Privacy

Last updated 10 November 2026. “We” and “us” on this page mean Long Road Software LLC, which makes MediaFlowSwift. This page describes the app; it says the same as Settings › Privacy inside MediaFlowSwift, which is the authoritative list and changes with the app.

The short version

MediaFlowSwift works on your Mac and your own network. It has no account and collects no usage data or analytics. Your media, projects and database stay on your Mac and on your network. It contacts us for two things only: to ask whether there is a newer version (from version 1.11, once you say yes or when you ask), and, once you have entered a licence key, to check that key. Both are described below.

A few features need a service run by another company. Each one is off until you turn it on in Settings › Privacy, which shows what is sent, to whom, and what for. You can turn any of them off again at any time.

Services you can turn on

Service	Goes to	What is sent
Online speech recognition	Apple	The audio of the clip being transcribed, only when your Mac has no on-device speech model for its language.
Historical weather lookup	Open-Meteo	Each clip’s GPS coordinates, rounded to about 100 m, and the date it was shot.
Place names for GPS coordinates	Apple	Each clip’s coordinates, rounded to about 100 m.
Maps of where you shot	Apple	The area of the map being shown, so that the map images can be supplied.
Writing your YouTube title, description and tags	The model provider you chose (Anthropic, OpenAI or Google), or a model on your own computer	The transcript of the finished video you chose, its length, the brief you typed, and the drafts for revision. Never the video or its file name. With a model on your own Mac or network, nothing leaves your network.
Suggesting categories	The model provider you chose, or a model on your own computer	Three frames from each clip, your category list, the clip’s camera, duration and place name, the opening words of any speech, and your recent corrections. Set up in Settings › Analysis and ticked per import.
Setting the details of a video you uploaded in YouTube Studio	Google, in a Google Cloud project you own	The list of your channel’s newest uploads is read so you can pick the video; then the title, description, chapters, tags, thumbnail and captions you prepared are written to that one video. Nothing else on it is changed, and nothing is written until you click Apply and confirm. Sign-in opens your browser at Google; MediaFlowSwift never sees your Google password.
Uploading to YouTube (advanced)	Google, in a Google Cloud project you own	The finished video you chose and the details you entered for it, and the thumbnail if you chose to send it. Nothing is uploaded until you click Upload and confirm.
Reading your videos’ statistics	Google (YouTube and YouTube Analytics)	The YouTube IDs of videos uploaded by MediaFlowSwift and a date span; Google answers with views, likes, comments, watch time and the like. Only when you click Read from YouTube Now.
Sending problem reports	The report relay whose address you entered (for reports to us, see below)	A problem report, only when you click Send on one you have read in full: its text exactly as shown, a title, a random identifier for your copy of the app, and a crash signature if there is one. Names, drives, folders and file names are taken out before you see it.

Signing in with Google for YouTube

Three of the features above sign in to your Google account: setting the details of a video you uploaded in YouTube Studio, uploading to YouTube, and reading your videos’ statistics. They are off until you turn on Sending to YouTube (the first two) or Reading your videos’ statistics from YouTube in Settings › Privacy. The sign-in goes through a Google client you make in a Google Cloud project of your own. Signing in opens your browser at Google; MediaFlowSwift never sees your Google password. Your sign-in is kept in your Mac’s Keychain, on your Mac only. Your YouTube client ID, and which permissions Google gave at your last sign-in, are kept with MediaFlowSwift’s settings and its saved copy of them. What MediaFlowSwift records about your YouTube videos stays with your projects: after an upload or Apply, the video’s ID, its upload time and the words and settings it went up with are written in Publish/upload-state.json in the project’s folder and, if you use one, in your shared database; the statistics you read are kept in that database too. None of this is usage data, none of it is ever sent to us, and you still have no account with Long Road Software. Writing titles with Google’s model does not use this sign-in; it uses your own API key.

MediaFlowSwift’s use, and transfer to any other app, of information it receives from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements: what the app receives from Google is used only to run the three YouTube features described here, for you. It is kept only on your Mac and your own network, in your Keychain, MediaFlowSwift’s settings, your project folders and your own database; none of it is sent to us, used for ads or sold. By using these features you agree to the YouTube Terms of Service, and Google’s handling of your information is covered by the Google Privacy Policy.

