Privacy policy

Last updated September 25, 2026

GlassFold is a macOS menu bar app that renders your screen as a pane of frosted glass while your MacBook's lid moves. It does not collect, store, or share any personal data. You never create an account, and there are no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking of any kind. The App Store version sells an optional unlock as an Apple in-app purchase, so buying it goes through the App Store the same way any app purchase does; see Purchases below.

Data collection

GlassFold collects no data. The app itself makes no network connections, so nothing it does is ever transmitted off your Mac. The App Store version's only outside contact is the App Store, through Apple's StoreKit framework, to offer its two in-app purchases, the free trial and the paid unlock, and to complete them. In App Store privacy terms, this is a Data Not Collected app.

Screen Recording

The effect is a picture of your own screen. GlassFold asks for Screen Recording permission so that, the moment the lid starts moving, it can take one screenshot of the built-in display and draw it as the glass. That screenshot is held in memory only for as long as the effect is showing and is discarded when the lid settles. It is never written to disk, never uploaded, and never analyzed. Without the permission the effect cannot run, and the permission can be changed at any time in System Settings under Privacy & Security.

Lid angle sensor

GlassFold reads the lid angle sensor built into supported MacBooks to know when and how far the lid is moving. The reading is used only to drive the effect. The app keeps the last five seconds in memory for the Setup window's chart and stores nothing longer. Like most Mac apps, GlassFold writes a few diagnostic lines to the macOS system log, for example when the sensor is opened, and one of those can include a lid angle reading. Those entries stay on your Mac and are kept and expired by macOS, not by GlassFold.

Settings

Your preferences, such as eye position, the trigger threshold, and which lid directions play the effect, are stored on your Mac in the app's private container. Deleting the app removes them. Like other app data, they may be included in your own backups, such as Time Machine, which are covered by Apple's privacy policy rather than this one. Turning on Launch at login registers GlassFold with macOS as a login item and stores nothing else.

Purchases

The version of GlassFold sold on the Mac App Store offers a free 3-day trial, which you start yourself, and a one-time unlock of the full lid effect. Both are in-app purchases handled by Apple. The App Store takes the payment and asks for your Apple Account; GlassFold never sees your name, email address, or payment details.

Apple keeps the record of each purchase with your Apple Account, under Apple's privacy policy. The trial's start time is the purchase date of that record, which is why reinstalling the app or wiping its settings does not restart the trial. What GlassFold receives from Apple is a signed confirmation of the purchase: which item, when, and whether it was later refunded. The app reads that to decide whether the trial is running or the full version is unlocked, and stores nothing about the purchase itself.

Third parties

GlassFold uses no third-party services, SDKs, analytics tools, or advertising frameworks. No data is shared with anyone. The one party involved at all is Apple, and only in the App Store version, for the purchases described above.

This website

glassfold.app sets no cookies and runs no analytics or tracking scripts. The site is served by Cloudflare, which keeps aggregate request logs, such as which files were downloaded and from which country, as part of hosting it. Those logs are covered by Cloudflare's privacy policy.

Changes to this policy

If a future version of the app changes how it handles data, this policy will be updated here before that version is released.

Contact

If you have questions about this policy or the app, write to support@azaleski.com.