Privacy

Your clipboard stays on your Mac.

This is the privacy policy for the Lift app for Mac and for liftpaste.com. It describes what Lift does today, in plain language.

Applies to Lift 0.1.1 (build 13) · Last updated 30 October 2026

In short

Your clipboard, history, comments and screenshots never leave your Mac. Lift has no account, no cloud sync, no ads, no analytics and no trackers.
The only thing the app sends over the internet is its update check to update.liftpaste.com. Updates download automatically and install when Lift quits, unless you turn that off in Settings › About.
Lift reads other apps through macOS Accessibility and Screen Recording, only for what you point at, and only after you grant those permissions.
You can pause history, clear it, shorten how long it is kept, exclude apps, or delete Lift's folder at any time.

What Lift keeps on your Mac

Lift keeps these in ~/Library/Application Support/Lift. macOS protects the folder with your account, and with FileVault if you turned it on. Lift does not encrypt the files separately.

Clipboard history: Things you copy: text, images, links and files, with where each came from (the app, and the document or web address when the app shares it). Lift watches the clipboard for changes while it runs. Pinned items are kept until you remove them.
Recognized text: Text found in the images in your history. This runs on your Mac so you can search them; images are not sent anywhere for it.
Comments: The comments you write, with a screenshot of the element each one is about, in a comments folder inside Lift's folder. They stay until you delete them.
Settings: Your shortcuts, limits and excluded apps, saved in the standard macOS preferences for Lift.
Logs: Lift writes diagnostic messages to the macOS system log. They hold counts and error names, not the content you copy, your comments or text from other apps.

Defaults for how long history is kept: unpinned items are removed after 30 days, or when there are more than 5,000 of them, or when images and media take more than 2 GB (oldest first). You can change all three in Settings › History. Clear History in the same pane removes the items, their images on disk and their search entries.

What Lift reads from other apps

Lift asks for each permission the first time you use a feature that needs it. You can turn either one off in System Settings › Privacy & Security.

Accessibility (required). While you hold the aim key, Lift reads what the app under your pointer exposes to macOS accessibility: its text, links, file paths, and the name of the window, app and element, so it can outline and copy it. It does this when you aim or lift, and it keeps what you copy in history. Lift may ask an app to switch on its accessibility information so there is something to read. Lift does not record what you type.
Screen Recording (optional for text copies; needed for pictures and comments). Lift takes a screenshot of the outlined element or region when you press the picture key or save a comment. When you stretch a region taller than the screen, it captures the area in strips while it scrolls. It is never a continuous recording, and the pictures are stored only in Lift's folder.

What Lift sends to other apps

To save you steps, Lift sends input to the app in front, as if you had done it yourself. It only does this because you asked:

Paste (⌘V). When you choose an item from history, or lift and paste, Lift presses ⌘V in the app you came from. Auto-paste is on by default and can be switched off in Settings › History. A picture that follows text is pasted with a second ⌘V.
Copy (⌘C), as a fallback. When an app keeps a selection without telling accessibility about it, Lift asks that app to copy and lifts what lands on the clipboard. It never does this in a password field, and that copy is kept out of history.
Scrolling. While you stretch a region past the edge of the window, Lift scrolls the page for you. It can also send a tiny pointer move so an app shows hidden controls; the pointer itself does not move.

What Lift skips

This is best effort. It cannot catch everything, so keep an app on the excluded list if it handles secrets.

Password fields are never read.
Copies that apps mark as concealed, transient or auto-generated (the way password managers flag them) are not recorded.
Copies made in excluded apps are not recorded. Apple Passwords, Keychain Access, 1Password and Bitwarden are excluded out of the box; you can add or remove apps in Settings › History.

What leaves your Mac

Lift contacts one server, update.liftpaste.com, to look for a newer version and to download it. It checks when Lift starts and then about every 6 hours. A found update downloads in the background and installs when you quit Lift (or when you choose Restart to Update). Updates are signed, and Lift checks the signature before installing. You can switch automatic installs off in Settings › About.

The check is an ordinary web request. It carries the Lift version in the user agent and the normal metadata of any web request, such as your IP address, which the server sees. Lift does not send a system profile (your Mac model, macOS version or installed apps), and it does not send anything you copied, your history, comments or screenshots. The update server is hosted on Cloudflare, which may keep standard request logs.

Lift has no accounts, no analytics or crash reporting, no advertising, and no trackers. Nothing is sold or shared, because Lift does not collect it.

This website

liftpaste.com is a static site hosted on Cloudflare. It uses no analytics, advertising or tracking scripts, sets no cookies, and loads its fonts and images from its own domain. The demo videos load from media.liftpaste.com, which is also ours. Cloudflare processes ordinary request data (your IP address, browser and the page you asked for) to deliver the site and may keep logs, as described in its own privacy policy. Downloading Lift fetches the installer from update.liftpaste.com.

Your controls

Pause history in the menu bar or Settings › History. Nothing you copy is recorded while it is paused.
Clear history and keep less (days, items and storage) in Settings › History.
Exclude apps in Settings › History.
Turn off permissions in System Settings › Privacy & Security.
Stop updates installing on their own in Settings › About.
Delete everything: quit Lift and move ~/Library/Application Support/Lift to the Trash. Quit from the menu bar at any time to stop Lift completely.

Children

Lift is a general-purpose utility, not aimed at children, and it collects no personal information from anyone.

Changes to this policy

This page is updated with each Lift release that changes what the app stores, reads or sends, and the date and version at the top say which one it describes. If Lift ever needs to contact a new server, this page will say so first.