Privacy: what stays on your Mac

Storage Studio does its work on your Mac. Scanning, moving, cleaning and answering your questions all happen locally, and your files stay on your Mac or go only where you send them. What Storage Studio sends to its own servers is a small set of details: what your licence needs, a few usage and health numbers, and anything you choose to send, such as a support ticket.

This page is the overview. What leaves your Mac, and when goes through every kind of connection in detail.

%% caption: What stays on your Mac, what is sent, and what goes only where you send it
mindmap
  root((Your Mac))
    Stays on your Mac
      Your files and folders
      Your questions to Tuhi
      Your Junk Yard
      Passwords and access keys
    Sent to Storage Studio
      Licence and trial details
      Two usage totals
      Crash and performance reports
      A storage profile summary in numbers
    Only when you choose
      Support tickets and feedback
      Diagnostic log sharing
    Goes where you send it
      Your cloud accounts
      Your other devices

What stays on your Mac

• Your files. Scanning, moving, cleaning, duplicate finding and backups to your own drive all run on your Mac. Storage Studio's servers don't receive your files unless you choose to keep them in Storage Studio's own online storage, Delta Drive or Delta Trust.
• Your questions to Tuhi. Tuhi answers on your Mac, using Apple Intelligence's on-device model where it's available. Your conversation is saved on this Mac, not sent to us, and you can clear it at any time. See Tuhi runs on your Mac.
• Your Junk Yard. The Junk Yard keeps what you copy and the notes you write on this Mac. If you turn on clipboard sharing with a device paired through Bridge, what you copy is also sent to that device.
• Your passwords and keys. Passwords and access keys you type in for a storage account stay on this Mac and are used only to connect to that account. See how your settings are protected.

What is sent to Storage Studio

• Licence and trial details — the email, name and country you register with, an anonymous code for this Mac, and basic facts about the Mac, such as its model and macOS version.
• Two usage totals — about twice a day, how much space Storage Studio has freed and how much data it has transferred.
• Health reports — crash reports, occasional performance samples and a few app events, such as the app starting.
• A storage profile summary — percentages and counts from your Storage Profile, such as how your space splits between your Mac, your drive and the cloud. It holds no file names or email addresses.

What goes only where you send it

When you connect a cloud account and copy, sync or back up to it, your files go from your Mac to that account. When you send something to another device with Bridge, it's encrypted end-to-end between your devices. If you use Delta Drive or Delta Trust, see Delta Trust, Delta Drive and My Drive for how each one stores your files.

What you can switch on and off

• Diagnostic log sharing is off unless you turn it on. It asks first and turns itself off after a day. Logs can include file and folder names, so only turn it on when support asks. See Sharing diagnostic logs with support.
• Apple Intelligence for Tuhi can be switched off in Preferences → Interface.
• Letting another AI assistant read your storage is off until you turn it on, and it only answers apps on this Mac. See Letting another AI assistant read your storage.

Your consent and your records

You can read the Privacy Policy, and withdraw your consent, in Preferences → Consent & Legal (see Legal documents and your consent choices). If you reset Storage Studio, it shows Your data-erasure code, which you can send to ask us to erase the records we hold for this Mac.

See also: What leaves your Mac · The permissions Storage Studio asks for · How Storage Studio deletes things · Is Storage Studio safe to install?