Your workday stays yours.

Two ways to track, your choice

Hindsight can build your activity timeline two ways, and you decide which:

• Manually: you add activities yourself. This requires no permissions and no AI configuration, and no screen content is ever captured or processed.
• Automatically (optional): Hindsight takes periodic screenshots and uses a vision model to describe what's on screen. This requires macOS Screen Recording permission, which you are never required to grant. If you enable automatic tracking, you separately choose where that analysis happens — see below.

Information Hindsight handles

• Activity records: active application names, timestamps, durations, categories, descriptions, projects, window/document titles, and review edits — whether entered by you or, if you enable automatic tracking, generated from screenshot analysis. Hindsight does not use macOS Accessibility APIs and never reads other applications' windows, documents, keystrokes, or interface contents directly; when automatic tracking is on, window titles are provided by macOS with each screen capture, and the analysis model reads one off the screenshot only when macOS gives none.
• Screen evidence (only if automatic tracking is enabled): screenshots of your screen, and text recognized from those screenshots using Apple's on-device Vision framework (OCR). Screenshots may contain whatever is visible on your screen, so do not enable capture while viewing information you do not want recorded. Hindsight automatically skips capture for known password managers and authenticator apps, and while a password field is focused in a web browser, and you can exclude additional applications yourself in Settings.
• Calendar event titles (only if you turn on Calendar context): the titles and times of calendar events that overlap a tracked stretch of work are read on your Mac. Their times separate a meeting from the work around it, and their titles are included in the text sent to the AI engine you configured, so meetings are named after the event. Hindsight does not store your calendar, and ignores all-day events and events you declined or that were canceled.
• Siri and Shortcuts requests (only if you use them): when you ask Hindsight something through Siri or Shortcuts, Apple handles the spoken request under Apple's own privacy policy. Hindsight answers on your Mac from your own activity log, using the AI engine you configured, the same way Ask AI does.
• Backups (only if you make them): copies of your activity database that you create in Settings → Data & Backups, stored in the app's container on your Mac.
• Configuration: your capture preferences, exclusions, model settings, and integration settings. API credentials are stored in macOS Keychain where supported, rather than in the app's database or its backups.

Screen recording data

This section describes, specifically, how Hindsight collects, uses, discloses, shares, and retains screen recording data.

Collection. Screen recording is used by exactly one feature: optional automatic activity tracking. When and only when you enable it and grant macOS Screen Recording permission, Hindsight captures periodic still screenshots of your screen using ScreenCaptureKit. Hindsight does not record video or audio of your screen, does not stream your screen, and does not capture in the background when automatic tracking is off. Captures are skipped for known password managers and authenticator applications, while a password field is focused in a web browser (detected through macOS secure keyboard input), and for any application you exclude in Settings. Per-activity video files, when enabled, are assembled locally from screenshots Hindsight already captured; no additional recording occurs.

Use. Screenshots are used solely to determine what you were working on, so Hindsight can build your personal activity timeline: naming the activity, categorizing it, grouping it into tasks and projects, and generating your summaries and standups. Text is extracted from screenshots using Apple's on-device Vision framework. Screen recording data is never used for advertising, profiling, marketing, training our own models, or any purpose unrelated to producing your own timeline.

Disclosure and sharing. Hindsight has no servers and no account system, and screen recording data is never transmitted to the developer. It is never sold, rented, or shared with data brokers, advertisers, or analytics providers; the app contains no advertising, analytics, telemetry, or crash-reporting SDKs. The only circumstance in which screenshot or OCR content leaves your Mac is one you configure yourself: if you choose a cloud AI provider for analysis, the content needed for analysis is sent directly from your Mac to the endpoint you specified, using your own API key, and is handled under that provider's privacy policy. If you instead select Apple's on-device analysis or a local model (such as Ollama or LM Studio), screen content never leaves your Mac at all. Content goes only to the engine you choose, or to a fallback you set yourself; Hindsight never switches to another provider on its own.

Storage. Screenshots, OCR text, generated videos, and the activity database are stored only on your Mac, inside the app's sandboxed Application Support container. Nothing is stored on servers operated by the developer, because there are none.

iCloud sync (optional, off by default). If you turn on Sync to iCloud in Settings → General, Hindsight copies the text of your activities, projects, standups, journals, weekly reviews, and your category list to your own private iCloud database, end-to-end encrypted, so your other devices signed in to the same Apple Account can read it. Screenshots, OCR text, videos, captured frames, and file paths are never synced. This data is held by Apple under Apple's privacy policy, not by the developer, who has no access to it.

Retention. Screenshots and per-activity videos are deleted automatically according to the retention period and storage quota you control in Settings → General (the default retention is 7 days). You may delete individual activities at any time, or erase everything — activities, screenshots, videos, standups, journals, backups, and stored API keys — using Delete All Data in Settings → General.

Where your information goes

Activity records, screenshots, OCR results, and standups are stored locally on your Mac by default and are never transmitted to us. Hindsight does not include advertising, analytics, or a background tracking account, and has no server of its own that your data passes through.

If you enable automatic tracking and select an OpenAI-compatible or other BYOK analysis provider, the screenshot or OCR content required for analysis is sent directly from your Mac to the endpoint you configure — never through Hindsight's own servers, because it has none. That provider handles the request under its own privacy policy. If you run a local model (e.g. via Ollama or LM Studio) or use Apple's on-device analysis, screenshot content never leaves your Mac at all.

How information is used

Information is used only to record your timeline, calculate time totals, generate summaries and standups, provide requested AI analysis, and perform integrations you explicitly enable. Hindsight does not sell your information or use it for advertising.

Retention and deletion

Local records and screenshots remain on your Mac until you delete them. Screenshots and per-activity videos are subject to automatic cleanup on a schedule you control in Settings → General (retention period and storage quota). You can export activities as CSV or JSON, or saved journals as Markdown, for any date range from the Activity menu or Settings, export a weekly review as a PDF or its week's activities as CSV from Weekly Review, and back up and restore your data in Settings → Data & Backups.

To delete everything at once — every activity, screenshot, video, standup, journal, backup, and every stored API key — use Delete All Data in Settings → General. This is permanent and cannot be undone; Hindsight quits automatically afterward. Data already sent to an AI provider is subject to that provider’s own retention and deletion controls, and isn't affected by Delete All Data.

If you used iCloud sync, the copy in your iCloud is not removed by Delete All Data or by turning sync off. Delete it in your Apple Account's iCloud storage settings (Manage Storage → Hindsight).

Permissions

Hindsight requests macOS Screen Recording permission only if and when you choose to enable automatic tracking, so that it can capture screen content for analysis. This permission is entirely optional — Hindsight is fully usable with manual activity entry alone, and the app never blocks or nags you into granting it. It can be revoked at any time in System Settings, and macOS retains that decision even if you later reinstall the app.

Calendar access is requested only if you turn on Calendar context in Settings, and can be revoked at any time in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Calendars.

Children’s privacy

Hindsight is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when Hindsight’s data practices change. The effective date above will be updated when a new version is published.

Contact

For privacy questions, contact [email protected].