Privacy policy

The short version: MessKit reads your Messages data on your Mac and keeps it there. There is no telemetry, no analytics, no account, and no server of ours anywhere in the product. Two optional features go online — both are described precisely below, both are visible as toggles in the app’s Settings → Trust pane, and everything this page claims, the app claims on screen.

What MessKit reads

With your permission (macOS Full Disk Access, which you grant and can revoke in System Settings), MessKit reads your Messages history — the conversations, attachments, and metadata that Messages stores on your Mac.

MessKit never opens your Messages database for writing. It reads a snapshot copy of the database, opened read-only. The live database Apple maintains is never opened at all — there is no code path that could write to it.

Everything MessKit derives from your messages — the scan results, the Library of links, contacts, places, events, files, payments, and media, and any on-device text recognition of screenshots — is computed on your Mac and stored on your Mac.

What MessKit changes

• Cleanup removes attachment files only — never a message, never a conversation.
• MessKit never permanently deletes anything. Removed files land in the macOS Trash, recoverable until you empty it.
• Each move and removal is written to a ledger you can inspect in History — with a “Show in Trash” for every item.
• Saving to Photos and Contacts is add-only: MessKit can put items into those libraries but never modifies or removes what’s already there.

What goes online — the complete list

The engine that reads your Messages data contains no networking code. Exactly two features can make network connections; each is a switch in Settings → Trust.

Online previews On by default · one toggle to turn off

• Sends: Only a link’s web address (to fetch its preview card) or a place’s street address (to render a map thumbnail).
• Receives: Only an image back.
• Never: No message text, no attachment, no database byte. Fetch-only: nothing about you is reported anywhere.

iCloud Library Sync (iPhone companion) Off by default · opt-in

• Sends: The derived Library index and small thumbnails — never the Messages database, never full attachments — to your own iCloud private database.
• Receives: The same, on your other devices.
• Never: No third-party servers. Every field is end-to-end encrypted; even Apple’s servers see only opaque records.

That list is exhaustive. If a future version of MessKit ever adds a network feature, it will appear in Settings → Trust and on this page before it ships — off by default unless it is as harmless as a link preview.

This website

The same policy extends here: this site is static, sets no cookies, runs no analytics or trackers, and loads nothing from third-party servers — fonts included. Your visit is not recorded by us.

Payments

Purchases are processed by Paddle, our merchant of record. When you buy MessKit, Paddle collects the information a purchase requires (such as your email address and payment details) under Paddle’s privacy policy. We receive your email address and transaction record so we can deliver your license and provide support — never your payment details. The app itself has no account system and sends nothing to Paddle.

What we retain

Purchase records (from Paddle) and any email you send to support. That is the complete list — there is nothing else we could retain, because nothing else ever reaches us.

Contact

Questions, or want to verify any claim on this page? drfindley@gmail.com. We answer privacy questions with specifics, not boilerplate.

Reckoner Labs LLC