Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 1, 2026

Overview

Plainfile is a text editor for macOS. It works entirely on your Mac. It does not collect any data, it has no analytics or tracking, and it does not connect to the internet.

Data collection

Plainfile does not collect, send or store any personal data. In particular, it has:

Because nothing is collected, the App Store privacy label for Plainfile is “Data Not Collected”.

Files you open

The documents you open, edit and save in Plainfile stay on your Mac, in the places where you keep them. Plainfile never copies them anywhere else and never uploads them.

Plainfile runs inside the macOS app sandbox. The sandbox only lets it read and write the files that you choose yourself, for example in the Open or Save panel, by opening a file from Finder, or from Open Recent. Plainfile cannot look through the rest of your files.

When you choose Help > Open Sample Files, Plainfile copies a few example files into its own sandbox folder on your Mac so that you can edit them.

Autosave and versions are provided by macOS. macOS keeps earlier versions of your documents on your Mac, the same way it does for other document apps.

Settings

Your editor settings, such as the font, the font size, line numbers and tab width, and the size and position of the window, are stored locally on your Mac in the standard macOS user defaults (UserDefaults). They are never sent anywhere.

Network

Plainfile has no network access. Its sandbox does not include the permission to make network connections, so the app cannot send or receive anything over the internet. If a Markdown document links to an image on the web, Plainfile cannot download that image.

Third-party services

Plainfile uses no third-party services, SDKs, analytics or advertising frameworks. Its only dependency is Apple’s open source swift-markdown library, which runs on your Mac and reads Markdown text.

If you download Plainfile from the Mac App Store or from GitHub, Apple or GitHub handle that download under their own privacy policies. This website is hosted by GitHub Pages, which may keep standard server logs such as IP addresses. The website itself uses no cookies, analytics or tracking.

Children’s privacy

Plainfile does not knowingly collect any information from children. The app does not collect information from anyone.

Changes to this policy

If this privacy policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new date at the top. The source of this page is kept in the Plainfile repository, so you can see the history of every change.

Contact

If you have a question about this privacy policy, ask in GitHub Discussions.