Privacy
SOOTY is software that runs on your computer, and your assets, tags and libraries are stored on your own disk, where we can’t see them and don’t collect them
This page explains when the desktop app, the browser extension and this website go online and what they send, where the information you leave with us is kept and for how long, and what your rights are
Desktop app
- A library is a plain folder on your disk, and your assets, tags, ratings and the results of AI analysis and text recognition stay on this computer without being uploaded
- The app has no analytics, ads or crash reporting. Every case where it goes online is listed in the table below: license matters go to our server, and checking for updates, the Plugin Center and downloading the AI model go to the download host where we keep installers and models
- AI search and AI tag suggestions run on your computer, and text recognition uses the one built into macOS, so none of these needs to send your images anywhere
The app goes online only in the cases below. Checking for updates and automatic Plugin Center updates are on by default and can be turned off in Settings, and everything else only happens once you turn it on or start it yourself. If we add anything else that goes online, we will update this page first:
| When | Where it connects | What it sends |
|---|---|---|
| You turn on AI search for the first time, or click “Retry” after the model download stopped | dl.sooty.app (our download host on Cloudflare), huggingface.co, hf-mirror.com and modelscope.cn: SOOTY fetches a small piece from each and downloads from a fast one. If a system proxy is turned on, it also tries through the proxy | It only downloads the model files, and sends none of your assets, your license key or your device ID. As with any website, the server sees your IP address |
| Checking for updates: 1 minute after SOOTY opens and then once a day, or when you check by hand under Settings → About | dl.sooty.app | It only fetches the public update manifest, and downloads the installer when there is a new version. It sends no license key, device ID or anything from your libraries, and the server sees your IP address |
| Plugin Center: when you open the Plugin Center tab, and if automatic updates are on, 2 minutes after SOOTY opens and then once a day | dl.sooty.app | It only fetches the public plugin catalog, and downloads a plugin package when you install a plugin or a new version is out. It likewise sends no license key, device ID or anything from your libraries |
| You allow a plugin to go online | The domains listed in the plugin’s manifest that you approved on the Plugins page in Settings | What the plugin’s description says, for example the AI Descriptions plugin sends thumbnails of the selected images to the model endpoint you set, which by default is Ollama running on your own Mac |
| You save an image from a web page with the browser extension or the local API | The site the image is on | A download of that image, just like opening it in your browser |
| You activate a license key, after which the app refreshes it about every 30 days when online and when you open Settings → License, and when you deactivate a computer, renew or upgrade | api.sooty.app (our server) | Activating sends your license key, this computer’s device ID, its name and operating system. Refreshing and deactivating send only the key and device ID, and renewing or upgrading only the key. None of them include the app version or anything from your libraries, as described under “Buying and license keys” below |
The local API listens only on 127.0.0.1, so other computers can’t reach it, every request needs a token, and inside a browser only SOOTY’s own extension can call it
Browser extension
The extension talks only to SOOTY on your computer, never to any other server, and has no analytics or ads
Only when you save an image from the context menu, drag an image or collect all images on a page does it read the image URLs, sizes and captions and the page’s URL and title, which it hands to SOOTY on your computer
For images SOOTY can’t download directly, such as ones you have to be signed in to see, the extension reads a copy of the image data in the page you have open and hands it to SOOTY on your computer, without reading or passing on your sign-in details
This website
- The website itself uses no cookies or ads, and its fonts and icons are served from this site. Only two things are loaded from elsewhere: Cloudflare’s analytics script (static.cloudflareinsights.com), and Paddle’s checkout script, loaded only when you are about to check out (see “Buying and license keys” below)
- Visits are counted by Cloudflare Web Analytics, which records the page you opened (without the query string), the site you came from, your country, browser and operating system, and how fast the page loaded. It uses no cookies or local storage and doesn’t fingerprint your browser, as described in Cloudflare’s announcement
- The first page you opened in this tab and where you came from are kept in your browser’s session storage until you close the tab, and are sent to us only if you sign up for launch notifications (see the next section)
- The language you picked in the language menu and any language prompt you closed are kept in your browser’s local storage on your own device
- The website is hosted on Cloudflare, which processes your IP address and browser information to deliver pages and block attacks, as described in Cloudflare’s privacy policy
