Privacy

SKALD · LAST UPDATED 2026-05-13

• API keysfor DeepL and Claude — stored in the system Keychain under com.ivshestakov.skald.v2. Never transmitted anywhere except to the relevant engine.
• Preferencesselected engine, language pair, tone, hotkeys — stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.ivshestakov.skald.plist.
• Apple translation modelsdownloaded once by macOS on first use of the Apple engine, cached by the system framework, not by Skald.

Only the text you ask to translate, and only to the engine you’ve selected:

• Applenothing leaves your mac. Translation runs on-device.
• Googletext is sent to translate.googleapis.com over HTTPS via the same public endpoint used by Google’s web translator. Google’s privacy policy applies.
• DeepLtext is sent to api-free.deepl.com (or api.deepl.com for paid keys) with your API key in the Authorization header. DeepL’s privacy policy applies.
• Claudetext is sent to api.anthropic.com with your API key in the x-api-key header. Anthropic’s privacy policy applies. Skald sets the request flag instructing Claude not to use the content for training where the API supports it.

• Accessibilityrequired to simulate ⌘V and paste the translation into the focused app. macOS prompts on first launch.
• Networkrequired for non-Apple engines.
• That’s all. No camera, no microphone (unless you opted into dictation), no contacts, no location.

Skald polls panic-kit.com/skald/appcast.xml once a day to check for new versions. The check is an unauthenticated HTTPS GET; no identifying information is sent.

Privacy questions, takedown requests, or any other policy question: hello@panic-kit.com.