Last updated: October 2026
TL;DR
The long version below is the binding one. It says the same thing, just in more words.
PasteMate is built with privacy as a core principle. We do not collect, store, or transmit any personal data. Your clipboard history stays entirely on your device, and PasteMate has no servers of its own.
PasteMate does not collect any personal information. All clipboard data is stored locally on your Mac using Core Data and is never sent to PasteMate or anyone else. There are no analytics, no tracking pixels, no cookies, and no telemetry of any kind.
All clipboard items, tags, and preferences are stored locally on your device. Items carrying a protected tag are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, using a key that lives in your Mac's system Keychain and never leaves it. Access to protected items requires Touch ID or your macOS password. Items without a protected tag are stored locally in plaintext so they can be shown instantly.
An upcoming release will add optional iCloud sync across your devices. It will be opt-in and off by default. When you enable it, your clips sync through your own private iCloud account on Apple's infrastructure, protected by your Apple ID and Apple's iCloud security. No third-party service or server is involved, PasteMate still operates none, and turning sync off keeps everything strictly on-device, as it is today.
When you copy a web address, PasteMate can display a rich preview of that page. To build the preview, your Mac fetches the page's title and preview image directly from the website you copied, using Apple's LinkPresentation framework. This request goes to that website only; nothing is routed through PasteMate.
Capture (⇧⌘2) needs macOS's Screen Recording permission, which you grant in System Settings. PasteMate looks at the screen only while you are capturing, only at the area you choose, and reads any text or codes in it on your Mac with Apple's Vision framework. Nothing captured is sent anywhere: it lands in your history like anything else you copy, under the same exclusion and auto-delete rules. PasteMate's own windows are never in the picture.
Tools (⌘K) works out what a clip can become entirely on your Mac and offline. No clip is sent anywhere to convert, count, clean or recognize it.
Intelligence actions (Cmd+I) transform the text of a clip you choose: fixing grammar, changing tone, translating, or summarizing. By default they run with Apple Intelligence, entirely on your Mac, and nothing leaves your device. If you configure a cloud engine (such as Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google Gemini), the single clip you act on (its text, or the image itself when you ask about one) is sent directly to that provider, only when you ask, authenticated with your own API key. Your key is stored in the system Keychain. PasteMate never sees the request, adds no middleman, and sends nothing on its own.
PasteMate is a single one-time purchase handled entirely through the Mac App Store. Apple processes the transaction; PasteMate never has access to your payment information. There are no subscriptions and no recurring charges. Apple's privacy policy applies to all App Store transactions.
PasteMate does not integrate with analytics platforms or advertising networks. The only outside parties ever involved are the Mac App Store (distribution and purchase), websites you copied (link previews, see above), and an AI provider you explicitly configure (Intelligence, see above). Capture and Tools involve no outside party at all.
pastemate.app uses Vercel Web Analytics to measure page views, approved campaign labels, and clicks on App Store links. These clicks do not tell us whether you downloaded or purchased the app. Our campaign tracking uses a fixed list of source, campaign, and creative labels; it does not send arbitrary query parameters or clipboard content. Approved campaign labels and a timestamp are stored in this browser tab. We attribute clicks to them for up to 30 minutes; expired data is cleared when next checked, and tab storage ends when the tab closes. We add no analytics cookies or visitor IDs; if tab storage is blocked, tracking falls back to page memory. None of this involves the PasteMate app, which sends no analytics of any kind.
If you have questions about this privacy policy, please contact us at support@pastemate.app.