PasteGuard exists to keep sensitive text on your Mac. This policy explains the little that ever leaves it.
Local processing
PasteGuard checks what you copy and paste entirely on your Mac. Detection, masking and the optional AI check (Apple's on-device model) never send your clipboard, the values found in it or the masked text anywhere.
What PasteGuard stores
To restore masked values, PasteGuard keeps a vault of mask → original pairs on your Mac, encrypted with AES-GCM. Entries expire after 1 hour, 24 hours or 7 days, as you choose. Activity records only where a paste happened, how many items of each kind were hidden and the outcome. It never stores the values. The menu's Last copy shows your three latest copies; they are kept in memory only, never written to disk, and are gone when PasteGuard quits. Text you Ignore or Mark, and CSV lists you import, are saved in PasteGuard's settings on your Mac. PasteGuard never reads clipboards that password managers mark as concealed.
Where you paste
With the Accessibility permission, PasteGuard reads a little about the app you paste into: the app's name, the title of its front window (to tell when an AI agent is running in a terminal) and, in a browser, the website's host name such as claude.ai, never the full address. It uses these to decide whether Smart ⌘V applies and to label entries in Activity, on your Mac only. It never reads the contents of other apps' windows or records your keystrokes.
No accounts, analytics or tracking
There is no account or sign-in. PasteGuard collects no usage analytics and sends nothing to tracking services or AI APIs.
Purchases
Apple handles subscriptions and the lifetime purchase through the App Store (StoreKit), under your Apple Account. We never see your name, email address, Apple Account or payment details. PasteGuard receives only a record signed by Apple of what you bought, and checks it on your Mac. See the Apple Privacy Policy.
Network
Apart from the App Store requests StoreKit makes for it, PasteGuard makes no network requests of its own. Apple may share crash reports with developers only if you opt in under System Settings › Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements.
This website
This site is hosted on GitHub Pages and served through Cloudflare, and the free download from Cloudflare R2 (downloads.byquan.app). Cloudflare may log basic request data such as IP addresses. The site uses no cookies or analytics.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Email [email protected].