What each permission is used for, in plain words:

Uploading and setting a video’s details. Asked for only when Sending to YouTube is on. Google words it as “See, edit, and permanently delete your YouTube videos, ratings, comments and captions”. MediaFlowSwift uses it only to read your channel’s newest uploads so you can pick one, to upload a video you chose, and its thumbnail if you chose to send it, when you click Upload and confirm or Send the Thumbnail to This Video, and to set the details of the one video on your channel that you picked and confirmed, normally one you uploaded in YouTube Studio, when you click Apply. Apply sets the title, the description with its chapters, and the tags; and, only when you choose them in the Apply sheet, the thumbnail, the captions, the visibility or publish time, the category and the recording date. When it changes the visibility, it sends the video’s made-for-kids answer back as it was. It never deletes a video, a comment or a rating. The thumbnail it sets takes the place of the video’s current one. Captions go in a track of its own, named MediaFlowSwift, and a later Apply updates only that track; captions anyone else added, and YouTube’s automatic captions, are never touched.
Reading statistics. Two read-only permissions, which Google words as “View your YouTube account” and “View YouTube Analytics reports for your YouTube content”. Asked for only when Reading your videos’ statistics from YouTube is on, and used only when you click Read from YouTube Now: to ask which channel you signed in to, and to read views, watch time and the like for the videos published with MediaFlowSwift. Google’s permissions would allow reading your whole channel, but MediaFlowSwift asks only about those videos. Neither can change or delete anything.

You can take back this access at any time, two ways: in MediaFlowSwift, with Sign Out on the Upload tab of Workflow › Prepare for YouTube, which forgets the sign-in and, while either YouTube switch in Settings › Privacy is on, asks Google to cancel the permission (removing your client secret in Settings › Analysis does the same; with both switches off, Google is not contacted, so remove it at Google yourself); or at Google, at myaccount.google.com/permissions. Either one stops MediaFlowSwift reaching your channel until you sign in again.

What the app asks us

Connection	When	What is sent
Checking for a new version	From version 1.11, only once you say yes. The app asks you once; the switch in Settings › Privacy, also in Settings › General, changes the answer. While it is on: shortly after launch, when the Mac wakes, then every few hours (every half hour while the site cannot be reached). On or off: whenever you choose Check for Updates… in the app menu or Check Now in About MediaFlowSwift. Versions before 1.11 look without asking.	A request for one small file that names the newest version; nothing about you or your Mac goes with it beyond what any website sees, your internet address. When there is a new version, its list of changes is read from this site too. Installing an update downloads the new copy from this site and checks it is exactly the file promised and signed by us.
Licence check	Nothing until you enter a licence key. Then when you enter it, once a day after that, when you click Check now, and when you release a Mac	Entering the key sends the key, a one-way code made from this Mac’s hardware id (the same for every user account on this Mac, and never the hardware id itself), and the Mac’s name as you see it in System Settings. The daily check, Check now and release send the key and that code only. Until an account first activated by an earlier version of the app has moved to that code, its checks, and Release this Mac, also send the random id that version made for it, so that its place on the key can be freed. The answer is your plan, when it renews or ends, and the Macs that hold seats — each one’s name and when it last checked in. No email, no account name, nothing about your projects. The key and the answer are kept in your Keychain. The licence service keeps the key, the plan and when it renews or ends, Paddle’s ids for the purchase, a one-way hash of the buying email, and for each Mac the code it checks in with, the Mac’s name, when it was activated and when it last checked in. If support changes a key — frees a Mac’s place, switches a key off, switches it back on — or if a payment is charged back, that is kept with the key as well.

Connection

When

What is sent

Checking for a new version

From version 1.11, only once you say yes. The app asks you once; the switch in Settings › Privacy, also in Settings › General, changes the answer. While it is on: shortly after launch, when the Mac wakes, then every few hours (every half hour while the site cannot be reached). On or off: whenever you choose Check for Updates… in the app menu or Check Now in About MediaFlowSwift. Versions before 1.11 look without asking.

A request for one small file that names the newest version; nothing about you or your Mac goes with it beyond what any website sees, your internet address. When there is a new version, its list of changes is read from this site too. Installing an update downloads the new copy from this site and checks it is exactly the file promised and signed by us.

Licence check

Nothing until you enter a licence key. Then when you enter it, once a day after that, when you click Check now, and when you release a Mac

Entering the key sends the key, a one-way code made from this Mac’s hardware id (the same for every user account on this Mac, and never the hardware id itself), and the Mac’s name as you see it in System Settings. The daily check, Check now and release send the key and that code only.

Until an account first activated by an earlier version of the app has moved to that code, its checks, and Release this Mac, also send the random id that version made for it, so that its place on the key can be freed. The answer is your plan, when it renews or ends, and the Macs that hold seats — each one’s name and when it last checked in. No email, no account name, nothing about your projects. The key and the answer are kept in your Keychain.

The licence service keeps the key, the plan and when it renews or ends, Paddle’s ids for the purchase, a one-way hash of the buying email, and for each Mac the code it checks in with, the Mac’s name, when it was activated and when it last checked in. If support changes a key — frees a Mac’s place, switches a key off, switches it back on — or if a payment is charged back, that is kept with the key as well.

What stays on your network

Your network storage: finding it, connecting to it, reading and writing media, and the shared database file.
Your database server, if you use one. That connection is not encrypted, so keep the server on a network you trust.
A local model you point at another computer on your network receives the same frames or text as above and nothing more; an address on the internet is refused.

