Privacy

Short version: your files never reach us, and we could not read them if they did.

Your backups

Copy Shelter encrypts everything on your Mac before it is written anywhere. The key is generated on your machine and is never transmitted, stored by us, or escrowed. We cannot open your backup, and we cannot recover your recovery key if you lose it. That is a deliberate trade and it is why the app makes you confirm you have saved the key before it will continue.

Where your backup goes is your choice: a drive you own, a NAS on your network, or a folder in a cloud account you already pay for. Copy Shelter has no servers holding your data, because it has no storage product at all.

What we do receive

If you buy directly: your email address and payment details go to Stripe, who process the payment. We receive your email address so we can send your licence key and reply if you write to us. We never see your card.
If you buy on the Mac App Store: Apple handles everything and tells us nothing that identifies you.
Update checks: the direct download build asks our update feed whether a newer version exists. That request carries your current version and the usual information any web request carries, including your IP address. It is not tied to your licence or your email.
Crash reports: only if you send one. They are never sent automatically.

What we do not do

No analytics, no tracking, no advertising identifiers, no profiles, no selling anything to anybody. The app does not phone home to check your licence: licences are verified offline, so your backups keep running whether or not we exist.

Your licence key contains your email address

If you buy directly, the key we email you is a signed statement that includes the address you bought with. That is how the app can verify it without asking us anything, and it is why it keeps working with no internet connection and no account. It also means two things worth knowing: your email address is stored on your Mac inside the licence, and anybody you give your key to can read it. If that matters to you, buy on the Mac App Store instead, where Apple tells us nothing that identifies you.

Keeping and deleting

We keep purchase records, which are your email address, the licence we issued and the Stripe customer reference, for as long as tax law requires. Ask us at support@copyshelter.com and we will tell you what we hold about you and delete what we are allowed to delete.

Augustus Travels LLC. Last updated 2 September 2026.