Glanceback

Look back at anything you saw on your Mac

Privacy Policy

Data Not Collected. Glanceback does not collect, upload or share any data. It has no account, no sign-in, no ads, no analytics, no tracking and no third-party SDKs, and it does not use the network.

What Glanceback records, and where it stays

While recording is on, Glanceback takes a screenshot of your screen every few seconds, turns the screenshots into short video files and reads the text in them with Apple's on-device text recognition (OCR). The video files, the recognized text and the search index are saved only on your Mac, inside Glanceback's private app container (~/Library/Containers/com.jorgealdunate.glanceback). They are never sent to us or to anyone else.

No network, no analytics

Glanceback runs in Apple's App Sandbox without permission to connect to the internet. It contains no analytics, crash-reporting, advertising or other third-party SDKs. Apple may give us anonymous, aggregate App Store and crash statistics only if you have chosen to share them with developers in macOS settings; that is controlled by Apple and you.

Your control

Pause recording at any time from the menu bar, for 15 minutes, 1 hour or until you resume.
Exclude apps in Settings › Privacy. Password managers (such as 1Password, Bitwarden and Keychain Access) are excluded by default when installed, and Glanceback never records itself.
Private browsing: Glanceback pauses automatically when a private or incognito browser window is in front, when the browser marks that window in its title.
Retention: choose to keep history for 1, 7, 30 or 90 days or forever, and set a maximum storage size. Older recordings are deleted automatically.

Permissions

Glanceback asks for the macOS Screen Recording permission, which it needs to capture your screen. It does not ask for Accessibility, keyboard monitoring, location, contacts, camera or microphone access. You can turn Screen Recording off at any time in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Screen & System Audio Recording.

Clipboard

“Copy Recent Context” puts recently recognized text on your clipboard only when you choose it. Glanceback reads text you copy only if you turn on “Remember everything copied to clipboard” in Settings (off by default); that text is saved on your Mac with the rest of your history.

Deleting your data

Open Settings › Storage and choose Delete All History…, or choose Delete All History… in the menu bar menu. This removes every recording and all recognized text. Deleting the app (and its container) also removes everything. Your data may also appear in your own Time Machine or other backups of your Mac, which you control.

Children

Glanceback does not collect data from anyone, including children.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page. Questions: jorgeealdunate@gmail.com.

Last updated: November 2, 2026 · Support