Launch notifications
When you leave your email in the download section:
- We store your email address, which product and list it’s for (SOOTY launch notifications), the page language, where you signed up, which site and utm tags brought you to the website, and when you submitted and confirmed it, but not your IP address or browser details
- The anti-bot check solves a small puzzle in your browser, with no cookies and no connection to any other site
- Your IP address is used only to limit how often sign-ups can be submitted, and it isn’t written to our database or our logs, which don’t record email addresses either
- We first send a confirmation email, and you’re only signed up once you click the link in it, while addresses not confirmed within 7 days are deleted automatically
- After that we only send the launch notification, and every email has an unsubscribe link. When you unsubscribe, your address is deleted right away and we keep only a one-way keyed hash of it and the time you unsubscribed, so that we never email it again, and that record is removed too if you sign up and confirm again later
- The data is stored in Cloudflare’s D1 database with the primary copy in the Asia-Pacific region, requests pass through Cloudflare’s network around the world, and emails are sent through Resend, a US company sending from its Tokyo region, which handles your address, as described in Resend’s privacy policy
- To delete all your data, write to hi@sooty.app and we’ll delete it by hand
Emails you send us
- When you write to hi@sooty.app we see your address and your message, which we use only to reply to you and to improve SOOTY, and we never pass it on or add you to a mailing list
- This mailbox is hosted by Zoho Mail, and your emails are stored on Zoho’s servers, as described in Zoho’s privacy policy
- If you want us to delete your emails, just write and ask
Buying and license keys
Once SOOTY is on sale, orders are handled by our online reseller Paddle.com, which is the Merchant of Record for them:
- Paddle’s checkout script is loaded from cdn.paddle.com only when you move the pointer over “Buy” in the pricing section, click it, or open the checkout page. The checkout form is Paddle’s page, and the name, email address, billing address and payment details you enter there are collected by Paddle, which decides what cookies it uses and what it collects for payment and fraud prevention under Paddle’s privacy notice. We never see your card number
- From Paddle we receive and keep your email address, the order number, which tier you bought, the amount and the tax in it, what we received after tax and fees, whether a discount was used, the website language at checkout (so the license key email is in that language) and when you paid and any refund, and use them to send your license key, handle renewals, upgrades and refunds, keep our accounts and answer your questions. Your name, address and payment details stay with Paddle and we don’t store them
- We generate license keys ourselves and store them only in encrypted form, and the license key email is sent through Resend
- When you activate a license key in the app, it sends the key, this computer’s device ID, its name and operating system to api.sooty.app and gets back a signed certificate that is stored on your computer, after which SOOTY works offline. The device ID is a hash derived from your system’s machine identifier, and the original identifier never leaves your computer
- The license key, the certificate and the number of computers and update period our server returned are stored in SOOTY’s settings folder on your computer and aren’t sent anywhere else. Clicking “Remove license key” under Settings → License in the app deletes them
- After activation the app refreshes the certificate about every 30 days when it is online and whenever you open Settings → License, each time sending only the key and device ID, and it also connects to api.sooty.app when you deactivate a computer, renew or upgrade. If a refresh shows that the license has been deactivated (after a refund, for example) or that this computer was deactivated from another one, the app deletes the certificate on this computer and returns to not activated, keeping the key so you can activate again. For each computer activated with a license we keep its device ID, name, operating system, when it was activated and when it was last online, so we can count how many computers a license is on and you can tell which one to deactivate
- When you look up a license, renew or upgrade on the website’s license page, the page sends the key to api.sooty.app, which uses it only to find that license. The key stays in that page and isn’t saved in your browser. When the app opens the page with your key, the key sits after the # in the address, which browsers don’t send to the website, and the page removes it from the address bar once it has read it
- When you enter an email on the license page to get your key again, we use it only to look up the licenses bought with it and resend their license key emails to that address, without storing the email you entered, and the page gives the same reply whether or not that email has bought SOOTY
- Your IP address is used only to rate-limit these requests, including those from the license page, and, as with sign-ups, isn’t stored
How long we keep it
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Unconfirmed sign-ups | 7 days, then deleted automatically |
