HoverLingua / Privacy

Your text stays
on your Mac.

Last updated: 12 October 2026

This policy describes the current HoverLingua app and its pages on apps.rinda.co. HoverLingua is published by Rinda. Privacy questions can be sent to developer@rinda.co.

Screen captures and text

HoverLingua captures the region inside its blue rectangle using Apple's ScreenCaptureKit. It captures once when you click Capture & Translate. If you turn on Live, it captures the same region again on the interval you choose in Settings → Live (1, 2, 3, or 5 seconds; 2 seconds by default) until you turn Live off or close the window. HoverLingua's own windows and the pointer are left out of each capture.

Vision recognizes the text and Apple Translation translates supported language pairs. This processing happens on your Mac. HoverLingua does not send screenshots, recognized text, edited text, or translations to Rinda, to our analytics provider, or to a third-party translation service.

The app keeps the current capture and result in memory only while it needs them. Text you edit in the result window stays there until the next capture or translation replaces it. HoverLingua does not save captures, text, or translation history to disk. When you click Copy, the text is placed on your clipboard, and anything you paste it into is handled by that app.

When you click Listen, macOS reads the text aloud using a system voice installed on your Mac. The text is not sent to Rinda or to our analytics provider.

HoverLingua stores these preferences on your Mac: your usage-data choice, your Live interval, your speech speed, and any voices you chose for particular languages.

Permissions and language models

Screen Recording access is used to capture text displayed by other apps. HoverLingua's capture configuration disables audio, and the app does not request camera, microphone, or Accessibility access. You can manage or revoke Screen Recording permission in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Apple manages language-model downloads. An initial download requires a connection to Apple's services. Once supported models are installed, translation runs on device. Apple's services and any system diagnostics you choose to share are governed by Apple's privacy information.

Anonymous usage data

To understand which features are used and where things go wrong, HoverLingua sends anonymous usage signals to TelemetryDeck, a privacy-focused analytics service. Sharing is on by default, and you can turn it off at any time (see Your choices).

When sharing is on, HoverLingua reports these events:

• a capture started, succeeded, or failed;
• a translation succeeded or failed;
• you swapped languages, or turned Live on or off;
• you clicked Listen, and whether it was the original or the translated column;
• the source and destination language codes, such as fi and en;
• for failures, a fixed reason such as “no text found”, “permission denied”, or “language models required”.

Live reports only when it is turned on or off, plus the translation result of each changed text; individual checks are not counted as captures.

TelemetryDeck's software also adds standard technical information to each signal: app version and build, macOS version, Mac model and processor type, screen resolution, time zone, the date and hour, some accessibility display settings (such as Reduce Motion), and when an app session starts. To count users without knowing who they are, it creates a random identifier stored on your Mac and hashes it before sending.

Usage signals never include screenshots, captured or translated text, file names, window contents, your name, or your email address. We don't use this data for advertising, don't sell it, and don't combine it with other information to identify you.

Your choices

To stop sharing usage data, open HoverLingua → Settings (Command–Comma), choose Privacy, and turn off Share anonymous usage data. The change takes effect immediately, analytics stops, and your choice is remembered. You can turn it back on the same way.

You can also revoke Screen Recording access in System Settings → Privacy & Security, turn off Live at any time, or delete HoverLingua to remove its stored preferences. Because usage signals are not linked to your identity, we can't look up or delete signals already sent from a particular Mac. If you have a question about them, contact us.

Accounts, advertising, and crash reporting

HoverLingua has no accounts, advertising, or crash-reporting service. If a future release changes what is collected, we will update this policy and the app's disclosures before that release ships.

These website pages

This website uses no analytics scripts, advertising cookies, embedded trackers, or contact forms. It is hosted on GitHub Pages. GitHub processes technical information associated with serving the site, such as visitors' IP addresses and request information, under its privacy statement. Following an external link takes you to a service with its own privacy practices.

When you contact us

If you email us, we receive your email address, message, and anything you attach. We use that information to answer your request and troubleshoot the issue. Please avoid sending private screenshots or captured text unless needed, and redact anything you don't want to share.

Support messages are kept while needed to handle the request and any follow-up, or where retention is required by law. Contact us to request access, correction, or deletion of personal information you have provided. Depending on where you live, you may have additional privacy rights, including the right to complain to your local data-protection authority.

Changes and contact

We will update this page when the app or our handling of information changes. The date above identifies the latest version.