Privacy Policy
Last updated: June 15, 2026
Scroll is built so that we — TinkerClaw — learn as little about you as possible. The app contains no telemetry, no analytics, and no account system. This page describes exactly what data moves where.
The Scroll app
- Screen text is extracted on your Mac. Accessibility and OCR processing happen entirely on-device.
- Cloud narration goes from your Mac directly to OpenAI using your own API key. Extracted text — after your exclusion list and the built-in redaction of emails, card numbers, and similar secrets — is sent to OpenAI to generate the explanation or speech. Look and Read Aloud use a low-cost text step plus TTS; Ask uses OpenAI Realtime for live voice conversation. That data is governed by your agreement with OpenAI; it never passes through TinkerClaw servers, because we don't have any.
- Screenshots are opt-in and targeted. When enabled, Scroll may send an image of the chart/figure you're reading to OpenAI when text alone can't carry the meaning. Disable this in Settings → Privacy; it is always off in local-only mode.
- Voice input is explicit. Scroll listens only while Ask mode is on. Right Command opens the live voice conversation, and toggling Ask off stops the microphone.
- Local-only mode sends nothing anywhere. Apple's on-device models and system speech do all the work.
- Stored on your Mac only: your OpenAI API key and license key (macOS Keychain), settings, reading-position memory, and learned per-app preferences. Deleting the app deletes them.
- A live inspector in Settings shows every block of text (and a note for every screenshot) before/after it leaves the machine, so you can verify all of the above yourself.
License validation
After purchase, the app validates your license key against Polar (polar.sh). These requests contain your license key and a device label (your Mac's name) — no screen content, no usage data. Validation runs at most weekly, with a built-in offline grace period.
Purchases
Checkout is operated by Polar Software, Inc. as merchant of record. Polar collects the billing information needed to process your payment (name, email, payment details, country for tax) under Polar's privacy policy. We see your email address and license status in our Polar dashboard — we use it to deliver license keys and provide support, and for nothing else.
This website
tinkerclaw.com's Scroll pages set no analytics cookies and run no third-party trackers. Server logs from our hosting provider (standard IP/request logs) are used only for operations.
Newsletter signup
When you download the free trial, or when you choose to buy Scroll from the landing page, we ask for your email before continuing. We pass that address to Kit (ConvertKit), our email provider, which stores it and sends our updates under Kit's privacy policy. We use it only to email you about Scroll and TinkerClaw, and every message has a one-click unsubscribe. This is the app's only difference from “no account system”: a mailing list address, not an account the app creates.
Your rights
Email support@tinkerclaw.com to access or delete the purchase records we hold about you, or for any privacy question. Where GDPR or similar laws apply, you also have the right to rectification, portability, and complaint with a supervisory authority.
Changes
We'll post any changes to this policy on this page with a new date. Material changes to what the app sends off-device will also be called out in release notes.