xpnd

Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 6, 2026

The short version: there are no accounts, no ads, and no selling of data. The app collects nothing about you, and the website has no analytics. If you choose to donate, Stripe handles the payment.

The app

xpnd runs on your Mac. It contains no analytics, telemetry, or tracking of any kind, and your settings are stored locally on your machine.

macOS permissions

xpnd asks for two permissions, and uses both on your Mac only. Nothing they give it leaves your machine.

  • Input Monitoring, to notice a keyword as you type it. xpnd keeps up to the last 128 characters you typed, in memory only, to match keywords. They’re never stored, logged, or sent anywhere.
  • Accessibility, to type a snippet in place of its keyword. xpnd puts your clipboard back after each expansion.

macOS may also ask whether xpnd can control a terminal app, which it needs to open a connection there.

Your files

Apart from its settings, everything xpnd saves is in ~/Library/Application Support/xpnd on your Mac:

  • snippets.yaml, your snippets.
  • connections.yaml, your connections, with references to 1Password items rather than passwords.
  • keys, the public keys of SSH key items.
  • drop, a folder for each connection that shares the xpnd drive with a Windows desktop. Files you copy there, and files Windows saves there, stay until they’re cleared, which you set in Settings → Remote Desktop.
  • The certificates of remote desktops you’ve accepted.

Snippet text is never logged. These files aren’t uploaded anywhere, though an export you make and share goes wherever you send it.

1Password

xpnd stores no passwords or keys. It reads them through the op command-line tool on your Mac, and only when you connect, pick or refresh a credential, open Settings → Password Manager, or save a new op path there, never in the background. What op does with your 1Password account is covered by 1Password's privacy policy.

A password is copied to the clipboard, marked concealed, and cleared after 30 seconds unless you’ve copied something else since, or when you quit. xpnd never types it. The one exception is a remote desktop’s password, which goes from 1Password straight into the session, is never copied or typed, and xpnd’s copies are zeroed when the tab closes. SSH keys are used through the 1Password SSH agent.

Network use

xpnd makes network requests only for:

  • The connections you open. They go directly to the hosts you’ve set, through your terminal’s ssh, your VNC viewer, or the FreeRDP library bundled in the app. Nothing passes through the maintainer. With clipboard sync on, a remote desktop can see your clipboard, except concealed items such as copied passwords, and it can see the xpnd drive if you turn that on, and nothing else of your Mac.
  • Checking for updates. The Sparkle framework fetches release information from updates.xpnd.dev, which the maintainer runs. You can turn this off in Settings. Like any web request, it exposes your IP address and user agent to that server. Nothing else about you or your Mac is sent with it.

Scripts and commands you put in your own snippets do whatever you wrote them to do.

The website

This site has no analytics and sets no cookies of its own. It’s served by Cloudflare, which may keep standard server logs (such as IP addresses) for security and operations, subject to Cloudflare's privacy policy. Release and download information shown on the homepage is fetched server-side from the GitHub API; your browser does not contact GitHub just by visiting.

The demo at the top of the homepage runs entirely in your browser. What you type into it goes nowhere.

Donations

Donations to the dog food fund are optional and processed by Stripe. Stripe's checkout loads from Stripe's servers only after you choose to donate, and Stripe collects your payment details, email address, and billing information, subject to Stripe's privacy policy. Card numbers never reach this site or the maintainer. The maintainer can see what Stripe shows a merchant, such as the amount, your name and email address, and your card's brand and last four digits, and uses it only for records of the donation. This site itself stores nothing about donations.

Downloads

Download links point to GitHub Releases, so downloading the app is a request to GitHub's servers and is covered by GitHub's privacy statement.

Email

If you email jesse@stilwe.com, your message and address are used only to reply to you. They are never shared or added to any mailing list.

Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated date at the top.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Email jesse@stilwe.com.