Thinking about adding optional anonymous stats to Purge, thoughts?

[jithin-sabu]

Hey everyone,

Purge is free and I build it on my own. Right now it sends me nothing, so I don't know how many people use it, which tools they use, or where it breaks. That makes it hard to know what to fix or work on next.

So I'm thinking about adding anonymous usage analytics using Posthog. It would only help me make Purge better. I'm not selling anything or tracking anyone.

It's off unless you turn it on. Purge asks once, and you can switch it off anytime in Settings. There's no name, email, or account involved, just a random ID made on your Mac so I can count installs.

Here's what it would send:

• A daily "app opened" ping, so I can see how many people use Purge each day and month and whether they come back
• Which tools you use, like Scan, Uninstaller, Large Files or Duplicates
• When something fails, with a short error type like "permission denied"
• How much space Purge freed
• Whether you finish what you start, like opening the Uninstaller and removing an app
• Whether first launch goes smoothly, like granting permissions and running a first scan
• Your app version and macOS version

It never sends file names, folder paths, app names, your username or anything personal. I'll list all of this in the README, and the code is open so anyone can check it.

I'll also add a copyable prompt you can paste into ChatGPT or Claude that points the AI at the exact code that sends the stats, so you can ask it what's collected and whether it's safe, without taking my word for it.

If most of you would rather I didn't, I won't add it. Let me know in the poll or the comments.