privacy
Trawl is built so your files, searches, history and clipboard never leave your Mac. Since version 1.2 the app sends no usage data at all, ranks results on your Mac, and lists every connection it makes in its Network log. This page explains the little that does go online, and why.
What stays on your Mac
Your files, photos, videos, recordings and their contents. Trawl's index, including what it recognises in photos and hears in audio, is created and stored only on your Mac. We never receive it.
Meaning search runs on a small AI model bundled inside the app. It turns your documents, photo descriptions, spoken words, page titles and copied text into numbers that capture what they are about, on your Mac. Those numbers stay on your Mac too.
Browser memory reads the history, downloads and bookmarks your browsers already keep on your Mac (Safari, Chrome, Arc, Brave, Edge, Firefox and others), so you can find pages, videos and searches by what they were about. Trawl reads them in place and never uploads them. To show a YouTube video's picture, Trawl downloads its thumbnail once from YouTube's image server (only the video's id is sent) and keeps it on your Mac. Switch it off in the Trawl menu: Remember browser history.
Clipboard memory keeps what you copy (text, links, file names and images) for 90 days, encrypted with your Mac's keychain. Copies that password managers mark as secret are never read, and Trawl skips anything that looks like a password, sign-in code, card number or API key. What you copy is never sent anywhere. Switch it off in the Trawl menu, or use Forget clipboard history to erase it.
Smart ranking runs on a second small AI model inside the app. It reads your search together with your top results on your Mac. Nothing is sent.
Site icons on web results come from the icon store your browsers already keep on your Mac. Trawl downloads nothing for them.
Voice search only listens after you press the mic button, stops on its own when you pause, and turns speech into text on your Mac. No audio is recorded or sent.
What we receive
- Your account: your email address and name, and if you sign in with Google, your Google profile name. Used to sign you in and keep your purchase, so you can reinstall or move to a new Mac.
- Your purchase: the email you paid with, whether you bought Trawl, and the payment status. Payment details are handled by Dodo Payments; we never see your card number. After you buy, Trawl unlocks with an offline licence and does not contact us again to check it.
- Update checks: Trawl asks our server for the latest version number. No personal data is sent. You can turn automatic checks off in the Trawl menu.
- YouTube thumbnails: to show a video's picture, Trawl downloads its public thumbnail from YouTube's image server, sending only the video id, once per video.
- Feedback: only if you send it, your words and your email.
- Usage stats: none. Since 1.2 the app sends no usage data. (This website counts visits without cookies; see below.)
Who processes it
- Neon (accounts, sign-in and our database)
- Dodo Payments (checkout, billing, tax; our merchant of record)
- Google (only if you choose Sign in with Google)
- Vercel (hosts this website and measures visits without cookies)
Your choices
You can see every connection in Trawl under Account → Network log, turn off browser or clipboard memory and automatic update checks in the Trawl menu, sign out, or ask us to delete your account and data by emailing vince@vincedotcode.com. We reply within 30 days.
Website measurement
This website sets no cookies and shows no ads. To learn which pages and campaigns bring people to Trawl, it counts page views, the site or campaign link you arrived from, how far you scroll, which buttons you click and whether you download. A random id is kept only for the open browser tab and is gone when you close it. We use Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights, which are also cookieless.