Privacy.

Your notes

Your notes are Markdown files in the FowlNote folder in Documents on your Mac. There is no FowlNote account and no FowlNote server that stores notes.

If you’re signed in to iCloud, FowlNote syncs your notes through your own private iCloud database. Apple stores it under your Apple Account; we can’t read it.

AI features, only when you turn them on

Intelligence is off until you turn it on. Then Smart Titles, Tidy and Ask send the text they need straight from your Mac to the service you connect: ChatGPT (signed in with your own account), OpenAI with your API key, or OpenRouter with your key. Voice mode sends your microphone audio and the notes it works on to OpenAI with your key.

Nothing goes through us. Those services handle it under their own terms. Mark a note Hide from AI and it is never sent. Your keys stay in your Mac’s Keychain.

Anonymous usage statistics

The app sends a few anonymous events to PostHog (in the US) so we can see what works and fix what breaks: installs and updates, whether the app was used that day, how often features are used (counts only), onboarding and trial steps, and errors and crashes as fixed codes.

It never sends your notes or their titles, tab, space or file names, searches, questions or answers, keys, emails or your Mac’s name. Events carry a random install ID that isn’t tied to you. PostHog drops your IP address after estimating your country and city.

To turn it off, run this in Terminal:

Buying and your license

Polar sells FowlNote as the merchant of record: it runs checkout, takes payment, handles tax and sends your receipt and license key, under Polar’s privacy policy. We see your email and order details there to deliver your license and help with support. We never see your card.

When you click Buy, we count it in Cloudflare and PostHog with the button’s location and your country. We don’t keep your IP address, a visitor ID or the full page address. This counts checkout visits, not completed purchases.

When you add your key, the app sends Polar the key, your Mac’s name (so you can tell your Macs apart when managing your license) and a random device ID, and checks the license again about once a day.

Updates and downloads

The app checks download.fowlnote.app for updates and sends no system profile. When the installer is downloaded, we count it with the version, country, kind of browser and the name of the site that linked to it. We don’t store your IP address or full browser details.

What we don’t do

We don’t sell your data, show ads or track you across other sites.