Privacy & safety · What leaves your Mac
Does Storage Studio read the contents of my documents?
Short answer: For measuring and suggesting what to move it looks at sizes, dates and locations. Contents are read only on your Mac for jobs you ask for — copying, checking duplicates, or searching your own clipboard scraps — and never sent to us.
Mostly it looks at sizes, dates and locations — not what your documents say. Measuring where space has gone, finding old folders and deciding what's safe to move only needs that kind of information, and it all stays on your Mac.
There are a few places where file contents are read, always on your Mac and only for a job you asked for:
- Copying a file to move or back it up means reading it.
- Duplicates compares files by their actual content to be sure two are identical.
- Junk Yard search can read text inside images you copied, on-device.
None of that is sent to us. See Duplicates and Junk Yard for how those features work.