Problem reports sent to us

If you send a problem report to us, it is filed as an issue in our development tracker so that we can fix the fault. It contains only what the app showed you before you clicked Send. If you chose to include an email address for a reply, we use it for that reply and nothing else. We keep reports for as long as the fault is being worked on and for our release records afterwards.

This website

This site and longroadsoftware.com are static pages served by GitHub Pages. We use Google Analytics on both to count visits and see which pages people read and how they found us. On this site we also use HeyCatch for the same purpose.

On this site, both are off until you say yes: a notice at the bottom of the page asks until you answer, then not again, and until you press Yes nothing is loaded from Google Analytics or HeyCatch, no analytics cookie is set and no visitor id is stored. No answer counts as no, so ignoring the notice, closing the page, or using a browser that blocks storage all leave analytics off; a browser that blocks storage cannot remember your answer, so the notice asks again.

Your answer is kept in your browser’s local storage, which sets no cookie of its own. The same notice is on longroadsoftware.com.

If you say yes, Google Analytics sets cookies in your browser and sends Google the page address, the site that linked you here, your browser and device type, and your approximate location, under Google’s privacy policy. We do not send it your name, email or licence key, and it does not run on the thank-you or key pages. You can also block it with any content blocker or with Google’s opt-out add-on; the site works the same without it.

If you say yes, HeyCatch (HeyCatch, Inc., USA) also runs. It loads its code from esm.sh, keeps a random visitor id in your browser’s local storage (no cookie), and sends HeyCatch the page address, the buttons and links you click (not what you type into any box), the site that linked you here, your IP address, your browser and device type, and your approximate location, under HeyCatch’s privacy policy. HeyCatch handles this data for us, under its data processing terms. It honours your browser’s Do Not Track setting.

Like Google Analytics, it does not get your name, email or licence key, and it does not run on the thank-you or key pages. Changing your answer to no stops it at once and deletes its visitor id from your browser.

Analytics on this site is off until you say yes. With JavaScript on, this line says what you chose and lets you change it.

When you press the Download button, the link goes through a small counter of ours (on Cloudflare) that adds one to that day’s download total, then sends you on to the file on GitHub. It sets no cookie and keeps nothing about you: no IP address, no visitor id. Updates the app installs itself do not go through it.

GitHub, as the host, keeps ordinary server logs of requests (IP address, page requested, time) under GitHub’s privacy statement. Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which receives the request for the font files.

Contact form

The contact form sends what you type: your name, the email you want a reply at, what the note is about, whether you already use MediaFlowSwift, your message, and the Mac or app version if you give one. A small service of ours on Cloudflare sends that as an ordinary email. Help, a refund, or a change to a plan you already pay for goes to support@mediaflowswift.com. A question about buying goes to hello@longroadsoftware.com. A bill, invoice, receipt, payment or tax question goes to billing@longroadsoftware.com. Anything else goes to hello@. Cloudflare sees the request, including your IP address, the way it does for any page it serves. We do not add you to a mailing list, and we do not keep a copy apart from that email. To have the email deleted, write to support@mediaflowswift.com.

Email list

You can ask to be emailed when a Long Road Software product is ready, using the form on its page, or by ticking the marketing box at Paddle checkout. Either way the list is kept by Kit, our email service, under Kit’s privacy policy. Kit keeps your email address, which list you joined and when, and, for each email we send, whether it was opened and which links were clicked. A website sign-up is added only after you click the link in Kit’s confirmation email.

We use the address only for Long Road Software news, we do not sell or share it, and every email has an unsubscribe link that removes you at once. To be removed by hand, write to the address under Questions.

Creator program

If you apply to our creator program, the form sends Kit, our email service (Kit, Inc., USA), everything you enter: your name, email and YouTube channel link; about how many subscribers you have; what you film, what you shoot on and which editor you use (and, where you pick “other”, what you typed); which operating system you edit on, and its version if you give it; about how many cards or clip folders you handle a week; how you back up your footage; your biggest footage headache, in your own words; and that you ticked the box agreeing to the program terms. Kit stores it and sends our emails to applicants, under Kit’s privacy policy. As with the email list, Kit also records, for each email we send, whether it was opened and which links were clicked. An application counts only after you click the link in Kit’s confirmation email.

We use it only to review your application and to write to you about the program; we do not sell or share it. To be removed, reply to any email from us and ask, or write to the address under Questions.

Purchases

Payment is handled by Paddle, our merchant of record: the checkout, your card and billing details, receipts and tax are theirs, under Paddle’s privacy policy. Paddle tells our licence service about the purchase so that a key can be made; the thank-you page fetches that key with the transaction number. We never see card numbers. Paddle.js, the checkout script, loads on the home page only.

The thank-you page also asks, if you like, where you heard about MediaFlowSwift. Choosing an answer opens an email to us in your own mail app, and nothing is sent unless you send it. It reaches us like any other email to support; we use the answer to learn where people find the app.

Questions

Write to support@mediaflowswift.com.