# A Mac app that asks for nothing

Shiplings requests no camera, microphone, screen recording, accessibility or full disk access. It has no server and no account. That is not a policy, it is a constraint the features were designed around.

*Updated 24 September 2026. Canonical: https://shiplings.app/mac-app-no-permissions.html*

## The list, in full

| Permission | Requested? |
| --- | --- |
| Camera | No |
| Microphone | No |
| Screen recording | No |
| Accessibility | No |
| Full disk access | No |
| Automation of other apps | No |

This matters more than it used to. A menu bar app that wants screen recording to tell whether you are in a meeting is asking for the contents of every window you have open, for the rest of the time it is installed.

## What it rules out, honestly

Full screen detection uses the height of the menu bar rather than asking the window server, so it is right for presentations and films and deliberately does not treat a maximised window as full screen. Video call detection looks at which apps are running, not at your screen or your microphone.

Those are the honest costs. The alternative was a permission prompt on first launch that most people would have said yes to without reading.

## No server, no account

- Nothing about your work leaves your Mac.
- There is no sign-up, no email required, and no password to lose.
- The licence is verified **offline**, against a signature. The app never phones home to check it, at launch or ever.
- API tokens live in the macOS keychain and are read only.
- The plan gauges are asked of Claude Code and Codex themselves, under their own sign-in. Shiplings never reads it.

> The app is distributed by direct download rather than through the App Store. The sandbox forbids writing an agent's hook configuration, so the App Store can never be the main channel.

## Questions

**Is there any telemetry?**

Not in the app. The website counts page views through Vercel Web Analytics, which sets no cookie and keeps no persistent identifier.

**Does it need the internet?**

Only for the connectors you turn on, for updates, and for the plan gauges, which Claude Code and Codex fetch themselves. Everything else about the agents on your own machine works offline.

**What happens if your company disappears?**

The app keeps working. There is no server for it to lose, and the licence is checked on your machine.