Privacy Policy

Last updated 6 August 2026

Docksmith is made by Frédéric Jalbert-Desforges, a sole proprietor based in Québec, Canada. This policy explains what happens to your information across three separate things: the Docksmith application, this website, and the purchase.

1. The Docksmith application

What it does not do

Docksmith does not create an account, ask for an email address, assign you an identifier, or send usage data anywhere. It contains no analytics SDK and no crash reporter. Your docks, your pinned applications and folders, your workspace layout and your settings are stored only on your Mac, in your user library.

The only network requests it makes

Docksmith checks for updates. That request goes to our own update server and asks a single question: is there a newer version. While a purchased licence is installed, it also reads — at most once a day, from the same domain — a short revocation list: the order references of refunded purchases, so a refunded key stops counting. Both are plain reads that carry no identifier of yours; to answer them, the server necessarily sees your IP address and the version and system information any HTTP request carries. We do not use that to build a profile, and we do not link it to a licence or a purchase. You can turn update checks off in the application's settings; the revocation read happens only while a purchased key is installed.

Your licence key

Your licence key is verified on your Mac, using a signature check against a public key built into the application. There is no activation server and no call home. We cannot tell whether, when, or on how many machines you have activated your licence.

Permissions

macOS asks you to grant Docksmith two system permissions, and macOS — not us — controls them:

• Accessibility is what allows Docksmith to list and raise other applications' windows. It is required for the window features. Docksmith reads window titles and positions in order to place and switch windows; nothing derived from that leaves your Mac.
• Screen Recording is optional and is used for one thing only: the live thumbnail shown when you hover an application tile. Those images are rendered on screen and are never stored or transmitted. Decline it and the docks work normally.

You can revoke either permission at any time in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

2. This website

Hosting

docksmith.app is served by Cloudflare. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes the technical information every request carries — IP address, browser, page requested — to deliver the page and protect the service from abuse. We do not add analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies to this site.

Paddle's checkout script

The pricing page loads a script from Paddle so that the checkout can open as an overlay instead of sending you to another site. It loads on that page whether or not you click Buy, and Paddle therefore sees the technical information any request carries. We do not control what it collects; that is governed by Paddle's privacy policy. It is the only third-party script on this site.

The assistant

This site offers an assistant that answers questions about Docksmith. It is worth being explicit about it, because it is the one place where something you type leaves this site:

• What you type is sent to Anthropic, which generates the reply. It is processed under Anthropic's terms for that service.
• We do not store your conversation. It exists in your browser for the length of your visit and is gone when you close the tab.
• The assistant can issue one thing: a free 7-day trial key. If you ask for one it will ask for your e-mail address, and that address is then used to generate the key and send it to you. It appears in our server logs, as described under “What we log” below. That is the only reason we would ever ask you for it here.
• Beyond issuing that key, the assistant has no access to any customer, order or licence information: it cannot look up a purchase, cannot issue a paid licence, extra seats, a longer trial or a refund, and cannot find out anything about you.
• Please do not type anything confidential into it. If you would not put it in a public forum, email us instead.

The free trial, and your Mac's fingerprint

A trial key is tied to the Mac it will run on. This is the one place where Docksmith looks at something about your hardware, so it is worth being precise about what that means.

• What is computed. Docksmith reads your Mac's hardware identifier (IOPlatformUUID), combines it with a fixed word built into the app, hashes the result with SHA-256 and keeps the first four bytes — eight characters such as 69d543cd. Your serial number and the identifier itself are never used directly and never leave your Mac. The four bytes cannot be turned back into either.
• Docksmith does not send it. The app adds it to the web address it opens in your browser, in the same way it adds your language. The request is made by your browser, when you click. The application itself still makes no network call other than checking for a new version and, while a purchased licence is installed, reading the licence revocation list.
• What we keep. When a trial key is issued we store that fingerprint, the e-mail address you gave, its domain, your IP address, the date and the key itself. That record is how we can tell that a Mac has already had its free trial, and how we know not to send you the same reminder twice.
• Why it exists. So the trial can be free and require no credit card. Bound to an e-mail address alone it would renew for ever, and the alternative most software uses — an account, or an activation server the app talks to — is exactly what we did not want to build.
• How long. Trial records are kept for two years, then deleted. Write to team@docksmith.app to have yours removed sooner, or to ask what we hold about you.

