Legal documents and your consent choices

Before Storage Studio does anything, you accept its Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Disclaimer. Settings… → Consent & Legal keeps a record of that acceptance, lets you read the documents again at any time, and lets you withdraw your consent.

Accepting the terms

The first time you open Storage Studio — and again whenever one of the documents changes — you see Welcome to Storage Studio. Each document has its own tab, and you can Open document in browser or Save a copy… before deciding. To continue, tick both:

• I have read and accept the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Disclaimer.
• I understand Storage Studio is not a backup tool, and that I am responsible for maintaining independent backups of any data I value.

Then click Continue. Decline & Quit closes the app; it removes nothing, and you can simply uninstall. When a document has changed since you last accepted, the screen names it: Updated since your last acceptance. Storage Studio doesn't start its background work until you've accepted.

The Consent & Legal page

• Your acceptance — Accepted by, Accepted on, Device and Language.
• Documents — each of the three, with the version you accepted. Read opens it inside the app; Open in browser and Save a copy… do what they say. Updated since acceptance marks a document that has changed.
• Diagnostic logs — a summary of whether you're sharing logs with support. You manage that in Settings → Notifications; see Sharing diagnostic logs with support.
• Withdraw consent — see below.

In the Advanced popover, More → Legal also opens the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, Security Policy and Third-party notices.

Withdrawing consent

%% caption: What happens when you withdraw consent
flowchart TD
  A[Click Withdraw consent] --> B{Confirm?}
  B -->|Keep consent| C[Nothing changes]
  B -->|Withdraw and stop| D[All background activity stops]
  D --> E[Storage Studio returns to the acceptance screen]
  E --> F{Accept again?}
  F -->|Yes| G[Everything starts again]
  F -->|No| H[Decline and Quit, or uninstall]

Withdraw consent stops all background activity and returns Storage Studio to the acceptance screen. Storage Studio asks first — Keep consent or Withdraw & stop. Nothing is deleted or uninstalled: your settings, and everything you've moved, stay as they are. You can accept again, or uninstall separately — see Uninstalling Storage Studio.

Your other choices

Some things are optional and have their own switches:

• Sharing diagnostic logs with support — off unless you turn it on.
• Letting an AI assistant on this Mac read your storage status — Settings → Connections.
• macOS notifications — The Learning Center and notifications.

For what Storage Studio sends and when, see What leaves your Mac, and when and Privacy: what stays on your Mac.