TimeScroll
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Privacy

Your screen history stays on your Mac. This page explains exactly what TimeScroll stores and when it uses the network.

No accountsNothing to sign up for.
No analyticsNo tracking or telemetry.
No cloudYour data is never uploaded.

What's stored, and where

TimeScroll stores snapshots, extracted text, search indexes, and optional audio transcripts in a local folder on your Mac. You can choose the folder in Settings ▸ Storage. We (the developers) never receive any of it.

When TimeScroll uses the network

  • Update checks. TimeScroll checks for new versions in the background. You can turn this off in Settings ▸ Updates.
  • Model downloads you start. If you turn on AI search or audio transcription, the model you pick is downloaded once: MobileCLIP2 models from GitHub, Whisper models from Hugging Face. After that they run entirely on your Mac.
  • Ollama (optional). If you choose an Ollama embedding model, TimeScroll talks to Ollama on your own machine (localhost).

That's it. Screen content, text, and audio never leave your Mac through TimeScroll.

AI assistants (MCP)

TimeScroll can act as an MCP server so tools like Claude can search your history. It's off by default. When you turn it on, an assistant can only search while TimeScroll is running and the vault is unlocked. Screenshots are only included if the assistant asks for them. Keep in mind that results you share with an AI assistant are handled by that assistant and its provider under their own privacy policies.

You're in control

  • Pause or resume capture any time from the menu bar.
  • Exclude specific apps so they're never captured.
  • Set how long history is kept (30 days by default).
  • Delete everything from Settings ▸ Storage.

Encryption

The optional Encrypted Vault (beta) encrypts your database and media at rest. Its key is kept in your login keychain and unlocked with Touch ID or your Mac password. You'll also set a recovery passphrase, which can restore access if the keychain item is lost. If you lose both, encrypted data can't be recovered — not even by us.

Permissions

TimeScroll needs Screen Recording to capture snapshots. Accessibility (for low-energy Direct text mode) and Microphone (for audio recording) are optional. You can revoke any of them in System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security.

Verify it yourself

TimeScroll is open source. You can read every line of code on GitHub.