Privacy

Last updated 19 September 2026

The short version: nothing about your files, your apps or how you use Dustpan ever leaves your Mac. The app connects to dustpan.app, and nowhere else, for two things: to check for updates, which you can switch off, and once to activate a licence. After that it works with no connection at all. This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics.

The app

• Checking for updates. At most once a day Dustpan downloads one small public file from dustpan.app, the same file this website uses to show the latest version. It is a plain download: no identifiers, nothing about your Mac or your licence, no cookies. The only thing the request says about the app is its version number, for example “Dustpan/1.0.2”. As with any visit to a website, our host sees the IP address the request came from (see below). You can switch automatic checks off in Settings → Updates, and the app works exactly the same.
• Activating a licence, once. When you enter a licence, Dustpan sends dustpan.app two things: the licence key, and an anonymous code for your Mac. The code is a one-way hash of the Mac’s hardware identifier mixed with a value used only by Dustpan; it cannot be turned back into the identifier and it is not your serial number or your Mac’s name. Your email address, your name and anything about your files are not sent. We keep that code next to your licence, with the dates it was first and last activated, so that a licence works on the number of Macs it was sold for. “Deactivate This Mac” sends the same two things and frees the seat.
• After activation it does not need us, or the internet, again. The proof of activation is stored in your Mac’s Keychain and checked on your Mac. Dustpan never contacts a server to re-check a licence, and a licence never expires. If a purchase is refunded or charged back, that licence is added to a list inside the public update file; the app compares it on your Mac, and sends nothing to do so.
• No analytics, no crash reporting, no account. Dustpan contacts no server other than dustpan.app, and only for the two purposes above.
• Scanning happens on your Mac and stays there. File names, sizes, the list of apps you have installed, your memory usage: none of it leaves the machine.
• Full Disk Access, if you choose to grant it, lets Dustpan read folders macOS otherwise hides so it can measure them. It is used for scanning and nothing else, and you can revoke it at any time in System Settings → Privacy & Security.
• What it stores on your Mac: your preferences, a running total of how much space you have freed and, in the free version, how much of the free allowance has been used, in the standard macOS preferences and Keychain. If you have a licence, the licence and its proof of activation are kept in your Keychain.

This website

• No cookies, no analytics scripts, no advertising, no third-party fonts or embeds. Every file on this page is served from dustpan.app.
• Like every web server, our host (Hostinger) keeps standard access logs, which include IP addresses and the pages requested. We do not combine them with anything or use them to identify anyone.
• To stop abuse, the activation service counts requests per IP address. It never stores the address itself, only a keyed hash of it, and those counters are cleared after about an hour.

If you write to us

If you email hello@dustpan.app, we keep your message so that we can answer it. If you ask to be told when Dustpan launches, your address is used for that one email and for nothing else. Ask, and we will delete either.

When you buy

Payments are handled by a payment provider acting as the merchant of record. They receive your payment details; we never see your card number. We receive your name, email address and country so that we can send your licence and handle refunds. We keep your email address together with your licence key and order number, so that we can send the licence again if you lose it.

Contact

Questions about any of this: hello@dustpan.app.