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Privacy and permissions
Nothing, except an update check.
There is no account, no upload, no telemetry, and no analytics. Transcription runs on-device. The only network request Snitt makes is Sparkle asking whether a newer version exists, and that is off until you turn it on.
Snitt asks for each permission at the moment it first needs it, never at launch, and always after telling you why.
| Permission | When | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Screen Recording | First recording | Capturing the screen, and its audio. macOS covers both under this one permission. |
| Microphone | First recording with "Record microphone" on | Your voice, on its own track. Never used otherwise. |
| Input Monitoring | First recording with "Capture events" on | When you click and type, never which keys. |
That is the platform, not a bug, and Snitt explains it the first time it happens. Approving it keeps recording working. A prompt appearing more often than monthly is a real problem worth reporting.
"Capture events" records that a keystroke happened and when. It does not record which key, and there is no code path that can.
Even so, timing alone narrows a guess at what was typed, which is why the log never leaves the bundle and is off by default. It covers activity anywhere on this Mac while recording, not only the window being captured, because the tap is session-wide while the video is window-scoped.
An agent can drive Snitt through the CLI or MCP server, and that is a materially different privacy surface from a person pressing a hotkey. So it carries extra rules:
- Off by default, behind an explicit opt-in in Settings ▸ Agent
- A visible indicator for the whole session, with a menu-bar kill switch
- A maximum session duration, so an abandoned agent cannot fill the disk
- No silent escalation to full-display. An agent may record a window; recording a whole display needs its own grant
Settings ▸ Agent ▸ Allow unattended lets an agent record a machine nobody is sitting at, for remote sessions where the recording is how anyone sees what happened.
Turning it on confirms Screen Recording then, while you are present, because that is the one moment it can be confirmed. The grant then expires after 30 days and must be renewed deliberately. That is not bureaucracy: a standing permission cannot know what your screen shows six weeks later, and unattended is precisely when nobody is watching. Thirty days matches how often macOS re-checks the underlying permission, so the two renewals coincide.
snitt diagnostics export writes a JSON file for support: recent log lines,
permission states, and session metadata with window titles and file paths
stripped.
Crash reports are included only if you turn that on in Settings ▸ Updates & Diagnostics. Nothing is sent anywhere. The bundle is a file you choose to share, so read it before you do.