Privacy Policy

Last updated 9 September 2026

Marching Ants is a macOS app made by Enzo Nucci. This explains what it does and doesn’t do with your data. Questions: hello@marchingants.app.

What the app sends when you capture

When you take a capture, macOS’s own screenshot tool briefly writes the selected region to a temporary file on your Mac to hand it to the app — typically for a fraction of a second — and the app deletes that file the instant it has read it, then clears out any leftover file from an earlier crashed run the next time it starts. The image is then sent to a Marching Ants server, which passes it to the AI models that answer it. On the server it is held in memory only for the length of that one request — it is never written to disk there, never put in a request-body log, and never used for training.

More than one model sees it

Every capture is sent to two AI models from different companies so their answers can be compared, and to a third only if you ask for a further check. Today those are Google (Gemini), OpenAI (GPT), and Z.ai (GLM), reached through OpenRouter. Which models we use changes as better ones appear; the popup always shows you the ones that actually ran.

Your sign-in

You sign in with Google. The sign-in tokens are stored in an AES-256-GCM encrypted file on your device, readable only by your macOS account, and never written anywhere in plain text. There is no API key to store — we run the models, so you never paste one.

What we keep

Your answer is not stored on the server; your history stays on your Mac. The only thing recorded per capture is a usage row: which account, when, which models ran, and the search cost.

One exception: the developer’s own testing account has detailed per-capture logs kept temporarily (which models ran, the answers, timing) to check accuracy and fix bugs. This applies only to that one account, never to a paying user’s captures or answers.

Install count

The first time the app opens, it sends a random id generated on your Mac, the app version, and your macOS version, so we can see roughly how many people have installed it and on what versions — no name, no email, nothing about what you capture. That id is only ever folded into an aggregate day/version count; it is never written into a list of individual installs and never logged on its own.

The website

This site is hosted on Vercel, which keeps standard short-lived server request logs (IP address, timestamp, page) for security and operations. The site sets no advertising or analytics cookies and does not track you across other sites.

Payments

When purchasing goes live it will be handled by Stripe. Card details are entered on Stripe and are never seen or stored by Marching Ants. We keep a record of your email address and what you bought, so we can honour your purchase and provide support.

Who we rely on

• Anthropic, OpenAI, Google — the AI models that produce answers.
• Stripe — payment processing (once purchasing is live).
• Vercel — website hosting.

Retention

We don’t keep your captures or prompts. Purchase and account records are kept for as long as you have an account plus any period required for tax and accounting.

Your choices

Email hello@marchingants.app to ask what we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete your account and its records.

Children

Marching Ants is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, the “last updated” date above will change and, for account holders, we’ll note it by email.