Privacy Policy

A text you send from the box goes to the Pasteparrot service and from there to Anthropic, whose model writes the answer. The service passes the text on and keeps none of it: it stores no text and no answer, and writes neither into its log. Anthropic handles the text under its own policy. The service knows an account only by the hash of a random code that the app made on your Mac, and counts that account's answers of the day. On the free plan it also counts the day's answers of a network address, without keeping the address. Pasteparrot Pro is sold by Polar, which takes the payment and gives you a license key. The service keeps a hash of that key, counts the key's answers of the day, adds up what they cost and keeps what it needs to ask Polar whether the key still holds. There is no sign-in with us, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. What you type stays in the box until you send it.

• The account's code, in the macOS Keychain. It is 32 random bytes that the app makes on your Mac when it first starts. It holds no name and no email address. It goes with every request to the service and tells the service which account is asking.
• Your license key, in the macOS Keychain, once you have activated Pasteparrot Pro on this Mac. It stays there until you remove Pro from this Mac or use "Delete my data", also after its subscription has ended.
• Settings: the target language, the shortcut that opens the box, and a note that the first-run window was closed. macOS adds its own notes for the app's windows, such as where the Settings window stood. Whether the app opens at login is kept by macOS.
• No text and no answer on disk. The app keeps no history and writes no text and no answer to a file. A text and its answer are held in the app's memory while the box works with them. A text that you did not send is still in the box when you open it again. The last answer stays in memory after the box has closed, so that "Copy last answer" in the menu can give it back, until the next answer takes its place. All of this is gone when you quit the app.

While you type, the app works out on your Mac which language the text is in, and shows it at the top of the box. That is done by macOS on the device. It is sent nowhere.

The app sends what you write to one place: the Pasteparrot service. The service is the developer's own and runs on Cloudflare. The connection is encrypted. What you type is not sent while you type: a text leaves your Mac when you send it. Every request to the service carries the account's code, the app's version and, if a license key is on this Mac, the key.

1. A text. When you press Return or Command-Return, the app sends the text, which of the two you asked for (a translation or a prompt), the target language, and the list of your Mac's preferred languages. The list goes as macOS holds it, with the regions of the languages, and its first eight entries at most. It is a hint at the language a short text is written in.
2. The plan and today's count. The app asks the service which plan the account has and how many answers it has had today, for example when the app starts, when its Settings window comes to the front, when the box opens after a pause, and after an answer or a refusal. These requests carry no text.
3. A license key. When you activate a key, the app sends the key and the name of your Mac. The service passes both on to Polar. Polar keeps the name as the label of this Mac on your key, so that you can tell your Macs apart in Polar's customer portal. When you remove Pro from this Mac, the app asks the service to free the Mac's place on the key at Polar.
4. "Delete my data". The app sends a request for it. What it deletes is listed under "Keeping and deleting".

Updates. The app looks for a newer version by itself, about once a day, and at once when you choose "Check for updates…" in the menu. It fetches a small file from the developer's site and, when there is a newer version, downloads it. Such a request carries what any download carries: your IP address, a user agent that names the app and its version, and the usual headers of a request, among them your language. It carries nothing about the account, the plan or a text.

Links. Some things open your browser. "Get Pro", "Manage subscription" and "Find my key" open addresses of the developer's site that lead on to Polar's checkout and Polar's customer portal. What you enter there goes to Polar. "Help" in the menu and "Support", "Privacy" and "Terms" in Settings open pages of that site in the app's language. Where the app says that its version is too old, the key or the button that comes with that line opens Pasteparrot's page there. The app adds nothing about your account to any of these addresses. The site handles such a visit, and the request for an update, under its own privacy policy: codebiy.com/en/privacy.

An email you send to the support address reaches the developer because you chose to send it. It is used only to answer you. Settings shows the first characters of your account's id and can copy all of it, because support may ask for it. The id is the hash under which the service knows the account. It is not the code.

The service checks whether the account may ask, and passes the text on to Anthropic's model together with its own instructions: to translate the text into the target language, or to rewrite it as a prompt in that language. From the list of languages it takes at most three and passes on their names, for example "Turkish", as the likely language of the writer. The request to Anthropic carries no account, no license key and no name of yours. The model's answer comes back through the service to the app, piece by piece, and the app pastes it. The service keeps neither the text nor the answer.

• The day's counts. On the free plan: how many answers an account has had today, under the hash of the account's code, how many answers have come from a network address today, and one total of what the day's free answers have cost the service. That total is a sum of money, with no account and no address in it. With Pasteparrot Pro: how many answers a license key has had today on all its Macs together and what those answers have cost the service, both under the hash of the key. The service does not keep a network address: it counts under a mark that it makes from the address with a key of its own, and the mark is good for that day only. For an address in the newer format (IPv6) the mark is made from the block of addresses it belongs to, not from the single address. A day's counts and these sums are deleted once the day is over, with the next answer the service gives.
• A plan's row, only for an account on which a license key was activated or to which the developer gave Pro himself. It holds the hash of the account's code, the hash of the license key, Polar's id for the activation of the key on that Mac, the time up to which Polar's last yes about the key holds, the time Polar was last asked and, while Polar refuses the key, the time it first refused. If the developer has given the account Pro himself, the row says so. The row also holds the time it was made.

The service's database holds nothing else. The service never stores the account's code or a license key, only their hashes. It holds no name, no email address and no customer number, so it does not know who bought a key. Polar can connect the id of an activation with a purchase. The service cannot.

