Nothing leaves your Mac
Frayo has no account, no cloud and no analytics. Your screenshots stay where you put them.
Screenshots are some of the most private things on your computer. They hold messages, invoices, dashboards, passwords that were visible for a second, and faces. A screenshot tool should be boring about all that. It should capture, and then get out of the way.
What we mean
Frayo has no sign-in. It has no account to create, and no server of ours that your captures go to. We do not collect analytics about how you use it. It has no feature that uploads an image.
Everything it does with your captures, it does on your Mac:
- Text search. The words in your screenshots are read by the text recognition built into macOS, and the result is saved as a plain text file next to the capture.
- QR codes. Read on your Mac with the same macOS framework.
- Copy Text. The text goes to your clipboard. The image is a temporary file that is deleted at once.
- Search. The Library and quick search look at files on your disk.
Where your files live
- The Library is in
~/Library/Application Support/Frayo/History. Each capture has its own folder. - Files you save go to the folder you choose. It starts as your Desktop.
You can open both in Finder. There is no database to export from. Delete a capture and its text index goes with it.
You choose what to keep
Captures expire from the Library after 30 days by default. Choose 7 days, 90 days, a year or forever. Expired captures go to the Trash, not into the void, so you can restore them. Bookmark a capture to keep it. Mass delete is careful: bookmarked and project captures are skipped unless you say otherwise.
Permissions, kept small
Frayo needs one permission: Screen Recording, so it can see the screen when you capture. It asks for the microphone only if you turn on audio recording. You can revoke either in System Settings.
Window titles
To name your captures, Frayo notes the title of the window in front when you capture. That can contain private words. It is stored on your Mac with the capture. It is never sent. If a title bothers you, rename the capture.
The one caveat
If you set your save folder to iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive, that service syncs the files you save there. That is a choice you make, and Frayo says so in Settings. Leave the folder on your Mac, and nothing syncs.
When we add features that talk to the network, such as updates or optional sync, we will say what they send, in plain words, before you turn them on. A tool that holds your screenshots should not surprise you.
Why bother
Because privacy you must trust is weaker than privacy you can check. You can check this. Watch the app in Activity Monitor or a network tool. Look at the folders. The files are yours.