Privacy

What the app stores

Magpie keeps its working files — your settings and a cached copy of the yt-dlp downloader engine — in ~/Library/Application Support/Magpie/. Your downloaded videos go wherever you choose in Settings. Everything is on your Mac. You can open the folder in Finder, inspect it, and delete it at any time; Magpie starts fresh on next launch. There is no history synced or stored anywhere off your machine.

No sign-in or stored credentials

Magpie currently does not sign in to YouTube or any other site, and it never reads your browser’s cookies, saved passwords, or account details. It downloads only what is reachable without an account. One consequence of this: videos that require you to be logged in — for example age-restricted or private videos — may not be downloadable.

Clipboard watching (optional, off by default)

If you turn on clipboard watching, Magpie reads your clipboard locally to spot video links and offer to queue them. The clipboard content is examined on your Mac and is never sent anywhere — not to us, not to anyone. The feature is off until you enable it.

The video sites you download from

Magpie is a front-end for the yt-dlp command-line downloader; the only outbound connections it makes are the three listed here. When you paste a link, yt-dlp connects to that site (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) on your behalf to fetch the video. That is the whole purpose of the app. Those sites see the same request any browser or download would make; their own privacy policies apply to them, not to us.

Engine updates

On launch and when you press “Update”, Magpie checks for and downloads newer builds of yt-dlp from its public release host so the downloader keeps working as sites change. This carries no information about you.

App updates (Sparkle)

Magpie asks our server “is there a newer version of Magpie?”. That request carries only the current Magpie version, your macOS version, and your CPU type — no identifiers, no usage data. Sparkle is open source and auditable, and you can turn automatic checks off in Settings.

No telemetry, analytics, or crash reporting

There is no telemetry, no analytics, and no crash reporting. Nothing about what you download is ever sent to us.

Feedback (only if you send it)

If you use Help › Send Feedback…, the message you type — and nothing else — is delivered to a private inbox on our server, visible only to us. We do not share it with third parties. If you never use that menu item, nothing is sent.

This website

This site is a set of static HTML files served from our hosting provider. It uses no cookies, tracking pixels, or analytics scripts.

Contact

Questions about privacy: contact@lucesumbrarum.com

Responsible entity: Gregor Müller (Luces Umbrarum), Berlin, Germany — see the Imprint for full details.