Subtextual Capture for Mac
Privacy Policy
Last updated October 22, 2026
We don't collect any data. Everything Subtextual Capture keeps (your captures, notes, copy stack and clipboard history) stays on your Mac.
The app has no accounts, analytics, advertising or tracking. Nothing you copy or capture is sent anywhere.
Who we are
Subtextual Capture is made by editing.help. Questions about this policy go to info@editing.help.
What the app keeps, and where
To do its job, the app stores the following on your Mac, in your user account:
- Captures: text you highlight and send to the app (from the Services menu, or by copying it and pressing the capture shortcut), screen areas you select with a capture shortcut, any note you add, and where the capture came from: the app's name, the window title, and, when available, the web address.
- Copy stack: what you copy while the stack is open, until you paste, remove or clear it.
- Clipboard history, only if you turn it on: what you copy, so you can search and paste it later.
- Settings: your shortcuts, preferences and pinboards.
If you choose a folder for Markdown files, the app also writes your captures there as files. Those files are yours, like any other document.
Text in images is read on your Mac using Apple's built-in text recognition. Images are never uploaded for this.
Grab Text reads the area you select for its text and puts only the text on your clipboard, or on the copy stack if it's open. The picture isn't kept.
Clipboard history is off until you turn it on
The app asks before it records anything you copy. While history is on, a small dot appears on the app's menu-bar icon. You can pause it from the menu bar at any time, choose how long items are kept, and list apps whose copies should never be recorded.
It never records anything an app marks as confidential or temporary, such as a password. It also ignores copies from password managers (1Password, Bitwarden, Apple Passwords and Dashlane) unless you remove them from the ignored list in Settings.
Permissions the app asks for
macOS asks your permission before the app can do any of the following. Each is used only for the purpose described, and only when you use the related feature.
- Screen Recording: used only when you use Capture Screen Area or Grab Text. The app takes one picture of the area you select, at that moment. When you capture, it also reads the title of the front window, for the capture's source line. Nothing is recorded continuously, and nothing leaves your Mac.
- Paste from Other Apps: lets clipboard history read what you copy in other apps without asking each time.
The app doesn't ask for Accessibility or Input Monitoring. It never presses keys for you and never watches what you type.
Subtextual, the writing app
This version of Subtextual Capture doesn't connect to Subtextual, the writing app, or to anything else. It makes no network connections. To bring a capture into your writing, copy it, drag it, or save it as a Markdown file.
A future version may pass captures to Subtextual for Mac on the same Mac, or let you connect a Subtextual account so captures reach your other devices. If either is added, it will be optional, it will send only the captures you choose, and this policy will be updated before that version is released.
What we receive
Nothing, by default. The app contains no analytics or third-party code that reports on you.
If you've chosen in macOS to share analytics with app developers, Apple may send us anonymous crash reports, under Apple's privacy policy. If you email us, we use your message only to reply.
Deleting your data
- In the app: clear the copy stack, or delete items from clipboard history. Deleted history items go to its Trash and are removed for good after 30 days.
- Captures are kept in the app's folder, which opens with Show Capture Storage in Finder in the menu-bar menu. You can delete any of them there.
- To remove everything, quit the app and delete its folder:
~/Library/Containers/help.editing.subtextual.capture.appstore - Markdown files you saved to your own folder stay there until you delete them.
Children
Subtextual Capture isn't directed at children under 13. It collects no information from anyone, children included.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. Any change to what leaves your Mac will be described before the version that does it is released.