Privacy Policy

Effective October 25, 2026. This policy describes the current Howdoey beta application and website.

What the app observes

When you request help, Howdoey uses macOS Accessibility information, screenshots, and text recognition to understand the relevant app or selected area. During guidance it observes again to check progress. Screens can contain personal information: close sensitive content and select only what you want help with. Secure fields are excluded where recognized; this is not a guarantee that every sensitive item will be detected.

Local AI

With the local provider selected, the app sends the context to an AI runtime on your Mac. That processing does not require sending your screen to a remote AI provider. On a fresh installation, local setup starts automatically with visible progress and a Cancel option. Initial runtime and model downloads contact GitHub and Ollama infrastructure, which can receive connection information such as your IP address.

Remote AI providers

If you select a remote provider, relevant screen text, your messages, and enabled screenshots are sent through the configured endpoint. The Claude Code demo bridge forwards requests to Anthropic; a configured Groq relay forwards requests to Groq. Those providers have their own processing and retention policies. A localhost bridge address does not by itself mean inference stays on your device.

Storage and controls

Chat is held in app memory. Clear Chat starts a new conversation and clears the displayed conversation; closing the app ends that in-memory session. Provider credentials are stored in macOS Keychain and provider preferences are stored locally. Downloaded runtimes and model files remain on disk until removed. Clearing chat does not delete model files or data already processed by remote providers.

During guidance, mouse events can trigger a fresh progress check; this is not a keystroke recording feature. Development diagnostics may be written locally when enabled. Relays may maintain access-token and quota records. Do not share logs without checking them for private information.

Permissions

You control Accessibility and Screen Recording access through macOS System Settings. You can revoke either permission, stop guidance, close the app, change providers, or disable screenshot sharing. Features that rely on revoked permissions will no longer work.

Website

The website displays recorded demonstrations and serves downloads. No advertising tracker or analytics service is added by this implementation. When hosted on Cloudflare, Cloudflare can process IP addresses, request metadata, and security logs as described in its privacy policy. Other sites linked from this website have their own policies.

Questions and changes

Contact the maintainers through the project repository for a private contact route before sharing sensitive details. Do not post personal information, screenshots, or secrets publicly. Updates to this policy will be dated here.