A fingerprint stored next to an e-mail address is personal information under Québec's Law 25, whatever it is hashed with. Hashing limits what we could do with it; it does not make it something else, and we would rather say so than call it anonymous.

Support, and what a ticket keeps

The support page at docksmith.app/support is a second assistant, separate from the one on the home page. Asking it a general question — why a dock will not appear, how the knock works — keeps nothing at all: that conversation lives in your browser and is gone with the tab.

Two things change that, and only if you choose them:

• Verifying your address. If you ask about your own purchase, we e-mail a six-digit code to prove the address is yours. We store a one-way hash of that code, never the code, for ten minutes. A successful check opens a session that lasts twelve hours and is held by your browser.
• Opening a ticket. If a problem is not solved in the conversation, a ticket is recorded so it is not lost and so we recognise you next time. It holds your address, a short subject, what you wrote about the problem in your own words, what resolved it if anything did, the Docksmith version, and the dates. It does not hold the conversation. We keep what a person picking this up in a month would actually read, not forty exchanges of chat.

Escalating a ticket sends Fred an e-mail containing your address and that same summary, so he can reply to you directly. The assistant can see your own tickets and licences and nothing else — it has no way to name another customer — and it never sees a licence key.

Tickets are kept for two years, then deleted. Write to team@docksmith.app to have yours removed sooner, or to ask what we hold about you.

If you email us

Mail sent to team@docksmith.app is routed by Cloudflare to a personal mailbox so we can reply. We keep correspondence as long as it is useful for support, and no longer than necessary.

3. Buying Docksmith

We never see your payment details. Purchases are handled by Paddle.com Market Limited, which acts as the merchant of record — meaning Paddle is the seller for the transaction, collects the payment, and handles sales tax and VAT worldwide. Your card number, billing address and tax details are given to Paddle, not to us, and are governed by Paddle's privacy policy.

What we receive from Paddle, and why:

• Your email address — to send you your licence key. The key is also shown on the page you land on right after paying, but the email is what lets you find it again later.
• The number of licence seats and the order reference — to issue a key that matches what you bought, and to be able to help you if you write to us quoting that reference.

That information is processed by a Cloudflare Worker we operate, and is written to its logs so that a lost key can be reissued. We do not use your email address for marketing and we do not sell, rent, or share it.

4. Legal basis and retention

Where the GDPR applies, we process your email address and order details to perform the contract — you bought a licence and we owe you a key — and we keep technical request logs on a legitimate interest basis, to run and secure the service. We keep purchase records for as long as tax and accounting law requires, and technical logs for a short operational period.

5. Your rights

Depending on where you live — including under Québec's Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (Law 25), the GDPR, and the UK GDPR — you may have the right to access the personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to receive a copy of it, and to complain to a regulator.

Write to team@docksmith.app and we will answer. Requests about payment or billing data are usually best directed to Paddle, since they hold it.

Person responsible for the protection of personal information

As required by Québec Law 25, the person responsible for the protection of personal information is Frédéric Jalbert-Desforges, reachable at team@docksmith.app.

6. Where information goes

Docksmith is operated from Canada. The service providers above — Cloudflare, Anthropic, Paddle — may process information outside your country, including in the United States. Each is bound by its own agreement with us and its own privacy commitments.

7. Children

Docksmith is a tool for professionals and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16.

8. Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will change the date at the top and, for material changes affecting existing customers, say so by email.

9. Contact

Frédéric Jalbert-Desforges — Québec, Canada
team@docksmith.app