The service writes one line into its log for a text that got as far as the day's counts. The line holds which of the two actions was asked for, the target language, the plan (free or Pro) and how the request ended. For a text that reached the model it also holds the number of characters of the text, the amounts the model billed for it and how long the request took. The lines about a license key say only how a request ended, for example that a key was activated or removed. If something fails, the line holds the name of the error or a status code. An error of the database is logged with its own message, which holds no value from a request. No line holds a text, an answer, an account, a license key, an address or the list of languages. Cloudflare's own log of every request is switched off for the service.

Once an hour the service makes a small call of its own to the model, to see that it answers, removes the plan rows that are due (see "Keeping and deleting"), and writes one line that says how both went. Nothing of a user is in that call or in that line.

Like any web server, Cloudflare sees the IP address of a request and its usual details, and handles them under its own privacy policy. The service limits use per account, per license key and per network address. Where it counts or limits by address it uses the mark described above, never the address itself, and it keeps no IP address in its own database.

Pasteparrot relies on three other companies. Each handles what it receives under its own policy.

• Cloudflare runs the service and its database. Privacy policy: cloudflare.com/privacypolicy.
• Anthropic provides the model that writes the answers. It receives the text and the instructions described above, and handles them under its own terms and privacy policy: anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms and anthropic.com/legal/privacy.
• Polar sells Pasteparrot Pro as the merchant of record: it takes the payment, writes the invoice and holds your order and the email address you gave. It issues the license key and keeps the list of the Macs on it. When a key is activated, checked or removed, Polar receives from the service the key, the name of your Mac and its own id for the activation. Privacy policy: polar.sh/legal/privacy-policy.

These companies may process data in countries other than yours, including the United States.

To paste the answer where your cursor was, the app uses the clipboard and one key press.

• It remembers what the clipboard holds, puts the answer on the clipboard, presses Command-V for you in the app in front, and about half a second later puts back what the clipboard held. If you copy something else in that half second, your newer copy stays.
• What the clipboard held is kept in the app's memory for that moment. It is never sent anywhere and never written to a file.
• The answer goes on the clipboard with a mark that asks clipboard managers to skip it.
• Pressing a key in another app needs the Accessibility permission of macOS. Pasteparrot uses the permission for that one Command-V and for nothing else. It does not read your screen, the windows of other apps or what you type in them. It asks macOS for the permission only when you press "Allow pasting".
• Without the permission the app does not paste. The answer stays on the clipboard and in the box. You close the box and paste it yourself with Command-V, and what the clipboard held before is not put back.
• "Copy last answer" in the menu puts the last answer on the clipboard again. That is an ordinary copy: it carries no mark, and what the clipboard held is not put back.

The "Copy" button beside "Account" in Settings puts the account's id on the clipboard.

No analytics of how you use the app. No advertising. No tracking. No crash reports to the developer. No sign-in with us: the account is a random code, not a name or an email address. The app does not use the microphone, the camera, your location, your contacts or your files. It sends nothing in the app you are writing in: it pastes the answer, and whether you send it is up to you.

Pasteparrot Pro is a subscription sold by Polar. Polar is the merchant of record for all purchases and handles payment, invoices and sales tax. Your card number never reaches the developer. Polar shares your order and your email address with the developer, and shows him the state of your subscription and the Macs on your key by the names they were activated under. He uses them only to answer support requests, such as a question about a key or a refund.

• Texts and answers. The service keeps none. On your Mac they are in the app's memory only and are gone when you quit the app.
• The day's counts are deleted once the day is over, with the next answer the service gives.
• A plan's row is deleted at once when you remove Pro from the Mac in Settings ("Remove from this Mac") and when you use "Delete my data". When Polar tells the service that the key no longer holds, for example after the subscription has ended or after you removed the Mac in Polar's customer portal, the row stays and Pro is off. While the app still sends the key, the service asks Polar about it again from time to time, so that Pro comes back by itself if the key holds again. A row whose key Polar has refused for 45 days is deleted. The service asks Polar only when the app on that Mac contacts it. The row of a Mac that stopped contacting it before Polar refused the key therefore stays. A row of an account that the developer gave Pro himself stays until "Delete my data".
• "Delete my data" in Settings. The service frees this Mac's place on your license key at Polar and deletes the account's plan row. The app then removes the license key from the Keychain, so Pasteparrot Pro leaves this Mac. Three things stay: the account's code in the Keychain, the day's count until it is deleted with the day's counts, and the app's settings. Your subscription is not cancelled by this: it runs at Polar, the key stays valid and you can enter it again. If the service cannot reach Polar at that moment, nothing is deleted and the app asks you to try again.
• Your purchase. The order, the invoices and your email address are kept by Polar under its own policy. You cancel the subscription in Polar's customer portal.
• Deleting the app. macOS keeps the Keychain items and the settings of an app that is deleted. Remove Pro from the Mac first: the key then leaves the Keychain, its place on the key becomes free and the plan's row is deleted. The account's code and the settings stay on your Mac and are sent nowhere.

On the free plan the service holds a count under the hash of a random code, without your name. The developer cannot tell whose it is unless you send him the account's id from Settings. With Pasteparrot Pro the plan's row also holds Polar's id of the activation, which Polar can connect with your purchase.

Depending on where you live (including under Türkiye's KVKK and the EU's GDPR), you may have the right to access, correct, export or delete the data that concerns you. Write to [email protected] to use these rights. The service holds no name and no email address, so for what the service holds, send the account's id from Settings with your request. For your purchase you can also turn to Polar.

Pasteparrot is a writing tool and is not directed at children.

If the app's behaviour changes, this policy and its date change with it.

Pasteparrot is an independent app and is not affiliated with Anthropic, Cloudflare or Polar. Mac and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc.