Privacy policy

Last updated 7 October 2026

The short version

• Your notes never reach us. They are files in a folder you choose. There is no Saturn account and no Saturn server holding your writing.
• No tracking anywhere. The app has no analytics, telemetry or crash reporting. This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics.
• The only personal data we have is a purchase. If you buy, Stripe processes the payment, and we keep the email address the licence is issued to. We never send marketing.
• We never sell or share your data, and there is nothing to sell: we do not have it.

Who we are

Saturn is made by Kyle Thacker (“we”, “us”), who is the controller of the little personal data described here. Write to support@saturnnotes.com about anything on this page; a person reads every message.

The app

Your notes stay yours. Every note is a Markdown file in a folder you choose — your “vault”. Saturn reads and writes that folder and its own settings, and nothing else on your Mac. Search indexes and caches it builds are stored on your Mac and can be rebuilt from your files at any time.

No analytics, telemetry or crash reporting. Saturn does not record how you use it, and does not send your notes, file names, usage or anything that identifies you to us or to anyone else.

Sync. If your vault is in iCloud Drive, Apple syncs it between your devices as it does any iCloud Drive folder, under Apple’s privacy policy. We are not part of that and never see the contents. A vault in a local folder does not sync at all.

Dictation. Dictation uses Apple’s on-device speech recognition: audio is processed on your Mac, is never saved by Saturn and is never uploaded. The microphone is active only while you dictate, and macOS shows its indicator when it is.

Reminders, Spotlight and Shortcuts run through macOS on your Mac. Saturn gives them only what each needs — a task’s text for its notification, a note’s title and text for Spotlight to find it.

When the app uses the network

Saturn works fully offline. It goes online only in these cases, each one something you can see:

• Checking for updates. It asks this website for a small file listing the current version. This is an ordinary web request: our host records what any web server does (an IP address, time, and the file asked for). No profile of your Mac is sent. You can turn automatic checks off in Settings.
• Saving a web link. When you save a link, Saturn fetches that page’s title and preview picture from the site itself, and opening the saved link shows the live page. That site sees the request as it would from a browser. Pages you open in Saturn keep their own cookies and sign-ins on your Mac, separate from your browser’s.
• Buying. Choosing to buy opens your web browser at this site, which hands you to Stripe.

Your licence is a signed file verified on your Mac. Saturn never contacts us to check that you are still entitled to use it.

Assistants

Saturn can let AI apps on your Mac — Claude, Codex, Cursor and others that speak the Model Context Protocol — work with your notes. Saturn runs this as a local connection that only apps on the same Mac can reach, asks your permission the first time each app connects, and lists every change an app makes. You can switch it off in Settings › Assistants.

Saturn itself sends nothing anywhere. But an AI app you connect may send what it reads to its own provider, under that provider’s privacy policy. Connect only apps you trust with your notes.

Saturn for Chrome

Saturn for Chrome saves web pages into Saturn on your Mac. It has no account and talks to no server: everything it handles goes from your browser to Saturn on the same computer, through the browser’s native-messaging channel, and nowhere else.

What it reads, and when. Only when you ask it to save — by clicking its button, pressing its shortcut, or choosing a “Save to Saturn” menu item — it reads the page you are on: its address, title, preview picture and site icon, the text you selected, and, if you switch on “Add article”, the page’s readable text. If the page has no preview picture of its own, it may take a screenshot of what you are looking at to use as the note’s picture. It never does this on a page asking for a password, card number or one-time code, on a page it could not read, or in a private window, and you can switch it off in the extension’s options.

Where it goes. To Saturn on your Mac, which writes it into your notes — files in the folder you chose for them. Saturn may download the page’s preview picture from the site to keep beside the note, as it does for any saved link. Nothing is sent to us or anyone else.

What it remembers, on this device. In the browser’s local extension storage: your settings, the spaces you picked last, which space each site’s pages went to (the last 300 sites, never from a private window), and your list of spaces and tags so its menus open instantly. Removing the extension removes all of it.

Optional: marking saved pages. If you turn on “Mark pages already in Saturn”, the extension asks the browser for permission to see each tab’s address, and checks it against Saturn on your Mac so its button can show a check. Addresses are never stored or sent anywhere, and private windows are never checked. Turning the option off gives the permission back.

Buying a licence

Payments are handled by Stripe, which is the merchant of record for the sale: Stripe collects your payment details, billing address and email address, calculates tax and issues your receipt, under its own privacy policy. Your card details never reach us.

From the purchase we use only your email address: your licence is issued to it, and we email the licence there so you can recover it later. We use it for nothing else: no newsletter, no marketing. The legal basis is performing our contract with you.

This website

This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads nothing from advertising or tracking services. It is hosted by Vercel, which keeps standard server logs (IP address, time, page requested) for security and reliability. If you switch the site between light and dark, the choice is saved in your browser’s local storage and never sent anywhere.

Who else is involved

Some of these providers process data in the United States. Where the law requires it, transfers rely on the providers’ standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards.

How long data is kept

Purchase records are kept by Stripe for as long as tax and accounting law requires — commonly several years. Resend keeps delivery logs for a limited period. Vercel’s server logs are short-lived. We keep no separate database of customers: Stripe’s record is the only one.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask what personal data we hold about you, and have it corrected or deleted. In the EU, UK and similar places you also have the rights to restrict or object to processing, to data portability, and to complain to your data protection authority. In California and other US states with privacy laws, you have equivalent rights; we do not sell or share personal information, and do not use it for targeted advertising.

Because we hold so little, the answer is usually short: the email address and purchase details attached to a licence. Write to support@saturnnotes.com and we will reply within 30 days. Deleting your purchase record does not switch off your licence — it is already signed and works without us — though records the law requires us to keep stay with Stripe.

Children

Saturn is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. A change that made the app collect anything at all would be announced in the release notes of the version that did it, never published quietly here.

Contact

Kyle Thacker — support@saturnnotes.com