This statement explains what information Plouse handles, and when. The core principle is simple: your raw activity stays on your Mac. Plouse only sends anything off your device in two cases, and only when you choose them, namely joining a team or connecting a cloud AI provider. Both are described below.
On your device by default
Plouse measures your focus locally using macOS APIs and stores everything in a database on your own machine. That includes the apps, sites and documents you touch, window titles, and automatically detected calls and meetings (for example Zoom, Meet and Teams), which are logged locally so you can tag them. The solo app needs no account, and by default none of this activity is transmitted anywhere.
Meeting transcription (optional, opt-in, on your Mac)
Plouse can transcribe your calls so it can tell you what a meeting was about. Because this involves other people’s voices, it is deliberately the most restricted thing the app does. It is off by default, you switch it on yourself in Settings, and Plouse then asks you before every single call, so a meeting is only ever transcribed after you say yes to that meeting.
When you agree, Plouse listens to both sides of the call and turns the speech into text entirely on your Mac, using the speech recognition and on-device intelligence built into macOS. No audio and no text is uploaded, to us or to anyone else. The audio is never saved: it is turned into text as the call runs and then discarded.
The transcript is saved on your Mac, so you can read a meeting back afterwards, alongside a short summary of what was discussed and which project it belongs to. Both live in the same local database as the rest of your activity. In Settings you can switch off keeping transcripts, in which case only the summary is kept, and you can delete every stored transcript in one step at any time. Deleting a call deletes its transcript with it. Nothing from a transcribed call, including the summary, is ever part of team sync.
One thing that is yours rather than ours: the people you are talking to. Recording or transcribing a conversation involves their personal data too, and in most of Europe it requires that they know about it. Telling the other participants is your responsibility, and you should not transcribe a call if anyone in it objects. Plouse gives you the switch and the per‑call question so this stays a deliberate choice, but it cannot ask them for you.
Teams (optional, opt-in)
If you create or join a team, which is a paid, opt-in feature, only the focus and project totals you choose to share are synced to your team’s private workspace. Your raw activity, meaning the underlying apps, sites, documents and window titles, never leaves your Mac. Joining a team uses a join code, and a display name so teammates can recognise you. You can leave a team at any time.
You can also invite a teammate by email. The address you enter is used once to deliver the invitation, via an EU-based email delivery service, and is never stored: we keep only an anonymous fingerprint (a hash) for up to 30 days to prevent abuse of the invite system.
AI insights: on your Mac, or a provider you choose
Plouse can turn your activity into plain-language insights using AI. With on-device Apple Intelligence or a local model, the analysis happens entirely on your Mac and nothing is sent anywhere. If you instead point Plouse at a third-party provider of your choice (for example Claude, GPT or Gemini), the activity you submit for analysis is sent to that provider, under your own account with them and subject to their privacy terms. This option is off by default and is always your choice.
The website and the download
plouse.app is a static marketing site. With your consent, we use Google Analytics (a Google service) to understand, in aggregate, how the site is used. If you accept analytics in the cookie banner, Google Analytics sets cookies and receives technical data such as your IP address, device and browser, and the pages you view; Google processes this on our behalf and may transfer it outside the EU, including to the United States. Analytics does not run until you opt in, and you can decline or change your choice at any time. We don’t use advertising or cross-site tracking. Standard web-server logs may also briefly record technical request data, such as your IP address, to operate and secure the site. The app itself is downloaded from GitHub Releases, so the act of downloading is also subject to GitHub’s privacy practices. See our Cookies page for details and to manage your choice.
What we do not do
- We don’t sell your data or share it with advertisers.
- No advertising trackers, cross-site tracking, or third-party analytics SDKs in the app.
- No application telemetry or crash reports leave your Mac without your explicit consent.
- We never receive your call audio, transcripts or meeting summaries. Transcription happens on your Mac and stays there.
What you control
From the app’s preferences you can strip window titles, block specific websites or apps from being recorded, skip incognito browser windows, and pause recording at any time. You can export or delete your local database whenever you want. You decide whether meetings are transcribed at all, are asked again before each call, choose whether transcripts are kept or only their summaries, and can delete every stored transcript in one step. You also choose whether to join a team and which totals to share, and whether to use AI at all and, if so, which provider.
Your rights
For the solo, on-device app we hold no personal data on our side, so there is nothing for us to access, correct, or delete. Where we do process limited personal data, for example team totals in a shared workspace or emails you send us for support, you can ask us to access, correct, or delete it, and exercise your other rights under the GDPR or comparable laws. The data controller is Plouse, operated by Defigners B.V. in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Changes to this statement
If we make material changes, we’ll update the date above and note what changed. Continued use of the app means you accept the revised statement.
Contact
Questions or concerns about privacy? Email hello@plouse.app.