Music only after you allow macOS Automation for each player. While the widget is on your canvas and a player is already open, Notchorious reads the current track’s title, artist, playback state, position, and artwork, and sends play, pause, skip, and seek commands only when you use its controls. During setup it may open an installed player in the background so macOS can ask for your permission; otherwise it never opens a closed player. Spotify provides artwork as a web address, which Notchorious downloads directly from that address over HTTPS, and macOS may cache the image. Apple Music artwork is written by Music to a temporary file inside the Notchorious sandbox and removed after the track changes. Listening information is kept in memory only and is never stored or sent to the developer.
Quick Notes and To-do
Quick Notes keeps the draft you are typing on your Mac. When you press Save, it creates a new note in Apple Notes containing only that text, using the Automation access you allowed for Notes. It never reads your existing notes. The To-do widget uses Reminders access to show your incomplete reminders and to add or complete a reminder when you ask it to. Reminders are read live from macOS and are not copied into Notchorious’s own storage. Anything saved to Notes or Reminders is kept by those apps under their own settings, including iCloud sync.
Clipboard History
The Clipboard History widget monitors the local clipboard only while at least one Clipboard widget is on a theme canvas and Notchorious is unlocked. Removing the last Clipboard widget stops capture and discards clips. Clips and originating app names remain in memory until deleted or the app quits; they are not uploaded to the developer. Standard confidential/temporary clipboard markers and common password-manager private formats are skipped. You can remove individual clips or clear the list. Separately, Portals may transfer clipboard text or user-selected files to your chosen remote computer when the applicable remote clipboard feature is enabled; see Portals — remote display and clipboard below.
Drop Shelf
Files parked on the local Drop Shelf remain at their original locations: the shelf remembers their URLs in memory, reads icons and may ask macOS Quick Look for previews. It does not modify the originals. App-provided data without a file URL, such as a dragged web image, can be written to a private temporary folder and is removed when the item or shelf is cleared or the app restarts. Detecting an active drag makes the shelf and optional Portal drop targets appear; only dropping onto a remote Portal target starts a user-directed network transfer. Turning off Drop Shelf empties it.
Portals
Portals connect directly to a Windows PC or another Mac you select, typically on your local network, without a developer-run relay. Device discovery uses Bonjour for Mac Screen Sharing/Remote Login and targeted local-network checks for Windows services; a chosen address may be remembered locally. The Windows Portal uses RDP with TLS/NLA for screen control and SMB for shared Desktop files. The Mac Portal verifies an SSH host-key fingerprint before using SSH/SFTP for file access and starts a separately authenticated native Screen Sharing connection for live screen/input. The viewer's X and the red Disconnect action close the corresponding remote session; Forget also removes the saved device identity and login for that host. Availability indicators can probe service ports without authenticating. Remote computers, their administrators and network operators may independently record activity according to their own settings.
Portals — credentials and retention
Approved Windows certificates and Mac SSH host-key fingerprints, together with saved device login secrets, are stored in the macOS Keychain on this device, not sent to the developer. Selected device addresses, remote viewer options, Desktop icon layout and optional wallpapers are stored in the app sandbox. Disconnect closes the active session but does not delete saved sign-ins; Forget removes the selected computer's saved credentials and trusted identity. Deleting only the sandbox folder may leave Keychain entries behind, so use Forget for saved computers before uninstalling.
Portals — files and previews
When you browse the other computer's Desktop, Notchorious reads requested folder listings and downloads visible image previews over SMB or SFTP, including limited SVG images through the system thumbnail provider. Temporary local copies and bounded thumbnail caches may exist while browsing. Sending or retrieving a file copies the selected content between this Mac and the other computer; the destination may retain it. Windows remote clipboard file staging can keep copied files in the sandbox for up to 24 hours before cleanup. Temporary files are not a backup: interrupting a transfer or disconnecting can cancel unfinished work. Files are not uploaded to a Notchorious developer server.
Portals — remote display and clipboard
While you use remote desktop, screen images come from the selected other computer and pointer/keyboard commands are sent to it. They are processed to display and control the session and are not recorded by Notchorious as a separate screen archive. The Windows RDP session can exchange clipboard file information for user-requested copy/paste; the Mac remote text clipboard is optional and enabled in Portal Options. The remote computer or its administrator may retain information transferred there. This is separate from the local Clipboard History widget.
