Transom, Privacy

Transom reads your texts and your email so it can show you the ones that matter, and it does all of that on your Mac. There is no Transom server, no account to create, no analytics, no ad trackers, and no data brokers here. Your messages are never sold, never shown to advertisers, and never used to train AI models, and they never reach us, because we built the app so they couldn't. What Transom remembers about your notifications is shown to you in full in the Recent window, and you can erase it, or turn remembering off entirely, with one click. We built Transom to guard your attention. Guarding your privacy is the same job.

Transom is a place where the people who matter reach you and everything else waits. Some of what it touches is the most personal data on your Mac. This page explains, in plain language, what is kept, where it lives, who can reach it, and what we will and will not do.

What Transom keeps (all of it on your Mac)

·Your VIP lists: the people you choose, and their photos if you picked them from Contacts.

·Notification history: the last 200 cards, in a small file you can clear with one click or switch off entirely in Preferences.

·Your settings, your shelf files, and your trial start date.

·Your secrets: the Gmail app password and optional AI key live in the macOS Keychain, never in a plain file.

We ourselves keep almost nothing. When you buy a license, our payment provider gives us your name, email, and license key so we can support you. That is the entire list of what exists on our side.

How your messages are used

To decide, on your Mac, whether a card should appear in your notch. That's it. Nothing is uploaded for processing, nothing is analyzed in aggregate, nothing is used to improve anything. We could not study patterns across our users' messages even if we wanted to, because we never possess a single one.

Where it is stored

Everything lives in your user folder on your Mac and in your Keychain. Transom reads the Messages database that Apple's own apps use, with the Full Disk Access permission you grant, and reads Contacts, Calendar, and system audio levels only with your permission. The audio is measured for the equalizer's animation, never recorded. Delete the app and its data folder, and everything is gone; there is no copy anywhere else.

The connections the app makes

This is the complete list. If it isn't here, the app doesn't do it.

·Your Gmail account (only if you set up Email VIPs). Transom connects directly to Google with credentials you provide, to read your own mailbox and to mark read or archive when you ask. That traffic runs between your Mac and Google; we are not in the middle and cannot see it.

·A lyrics service (only if Now Playing is on). To show live lyrics, the current song's title and artist, never anything personal, are sent to lrclib.net. Turn the widget off and this never happens.

·Your own AI provider (off by default). If you enable reply suggestions and add your own key, the text of the message you're answering goes to the provider you chose, under their policies (Anthropic's are here), or to a local model on your Mac, which touches no network at all.

·Update checks. Transom fetches a version file, and the new build if you accept. No personal information rides along.

·License validation. Entering a license key checks it once with our payment provider, Lemon Squeezy.

Transom's posting API listens only on your Mac's internal loopback address, requires a token stored in your Keychain, and verifies each request's Origin and Host. So neither your network, the internet, nor a website you visit can reach it.

How it is protected

·Your Gmail connection is encrypted (TLS) end to end; your app password and AI key live in the macOS Keychain.

·There is no database of your messages to leak, because there is no database. The usual worst case for an app like this, a server breach exposing everyone at once, is not possible here; there is no server.

·The rules that decide what can interrupt you are unit-tested, so the triage you configured is the triage you get.

What we are honest with you about

Transom is a small operation. Because your data never leaves your Mac, the person who runs it could not read your messages even to debug a problem; when you ask for support, you choose what to show us. One thing deserves plain statement: the lyrics feature does send song metadata off your Mac, which is why it's listed above and easy to turn off, and posts to the local API require a per-Mac token kept in your Keychain, with Origin and Host checks that stop websites you visit and other apps from posting without it. If the app crashes, a technical report (what the code was doing, never your message content) can be sent to help us fix it, and you can decline. We will never sell your information, show you ads, or quietly begin collecting data; a change of that kind would be announced inside the app before it took effect.

Your choices

Clear or disable notification history in Preferences. Turn any widget or connection off. Remove your Gmail setup and the app password leaves your Keychain. Delete the app and everything it knew is gone. For the little we hold from your purchase, email us and we'll show it to you or delete it, beyond records tax law requires us to keep.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, this page and its date change with it, and material changes get a note in the app's release notes.

Transom is made by Zero-Point Ventures, LLC. For any question or request: blake@wiltonblake.com.