Privacy Policy
In one sentence: we collect nothing about you, because we run no servers to collect it on.
Effective 4 September 2026 · Applies to the ShotTrans app for macOS
There is no account, no server operated by us, and no analytics, telemetry or crash reporting. Your captures, the text recognised from them, the translations, your wordbook and your history all stay on your own Mac.
What we collect
Nothing. We have no way to receive data from the app, because the app never sends any to us. There is no sign-up, no device registration, no usage statistics, and no third-party SDK embedded for measurement or advertising.
Where your data lives
In a single folder on your Mac. The Mac App Store version, being sandboxed,
keeps it inside the app's own container; other builds keep it under
~/Library/Application Support/.
| File | What's in it |
|---|---|
history.json | Translation history — original text, translations, language pair, time, which engine produced it |
guides.json | Word explanations you asked to be generated |
providers.json | The API keys and settings you entered for translation engines |
settings.json | Language direction and other preferences |
hotkeys.json | Your keyboard shortcuts |
models.json | Model names fetched from providers you configured |
quota.json | How much of each provider's free monthly allowance you've used |
Delete the folder and everything is gone. Nothing is kept anywhere else.
When the app goes online — and what it sends
This is the part worth reading carefully.
Text you translate
When you use a cloud engine, the text goes from your Mac directly to that provider, using the API key you entered. It does not pass through us. We are not a party to that request and never see its contents.
That also means the provider's own privacy policy governs what happens to that text. You chose the provider and hold the account; the relationship is between you and them. If you would rather no text left your machine at all, use only the built-in offline engine described below.
The engines you can enable, and their privacy policies, are:
- DeepL — deepl.com/privacy
- Microsoft (Azure AI Translator) — privacy.microsoft.com
- OpenAI — openai.com/policies
- Anthropic (Claude) — anthropic.com/legal/privacy
- Google (Gemini) — policies.google.com/privacy
- xAI (Grok) — x.ai/legal
- Mistral AI — mistral.ai/terms
- Baidu, Tencent, DeepSeek, Kimi, Zhipu GLM, Doubao — their own sites
- Anything added through the generic Custom AI channel entry — whichever service you pointed it at, including a model running locally on your own machine, which sends nothing anywhere
None of these is enabled until you enter a key for it.
Screenshots
Captured images are processed on your Mac by Apple's Vision framework to recognise text. The image itself is never uploaded — only the recognised text is sent, and only to engines you enabled.
Offline translation
macOS ships its own translation engine. It runs entirely on your device and sends nothing anywhere. It is enabled by default, so the app is fully usable without configuring any cloud service.
Everything else
The app also contacts a provider when you press Verify on an engine's settings, or fetch its model list. Both are actions you take deliberately. Apart from these, and translation itself, the app makes no network requests — no update checks that report on you, no pings, no beacons.
Your API keys
Keys are stored in plain text in providers.json on your own disk,
readable only by your macOS user account. They are used solely to sign requests to
the provider you entered them for, and are never transmitted anywhere else.
If you export your settings with the "include API keys" option, the resulting file contains those keys in plain text. Treat that file like a password.
If you are in the EEA, the UK, or a similar jurisdiction
The GDPR and comparable laws govern the processing of personal data. Because we neither collect nor receive any data from you, we do not act as a controller or processor of your personal data.
Where you send text to a third-party translation provider, you are doing so under your own account with that provider, and their terms and privacy policy apply to it. The rights you may wish to exercise over that data — access, deletion, portability — are exercised with them, not with us.
Data held by the app on your own device is under your control at all times. You can view it, export it, or delete it without asking anyone.
Children
This app is a general-purpose utility and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone, of any age.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the effective date at the top changes with it, and the current version always lives at this address. Since we hold no contact details for you, we cannot notify you individually — please check here if it matters to you.
Contact
Questions about this policy: theblackpanther@qq.com