Portals — security and diagnostics
Connection status checks only show network reachability until authentication completes; an available port does not guarantee that Screen Sharing or SSH sign-in will succeed. Identity checks require explicit confirmation, and changed Mac SSH host keys are blocked pending verification. The Mac Viewer can keep a bounded, in-memory diagnostic trace of protocol phases, errors and performance counters to troubleshoot disconnections. Copy Logs and Save Logs export that trace only when you choose; exported files or clipboard text may include technical device or network metadata, so review them before sending to support. Notchorious does not automatically transmit those logs to the developer. Never email passwords, host private keys, or confidential documents.
Website visits and support
The supplied Notchorious website pages are static and do not intentionally include advertising or analytics trackers. The site host or its network providers may nevertheless process technical request information, such as IP address, access time, requested page and user agent, to deliver and secure the site; their actual retention must be confirmed with the hosting provider. Emails to support contain the address and details you choose to send, and are used to answer your request. To ask about access, correction, deletion or other applicable privacy rights, email notchorious@gmail.com. Do not include passwords or sensitive remote-screen logs without reviewing them first.
Screen capture and AirDrop
Screenshots and screen recordings are made only when you press Capture after granting macOS Screen Recording access, and are saved to the folder you select. Recordings may include system audio but not your microphone. AirDrop shares only what you select: its Screen button hands one screenshot to macOS AirDrop without saving it, and Files/Media pass your chosen items to Apple's sharing service. Notchorious does not retain a separate copy. These actions are distinct from optional Portal remote screen and file transfers; content you send to another computer does leave this Mac by your choice.
Accessories, controls, and system information
With Bluetooth permission, the Battery widget shows the battery level of accessories already connected to your Mac, such as AirPods, mice, and keyboards. To read a level it may briefly connect to that accessory, read only the standard Battery Level value, and disconnect, and it may run short scans limited to the standard Battery Service to match accessories that macOS already reports as connected. It never pairs, unpairs, or exchanges any other data. Your Mac’s own battery, CPU, memory, and storage figures are read locally from macOS and are not stored. The Wi-Fi widget only turns Wi-Fi on or off and does not read network names. Brightness and Keyboard Brightness send only the brightness-key presses you make, using the access you grant under Accessibility; Notchorious does not monitor your keyboard. To open the panel when you move to the notch, Notchorious follows the pointer’s position on screen without recording it. To list the apps you can add to the canvas, Notchorious reads the names and icons of the apps in your Applications folder; that list is kept in memory only. Sleep uses the standard macOS power API.
System permissions
Location, Reminders, Bluetooth, Screen Recording, Accessibility for brightness keys, Automation for supported media players/Notes, and Local Network for Portals are requested only when a feature needs them, subject to macOS permission rules. You can change permissions in System Settings → Privacy & Security. Clipboard History and Drop Shelf have their own in-app switches. Starting a Portal connection may contact a selected local-network device and probe service ports. Start at Login is an optional macOS login item managed in Settings or System Settings.
Purchases
The free 7-day trial and the Lifetime Unlock are handled by Apple through StoreKit. Notchorious receives only the signed transaction information needed to unlock features, and keeps a local copy of that status so it can keep working for up to 72 hours when the App Store cannot be reached. It never sees your Apple Account password or payment details.
Apple services and external content
Notchorious uses Apple WeatherKit, Apple geocoding and StoreKit when you choose those features, and retrieves Spotify artwork from the address supplied by the player. To tell you when an update is available, it occasionally asks Apple's App Store for the latest version of Notchorious; that request contains only the app's identifier and your Mac's region setting. Those providers process data under their own policies. If you opt in to share crash/diagnostic reports with app developers through macOS, Apple may send relevant reports to the developer; Notchorious does not run its own analytics pipeline. Remote computers and their administrators have their own privacy practices, separate from Notchorious. The developer operates no advertising, account, or remote-session relay server.
Your choices
You can revoke macOS permissions, remove widgets and local Clipboard clips, turn off Drop Shelf, change the Capture folder, delete alarms/cities/notes, or reset settings. In Portals, Disconnect ends a session while Forget removes the selected host's saved sign-in and trusted certificate/fingerprint. For complete removal, forget saved Portal hosts first, quit and delete Notchorious, then remove its app sandbox if desired. Removing the sandbox alone may not remove Keychain items. Files exported to Finder, captures saved to disk, remote transfers and content saved to Apple Notes/Reminders remain in those other locations until deleted there.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be published in the app and at notchorious.taptorapp.com/privacy with a new effective date.
Contact
Questions about privacy or support: notchorious@gmail.com. Help is also available at notchorious.taptorapp.com/support.