| Confirmed sign-ups | Until you unsubscribe or we stop using the list |
| The hash and time kept after you unsubscribe | As long as we email SOOTY users, used only to make sure we never email you again, and removed if you sign up and confirm again |
| Delivery records (which email was sent and whether it went out, without your address) | 30 days |
| Orders and licenses (as listed under “Buying and license keys”) | Licenses don’t expire, so we keep them, because they are needed when you move to a new computer or need your key sent again, and they are also our accounting records. If you ask us to delete them, we delete what we can and keep what accounting law requires |
| Computers activated with a license | As long as the license. Deactivated computers stay listed too, with the time they were deactivated |
| The raw payment and refund notifications Paddle sends us | 90 days, after which we keep only the result of processing them |
| Emails you send us | As long as we need them, usually no more than 2 years, or deleted right away if you ask |
| Visit statistics | We only see the totals Cloudflare adds up, and Cloudflare keeps the raw data under its own rules |
Where it is kept and who handles it
We are based in China and access this information from China when we reply to emails or look after the sign-up list and orders. The service providers below handle this information. They are all outside mainland China, so for visitors in mainland China this information is transferred abroad:
| Recipient | What it does | What it handles |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare, Inc. (United States, with the database’s primary copy in the Asia-Pacific region) | Hosts the website and API, stores the sign-up list, orders, licenses and activated computers, counts visits and rate-limits requests | The information above, and your IP address and browser details when you visit the website or use the API |
| Resend (a US company, sending from Tokyo, Japan) | Sends confirmation, notification and license key emails | Your email address and the email’s content (a license key email contains your key and order number) |
| Zoho (Zoho’s data centers) | Hosts the hi@sooty.app mailbox | Your email address and your messages |
| Paddle (United Kingdom) | Once sales open, handles orders, payments and refunds as Merchant of Record and is itself responsible for that information | The details you enter at checkout and what its checkout form collects |
- Cloudflare, Resend and Zoho handle this information for us and may use it only for the purposes above and under the data processing agreements between us and them, and transfers out of the EU and the UK are covered by the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework
- Paddle is the Merchant of Record and handles the information from checkout under its own privacy notice
- You can contact them directly as described in their privacy policies, or write to hi@sooty.app and we will handle it for you
- Apart from these providers, only authorities where the law requires it and professional advisers who help us with legal and tax matters see what they need. We don’t sell this information, and we take reasonable security measures to protect it, for example sending it only over HTTPS, requiring a sign-in for our admin tools and logging every view and export
Who is responsible and your rights
- “We” on this page means Meitane, which is responsible for the information described here (the data controller), and you can reach us at hi@sooty.app
- Why we use this information:
- We send launch notifications with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time by unsubscribing, without affecting what happened before
- We reply to your emails, send license keys, activate and refresh licenses, handle renewals and upgrades and process refunds to respond to your requests and fulfil our agreement with you
- We keep orders as accounting records to meet our legal obligations
- We host and protect the website, count visits in aggregate, rate-limit requests by IP address and keep the hash after you unsubscribe so we never email you again, because we have a legitimate interest in running the website and licensing properly and securely
- You can ask to see, copy, correct or delete the information we hold about you, have it sent to a place you choose, ask us to explain the rules on this page, withdraw your consent, or object to or restrict how we use it, by writing to hi@sooty.app. We usually reply within one month, and if a request is complex and we need longer, we will tell you within that month how much longer and why. In the EU, the UK and elsewhere you can also complain to your local data protection authority
- SOOTY and this website aren’t directed at children. If you are under 14, or under the age at which you can consent yourself where you live (16 in some EU countries), please don’t sign up, and if we learn that a child has signed up we will delete the address
- We don’t track you across websites, so Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals from your browser don’t change anything here. We don’t sell your personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising
Future changes
When this page changes we update the date at the bottom, we announce significant changes on this website, and we email the people who have signed up or bought a license when a change affects them
For any privacy question, write to hi@sooty.app
Updated