Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 19, 2026
AloeNotch (“the app”) is a macOS menu bar app made by Kade’s Lab (“we”, “us”). We built it to be private by default: it has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking. This policy explains the small amount of data the app touches and where it goes.
The short version
Everything AloeNotch shows you — now playing, your calendar, battery, and files on the shelf — is read on your Mac and stays on your Mac. Data leaves your device only for features you turn on: an approximate location for the weather, and a song’s name if you turn on lyrics. Once a day the app also asks our website whether a newer version exists, which carries nothing about you. We never see your data, because none of it is sent to us. We don’t operate servers that receive your information.
What the app accesses on your device
- Now playing. The app reads the title, artist, artwork, and playback state of whatever your Mac is currently playing (Apple Music, Spotify, a browser tab, etc.) so it can display it and offer play/pause controls. This is read locally and is not transmitted, unless you turn on lyrics (see below).
- Headphone battery (optional). If you turn it on and allow Bluetooth access, the app reads the battery level your connected headphones report, to show it when they connect. It stays on your Mac.
- Live equalizer (optional). If you turn it on and allow system audio recording, the app measures how loud the music is in four frequency bands to move its equalizer bars, only while they are on screen. The audio itself is never recorded, stored, or transmitted.
- Mirror (optional). If you turn it on and allow camera access, the app shows your camera in the Mirror tab, only while that tab is open; macOS shows its camera light the whole time. The picture goes straight to the screen and is never recorded, stored, or transmitted.
- Crash reports. macOS may hand the app reports about its own crashes and hangs. The app keeps the last few on your Mac. They are sent nowhere; you can copy them from Settings to include in a bug report if you choose.
- Calendar. If you enable the calendar feature and grant access, the app reads your events for the next 24 hours to show what’s upcoming. Event data is read locally through Apple’s EventKit and never leaves your device.
- Battery. The app reads your battery level and charging state from the system. This stays on your device.
- Shelf files. When you drag a file onto the notch, the app keeps a reference to it (a macOS bookmark, stored in the app’s preferences) so it is still on the shelf after a restart and you can drag it back out. Files are not copied, moved, uploaded, or read beyond generating a thumbnail preview locally. If you choose Compress or Convert on a shelf item, the app writes the result as a new file next to the original, the way Finder does, and leaves the original untouched.
- Clipboard history. The app keeps the last things you copied, including any you pin, in memory only. It is never written to disk, is gone when the app quits, and skips anything your password manager or another app marks as private or temporary.
- Notes (optional). If you turn on Notes, what you type
there is saved as plain text in one file on your Mac,
~/Library/Application Support/AloeNotch/Notes.txt, readable only by your account. It is never synced or transmitted. Deleting the note in the panel deletes the file. - Keyboard and system state. To show brief announcements in the notch, the app notices when Caps Lock turns on or off, when your microphone is muted, and when Low Power Mode or a low battery kicks in. It reads only those on/off states and levels; no keystrokes, no audio. Nothing is recorded or transmitted.
- Apps and displays. The app notices which app is in front and whether it is full screen, so it can stay out of the way of full-screen apps and of any apps you list in Settings. That list is stored in the app’s preferences. If you turn on showing the notch on every display, it reads only your displays’ size and arrangement.
What can leave your device
Weather
If you enable the weather feature and grant location access, AloeNotch requests your approximate location from macOS (reduced-accuracy, rounded to about three decimal places of latitude and longitude — roughly neighborhood-level) and sends those coordinates to the Open-Meteo weather API to retrieve the current conditions for your area.
- No name, account, device identifier, or other personal information is sent — only the rounded coordinates.
- Open-Meteo is a third-party service with its own terms and privacy practices.
- You can turn this off entirely: leave the weather feature disabled, or deny location access. With it off, the app makes no network requests for weather and no location data leaves your Mac.
Lyrics
Lyrics are off by default. If you turn them on, the app sends the title, artist, album, and length of the song that’s playing to LRCLIB, a free, open lyrics database, to fetch time-synced lyrics — once per song. Nothing else is sent: no account, no identifier, no listening history. LRCLIB is a third-party service. Turn lyrics off and no song information leaves your Mac.
Update checks
Unless you turn it off in Settings, the app downloads a small list of
releases (aloenotch.com/appcast.xml) once a day, using the
open-source Sparkle updater, so it
can tell you when an update is available.
- The request names the app and its version, and nothing else. Sparkle’s optional system profile (Mac model, macOS version and similar) is turned off, and no identifier is sent.
- Nothing is installed until you click Install. Every update is signed, and the app checks that signature before opening it.
- The list is served from this website, so the request is handled by our hosting provider like any page view (see below).
Permissions
AloeNotch only asks for permissions the features you enable actually need — Calendar access for upcoming events, Location access for weather, Bluetooth for headphone battery, system audio recording for the live equalizer, the camera for Mirror, and Accessibility to replace the volume and brightness display (which also lets it notice Caps Lock). All are optional. If you deny or disable them, the related feature simply hides and the app keeps working. You can change these any time in System Settings → Privacy & Security.
The website
This website is a static page hosted on Cloudflare and sets no advertising or tracking cookies of its own. As with any website, our hosting provider may process standard technical request data (such as IP address and browser type) to deliver and secure the page; see Cloudflare’s privacy policy.
The site also loads a Buy Me a Coffee support widget from Buy Me a Coffee’s servers. When it loads, that widget may set its own cookies or process data under Buy Me a Coffee’s privacy policy. It exists only for optional donations and plays no part in the app.
Downloading the app transfers the installer file to your computer; we don’t attach any identifier to it.
Your rights
Because AloeNotch has no accounts and sends us no personal data, we hold nothing about you — there is no profile to access, correct, export, or delete, and nothing for us to sell.
- GDPR / UK GDPR. If you are in the EU or UK, you have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection over personal data a company holds about you. We hold none, so there is nothing for us to return or erase. Data you send directly to third parties — the weather API, or Buy Me a Coffee if you donate — is governed by their own policies, linked above.
- California (CCPA/CPRA). We do not collect, sell, or share personal information, and have not done so in the preceding twelve months. There is no “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” action to take, because there is nothing to sell or share.
- Questions or requests. Reach us on GitHub and we will respond.
Children
AloeNotch is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect any information from anyone, including children under 13.
Changes to this policy
If we change how the app handles data, we’ll update this page and the “last updated” date above. Material changes will be reflected in a new release of the app.
Contact
Questions about privacy? The best way to reach us is on GitHub.