Privacy policy

Last updated: October 22, 2026

aibar is a Mac app that lives in the notch. It is published by I12Y LTD. This page says what the current beta does with your data, and where anything goes when it leaves your Mac.

In short

• There is no aibar account and no sign-in. The app does not talk to any server of ours.
• The app has no analytics and no crash reporting.
• Speech is recognized on your Mac. Audio never leaves it.
• Your text leaves the Mac only when you pick a cloud model. It then goes to that provider, with your own API key.

Speech and audio

Fn dictation and the voice orb use the Parakeet speech model. It runs on your Mac's Neural Engine. aibar listens only while you hold Fn or press the orb. The audio becomes text on your Mac and is never sent anywhere.

The first time you use speech, aibar downloads the speech model from Hugging Face, where the model is published. Hugging Face sees that download like any web server sees a request, including your IP address. The download contains no audio and nothing you said.

The model you choose

You pick the language model that answers you. Where your text goes depends on that choice.

• Apple on-device. Apple's model runs on your Mac. aibar sends nothing over the network for it.
• A local server. Ollama, LM Studio, or any OpenAI-compatible server you run. aibar sends your text only to the address you set. If the server runs on your Mac, nothing leaves the Mac.
• Gemini. A Google cloud model that you use with your own Google API key. When Gemini is selected, aibar sends Google your question, the earlier messages of the current conversation, aibar's instructions to the model, and the results of any tool the assistant used to answer. With Ask screen, the text read from your screen goes too. Google handles all of this under the Gemini API terms, which differ for free and paid keys.
• Other cloud providers you configure with your own key work the same way. The same kinds of text go to that provider, under its terms.

Audio and images of your screen are never sent to any model.

Ask screen

When you select an area of the screen, the macOS Vision framework reads its text on your Mac. aibar then deletes the screenshot. Only the recognized text joins your next question, and it goes wherever your model runs.

API keys

API keys you enter are stored in the macOS Keychain on your Mac. aibar sends a key only to the provider it belongs to, to make your requests. We never receive your keys, and there is no server of ours to send them to.

Weather

The weather and sunrise tiles show the city you type. When you save a city, the Apple geocoder in macOS turns its name into coordinates once. aibar then asks MET Norway at api.met.no for the forecast and sunrise times at those coordinates. aibar does not ask for your location and never reads it.

System tools and your calendar

Volume, brightness, dark mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, media, timers, opening apps, Shortcuts, the calendar and system information all run on your Mac.

Calendar access is read-only. aibar shows your events in the notch. If you ask the assistant about your calendar, the events it reads go into the question for your chosen model. Any other tool result works the same way. With a cloud model it reaches that provider. With Apple on-device or a local server it stays where the model runs.

Your conversations, the clipboard tile, files on the shelf, tasks and settings stay on your Mac. aibar keeps its diagnostic logs on your Mac too, and never uploads them.

Updates

aibar checks for updates with Sparkle. It reads the update feed from our site on GitLab Pages and downloads new versions from the same place. Like any web request, the check carries your IP address, the app version and the macOS version. It carries no identifier of you. Sparkle's optional system profile report is off.

Permissions

aibar asks for each permission on its own screen and says what it is for. You can skip any of them. Only the feature that needs it stops working.

• Microphone for Fn dictation and the voice orb.
• Input Monitoring to notice the Fn key in any app.
• Accessibility to paste dictated text into the field you were typing in.
• Automation to control Music or Spotify for the now playing tile, and System Events and Shortcuts for dark mode, your Shortcuts and system commands.
• Calendar for read-only access to your events, for the next-event tile and calendar questions.
• Screen Recording for Ask screen and the quick actions that capture the screen and read its text.

This website

aibar.i12y.studio is a static site hosted on GitLab Pages. It sets no cookies and runs no analytics. When you open a page or download the app, GitLab sees your IP address and browser details, like any web host. The fonts load from Google Fonts, which sees the same details.

Children

aibar is not directed at children under 13.

Changes to this policy

When what aibar does with data changes, we update this page and the date at the top. A paid cloud option may come later. If it does, it gets its own section on this page before it is turned on.

Contact

Questions about this policy: hello@i12y.studio.