Privacy policy

Effective date: date

This policy covers the MeerLingo Mac app, the optional MeerLingo account and this website. MeerLingo is run by legal name and address. Questions go to meerlingo@protonmail.com.

The short version

• Your words, lookups and settings live on your Mac. You don’t need an account to look things up.
• Not everything happens on your Mac. Text you look up can go to Google Translate and to other services you choose.
• The app sends no usage analytics or crash reports.
• We don’t sell your data or show ads.

What stays on your Mac

The app keeps your settings, your lookup memory (the text, its translation, the languages, the app and the page or file it came from, and the time), your saved words with their sentences and source, the words you marked as known, and your review schedule.

This database is not encrypted, so anyone who can open your Mac user account or its backups could read it. Your sign-in session and AI keys are kept apart, in the macOS Keychain.

Lookup memory clears after 30 days by default. In Settings you can choose 7, 30 or 90 days, turn it off, or clear it at any time. Saved words stay until you delete them.

What the app reads

• Accessibility access lets the app read the text you select. By default the app also notices when you select text, so it can offer a small button near the pointer. You can turn this off.
• Clipboard fallback. When an app won’t hand over its selection, MeerLingo presses ⌘C for you, then restores your clipboard. You can turn this off.
• Screen Recording access is needed only if you read text off the screen. That text is read on your Mac by Apple’s Vision. Once read, it is translated like any other text, as described below.
• Where you met a word. When you look up a selection, the app reads the title and address of the page or file in that window, so it can show you later where you met the word. You can turn this off.

When text leaves your Mac

A word already in your lookup memory is answered without sending anything. For anything else, the built-in English dictionary shows what it knows, and the text also goes for translation. This covers text you select, type into quick translate or read off the screen, including with the lens:

• Apple Intelligence. On Macs that support it, suitable short text is handled by Apple’s on-device model.
• Google Translate. When Apple’s model and the services you chose can’t answer, the text and the languages are sent to Google, which also sees your IP address, as with any web request. Google’s own terms apply.
• AI services you add. The text goes to the service you chose, under your own key, along with the sentence around it unless you turn that off. AI explanations you open use that sentence even when it is off. That service’s own terms apply.
• Web search for AI explanations. With an AI service you added, an explanation may search the web for the word and words from its sentence, through You.com or DuckDuckGo, or through Magpie if it is one of your services.
• Translation through your MeerLingo account. If you sign in and turn this on, the text, the languages, the sentence around it and the source app go to our server, which passes the text and sentence to translation provider. We don’t store them unless cloud history is on, and it is off by default.
• Pages you open in the reader. When you give the reader a web address, the app fetches that page from your Mac, so the site sees your IP address. Your browser’s cookies and sign-ins aren’t used.
• Links you open. Cambridge Dictionary, Etymonline, YouGlish and Google Images receive the word only when you open their links, in your browser.
• Language packs. Downloads come from our server, which sees your IP address but no text.

If you create an account

An account is optional. You sign in with Google or an email code, handled by Supabase Auth. Email codes are sent through email provider.

We hold your email address, your login ID, your plan, your saved words with their sentences and source (the app, plus the page title and address if the app kept them), your review progress, records of deleted words so that other devices can delete them too, a limited set of settings, your cloud history if you turned it on, and the hour you last reached our server. This is hosted by host and region.

You can also add a display name and a profile photo. Both are optional, and only you see them in the app. A photo is cropped and resized on your Mac, which removes details such as where it was taken, then stored privately with Supabase. If you sign in with Google, the app can show your Google name and picture until you choose your own. Deleting your account deletes your name and photo.

Our admin tools show your email address, plan, counts and sync health, not your words. We keep a log of admin actions, which includes the account’s email address and remains after an account is deleted.

Analytics and diagnostics

The app sends no usage analytics or crash reports. It can build a diagnostics report holding versions, switches, permissions and error codes, never your text. It reaches us only if you copy it and send it. The report also holds weekly counts of how often lookups worked and how fast, kept on your Mac: never what you looked up or in which app.

We may later measure whether lookups succeed and how fast they are. That would never include your text, and we would update this policy first.

This website

This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics and has no sign-up form. Your browser remembers your light or dark choice on its own. Fonts are served from this site. Site host may keep standard server logs.

If you email us, we keep that conversation so we can answer you.

Your choices and rights

• Export. Settings can save everything as one ZIP. The file is not encrypted, so keep it somewhere safe.
• Delete your account. Open Settings > Account > Delete Account. This removes your account, synced data and login from our servers at once, cancels any subscription and gives you a receipt. We keep only that receipt: the account’s ID and the time, not your email address. You can also email us from your account’s address.
• Delete local data. Deleting your account doesn’t touch your Mac. Clear or delete words in the app, or remove the app and its data folder.

Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to access or correct your data, object to its use, or complain to a regulator. Services named here may process data in other countries. Legal bases, international transfers and regional rights: to be completed with a lawyer.

Children

MeerLingo is not meant for anyone under minimum age.

Changes

When this policy changes, we will update this page and its date. For a significant change, we will tell you ahead of time.