Vernacular
Privacy policy
Vernacular does not collect, store or share any personal data. It reads the apps and add-ons on your Mac, nothing it reads leaves your Mac, and it never connects to the internet.
What Vernacular reads
- The programs in your Applications folders. The first few kilobytes of each program file, which say what processors it’s made for. Nothing inside your documents, and nothing an app has saved.
- What each app declares about itself. Its name, version and the parts it carries (a login helper, a Share extension), from the app’s own Info.plist, and its code signature, which says where it came from and when it was built.
- Add-ons outside the apps. Printer and scanner drivers, audio plug-ins, helpers and the background services in your Mac’s Library folders, read the same way.
- Which apps are running through Rosetta right now, from macOS, so it can say “open right now through Rosetta”.
- Folders you add, only if you add them. Your own Applications folder or a disk with apps on it, chosen in the open panel. Vernacular keeps a read-only bookmark to read them again.
What Vernacular sends
Nothing. Vernacular has no network code: it never connects to the internet, and nothing it reads leaves your Mac. It has no account, no analytics, no advertising, no crash reporting service and no server of ours. Links to a maker’s site open in your browser.
What Vernacular changes
Nothing, unless you ask. The only change it can make is to move an app you choose to the Trash, after you confirm, one at a time; Put Back works. The first time, macOS asks you to choose the Applications folder once. It never offers to move Apple’s apps, anything in /System, or an app inside another app.
Stored on your Mac
Your settings, the last read (so it can say what changed) and how you settled each item in the checklist stay in Vernacular’s own storage on your Mac. A report is saved only where you choose, as a PDF, or copied as text when you press Copy as Text.
Watching
Note new Intel-only apps, Show in the menu bar and Open at login are off until you turn them on in Settings. When on, Vernacular notices changes in your Applications folders, printers and audio plug-ins, and reads again on your Mac.
Purchases
The optional unlock is handled by Apple through the App Store. We don’t receive your payment details. Apple’s privacy policy applies to purchases.
Contact
Questions about privacy: use the support form.