Security at SnapTree

Local processing

These run entirely on your Mac, with no network involvement at all:

• Text recognition (OCR)
• Search and indexing
• Thumbnails
• Organisation and tagging
• Screen recording
• Markdown conversion

Text recognition uses Apple’s Vision framework, built into macOS. Search uses a local SQLite full-text index stored in your own user library. Neither sends anything anywhere.

Screenshot storage

Screenshots are filed into the folder you chose during setup, organised into year and month subfolders, as ordinary files you can open, move, back up, or delete in Finder. SnapTree’s catalogue — titles, tags, notes, recognised text, and the search index — lives in ~/Library/Application Support/SnapTree/.

Nothing is placed in a proprietary container you would need SnapTree to open, and nothing is stored outside your Mac.

Screen recording storage

Recordings are written straight to your visible SnapTree folder as standard .mov files. While recording, the file is written under a temporary hidden name and renamed into place when you stop, so a half-written file is never imported. If a recording fails, the temporary file is removed.

Recordings and their audio are never uploaded. Recording runs only between an explicit start and stop, with an indicator visible throughout — it is never used to observe your screen in the background.

SnapTree’s recorder captures the screen and, optionally, system audio. It does not record your microphone: the app requests no microphone permission, and microphone samples are explicitly discarded in the recording code.

AI connections

AI features are off by default. When you enable them and supply your own API key, SnapTree sends the text recognised from a screenshot, its current title, the source application name, the capture date, and your category names, directly from your Mac to the provider.

The screenshot image is never transmitted. Neither are recordings, audio, file paths, notes, or search queries. The complete field-by-field list is on the AI Disclosures page.

API credentials

Your AI provider API key is stored in the macOS Keychain — verified in the source — as a generic password item scoped to SnapTree’s bundle identifier, marked accessible only after the first unlock of your Mac. It is never written to preferences, plain files, logs, or exports.

In transit the key is sent as an HTTPS request header to your provider, never in a URL where it could land in a log or browser history. It goes only to that provider — never to us.

Application security

• Signed and notarized. The download is signed with an Apple Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, with the notarization ticket stapled to the disk image. macOS verifies this before it will open.
• No third-party code. The application has zero external package dependencies — it is built entirely on Apple’s own frameworks. There is no supply chain to compromise.
• No analytics, telemetry, or crash reporting. No such SDK is present in the application. This is not a setting you have to find; the code is not there.
• Minimal permissions. Only access to the folder you choose is required. Screen recording is optional and requested in context. SnapTree requests no microphone, camera, contacts, calendar, or accessibility access.
• Signed entitlements. Subscription statements from our server are cryptographically signed and verified on your Mac; the app carries only a public key and cannot mint its own.
• Encrypted in transit. All network requests use HTTPS.

Updates

SnapTree uses Sparkle, the standard updater for Mac apps distributed outside the App Store. Every update is cryptographically signed with a key held only on the signing Mac, and your copy verifies that signature against a public key compiled into the app before installing anything.

That matters more than it sounds. It means our download host being compromised is not enough to push code to your Mac — an attacker would also need a private key that never leaves a Keychain. Updates are fetched over HTTPS, and each release is separately signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

Background checks never interrupt you: if an update appears while you are working, SnapTree marks it in the menu and waits, rather than putting a window in front of what you were doing. You can always check by hand from SnapTree → Check for Updates…

This path is tested, not merely configured: an older build was installed, offered the current release, and updated itself — with its code signature and Apple notarization still intact afterwards.

What we do not claim

No software is free of risk. SnapTree is a young product, built by a small team, and it has not yet had an independent third-party security audit — when it does, we will say so on this page and date it.

What we can state precisely is the shape of the risk. Your screenshots, recordings, and recognised text are not exposed to a server breach, because they are never sent to a server. The risks that remain are the ones inherent to any Mac application, plus whatever your chosen AI provider does with text you explicitly send them.

Responsible disclosure