Privacy Policy

Parlance has two parts: pl, a free open-source command-line tool, and Parlance for Mac, a paid Mac app. The Parlance developer runs no servers, and neither the app nor the CLI contains telemetry or analytics. This page explains what leaves your Mac and where it goes.

You bring your own API key for Gemini, DeepSeek, OpenAI or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Requests go directly from your Mac to the provider you configured, under that provider's terms, privacy policy and pricing, and you pay for them. The Parlance developer does not receive them.

• Parlance sends only the text you submit or select, plus context, to the API you configure. Context includes the app name and window title, and other lines of the same text that mention your selection; window titles are sent as they are, apart from the same secret scrubbing. The Mac app sends a file or your clipboard text only when you attach it to an explanation. There is no Parlance server and no telemetry.
• Context is scrubbed before it leaves your Mac: text matching common API key, token and private key patterns is replaced with [REDACTED]. Pattern rules can miss unusual formats, so you can always see exactly what was sent: expand the panel in the Mac app, or pass --show-sent to pl explain. You can also turn context off.
• In the CLI, pl explain scrubs its input and --context file the same way. pl fix does not scrub secrets from your text, because the rewrite has to keep it; identifiers, paths and URLs are swapped for placeholders while the text is sent and restored afterwards, and terminal escape codes are removed.

The Mac app stores your API key in the macOS Keychain. The CLI reads it from an environment variable, the Keychain, or an api_key_cmd helper such as a password manager. Keys are never written to the config file. Helpers that prompt through stdin or stderr must be unlocked before running pl; api_key_cmd receives no stdin and its output is captured.

• When an app doesn't expose its text, the Mac app can read the current window from a screenshot, only if you allow Screen Recording. The text is recognised on your Mac and goes through the same scrubbing; the image itself is never sent. You can turn context off, and exclude apps such as password managers.
• When the Mac app pastes for you, it never presses Return. To paste, and to read a selection that an app does not expose, it briefly borrows the clipboard and then puts back everything other apps can read; a format that an app keeps only to itself may not survive. You can turn clipboard borrowing off in Settings › Privacy, and then the app only copies.

The Mac app checks its update feed on GitHub (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zjlgdx/parlance-releases/main/appcast.xml) once a day by default. Turn off “自动检查更新” in Settings › General to contact the feed only when you choose “立即检查” or “检查更新…”. Update checks give GitHub your IP address and a User-Agent containing the app version, with no user content. Update downloads use fixed GitHub Releases URLs (https://github.com/zjlgdx/parlance-releases/releases/download/v<version>/Parlance-<version>.dmg). The app never installs updates automatically.

• Parlance for Mac is sold by Dodo Payments, the Merchant of Record. Dodo Payments processes your payment, sales tax or VAT and invoices, and its privacy policy covers your payment details. The Parlance developer never sees your card details.
• The developer can view, in the Dodo Payments dashboard, the order records needed to handle orders, refunds and support requests.
• Activating a license sends the license key and a device label (the Mac model and a random tag, never your name) to Dodo Payments. While activated, the app checks the key with Dodo about once a week, and deactivating this Mac sends it again; both send the activation ID Dodo returned instead of the device label. Network problems never deactivate the app.

If you write to support@parlance.work, the developer receives your email address and message and uses them to reply and to handle your request, such as a refund. Mail to this address is forwarded to the developer's mailbox by Cloudflare Email Routing.

This website is a static site hosted on Cloudflare, and it serves its fonts from the site itself. It uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits: it records the page visited, the referring page, the browser and device type, the country or region, and page-load performance, and we look only at the totals. It sets no cookies, uses no browser local storage and does not track visitors across sites. The site sets no cookies of its own. As the host, Cloudflare may keep standard request logs (such as IP address, User-Agent and the page requested) under Cloudflare's privacy policy.

• Turn off context, clipboard borrowing or automatic update checks in Settings; screen reading never runs unless you grant Screen Recording.
• Deleting the app uninstalls it. Your API key stays in the Keychain until you delete it.

When this policy changes, we update this page and the effective date above.

Questions: support@parlance.work.