Privacy Policy

Overview

Mail Notifier is a macOS menu bar application that alerts you to new emails from Gmail and Microsoft accounts. This policy explains what data the app handles, where it lives, and what leaves your Mac.

How Mail Notifier works

Mail Notifier connects directly to your email provider (Gmail or Microsoft) using OAuth authentication. The application:

• Authenticates with your email provider using industry-standard OAuth 2.0
• Checks for new emails at intervals you configure
• Displays notification counts and previews in your menu bar
• Stores fetched data on your Mac and never forwards it to Strategic Nerds servers

Email data handling

Mail Notifier accesses only the minimum data needed to notify you of new emails:

• Email subject lines
• Sender information
• Arrival timestamps
• Unread message counts

We never access or store the full content of your emails. Email data is fetched directly from your provider and displayed locally. Nothing is transmitted to our servers.

Data storage

Temporary email data is cached locally on your Mac for display purposes. This cache is:

• Stored only in memory while the app is running
• Cleared when you quit the application
• Never written to disk or transmitted anywhere

Data sharing, transfer, and disclosure

We do not share, transfer, or disclose Google user data to any third party. No Google user data leaves your device. We have no servers that receive, store, or process your data. All email information retrieved from Gmail is processed locally on your Mac and is never transmitted to Strategic Nerds or anyone else.

OAuth tokens and credentials are stored exclusively in your Mac's Keychain, which is encrypted by macOS. We have no ability to access these tokens.

Credentials and authentication

Mail Notifier uses OAuth 2.0, the industry-standard secure authentication protocol. This means:

• You sign in directly with Google or Microsoft
• We never see or store your email password
• OAuth tokens are stored securely in your Mac's Keychain

Third-party services

Mail Notifier connects to:

• Gmail - Review Google's privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy
• Microsoft Outlook - Review Microsoft's privacy policy at privacy.microsoft.com

iCloud sync

If you are signed in to iCloud, Mail Notifier syncs the friendly names you choose for your accounts (for example "Work" or "Personal") across your Macs through Apple's iCloud Key-Value Store. OAuth tokens are never synced — each Mac holds its own credentials in its own Keychain, and a friendly name arriving from another Mac stays in a "sign-in required" state until you authenticate on that machine. iCloud sync uses Apple's iCloud infrastructure and is governed by Apple's iCloud privacy policy.

Network activity from the app

Mail Notifier makes outbound requests to:

• Your email provider (Gmail / Microsoft) for unread counts and message metadata, as described above.
• The Sparkle update feed at our update host once a day and when you choose "Check for Updates…". The request includes your current app version and macOS version so we can publish appropriate updates.
• Optional usage analytics, described below.

We do not run our own backend for storing your email — we only host the update feed and the disk image.

Anonymous usage analytics

Mail Notifier sends anonymous usage analytics through PostHog. This is opt-out: it is on by default and you can turn it off at any time from Mail Notifier's settings. The app sends event-level pings such as "app launched" or "update installed", along with a per-install random identifier that is not tied to your name, email, or Apple ID. We never record email subjects, sender addresses, friendly names, or any message content.

Your control

You have complete control over your data:

• Revoke Mail Notifier's access through your Google or Microsoft account security settings
• Uninstall Mail Notifier to remove all local application data
• Remove OAuth tokens from your Mac's Keychain

Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. We will notify you of any significant changes through the application or our website.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy, please contact us at help@strategicnerds.com.