Legal

Privacy

Last updated 23 August 2026.

The short version

Shotbar itself does not collect your captures or translated text. The app has no Shotbar account, analytics or crash reporting. Captures and on-device OCR stay on your Mac. If you use Translate API, the recognized text from the area you selected is sent to Google Cloud Translation through Shotbar. On this Mac translation stays on-device.

What the app stores on your Mac

• Your preferences, in Shotbar’s macOS preferences store (app.glint.capture).
• Your licence key, if you enter one, in a file inside Application Support.
• Screenshots and recordings you save, in the folder you selected.
• Up to forty recent captures by default, plus their annotation metadata, persisted in Application Support so history survives a restart. You can change the limit and retention period in Settings.

Shotbar does not upload these stored files. Removing all local Shotbar data also requires deleting its Application Support folder and preferences.

Text recognition, translation and captions

Reading text out of an image uses Apple's on-device Vision framework. Apple Translation, when available, is handled by Apple's system translation framework. The selected screenshot itself is not sent to Google.

If you use Translate API, Shotbar sends the recognized text and target language to Google Cloud Translation through Shotbar’s servers. You do not need a Google account or API key. Google then handles the request under its own terms. The screenshot itself is not uploaded. Shotbar does not keep a copy of the translated text after the request completes.

Transcribing a recording uses Apple's Speech framework. Depending on language, system version and downloaded language assets, macOS may process speech on-device or through Apple services.

Permissions we ask for

• Screen Recording — required by macOS for any app that captures the screen.
• Accessibility — only for scrolling capture, which has to send scroll events to the window you picked.

Each one is requested by macOS at the moment it is first needed. Shotbar does not record microphone audio in this version, and it works without Accessibility if you never use scrolling capture.

Update checks and diagnostics

When Shotbar checks for updates, it fetches a small version file from shotbar.app. That request contains no screenshot, recognized text, or recording content. Standard server logs may include the requesting IP address.

Optional diagnostic logging is local to ~/Library/Logs/Shotbar/. It records operational messages for troubleshooting, not screenshot pixels or API keys, and can be disabled in Settings.

The website

This site is static, serves no third-party scripts, sets no cookies and runs no analytics. Our host keeps standard server access logs, which include IP addresses, for security and troubleshooting.

Payments

Purchases are handled by our payment provider, who receives the billing details necessary to process the transaction and to meet tax obligations. We receive a record of the purchase and your licence details. We never see your full card number.

Refunds

If Shotbar does not do what this site says it does, email us within 30 days of purchase and we will refund you in full. You do not need to justify the request, and you can keep using the build you already downloaded while we process it.

Contact

Questions about any of this: privacy@shotbar.app.