What Stayaway sends us, and what it never sends
What Stayaway sends to sign you in, keep your licence current and report how the app itself is doing, what it never sends, and how long we keep it.
By the Stayaway team5 min read
Stayaway talks to our server to sign you in, to keep your licence current, and to report how the app itself is doing, if you leave that on. It does not send what you do on your computer, how the mouse moved, what you typed, or anything on your screen.
An app that moves your mouse should be able to say that in one paragraph, so there it is. The rest of this post is the detail, because "we respect your privacy" means nothing without it.
Every time the app talks to us
| When | What it sends |
|---|---|
| You ask for a sign-in code | Your email address |
| You enter the code | Your email, the six-digit code, this computer's machine ID and name, whether it is Windows or macOS, and whether you ticked "keep me signed in" |
| It renews your licence | This computer's machine ID and your sign-in session |
| You sign out | This computer's machine ID and your sign-in session |
Every one of those also carries the app's version number, so we can tell an old copy from a new one.
Licence renewal happens every few days, a little before the licence would run out. If the app cannot reach us it tries again, at most once an hour. You can also start it yourself with Repair licence.
The machine ID is the identifier your operating system gives this computer. We use it to count your computers against your plan and to make a licence work only on the machine it was issued to. The computer's name is there so your account page can show you which computer is which.
Update checks happen once a day by themselves, and whenever you press Check for updates. They send the version you have and whether it is Windows or macOS. If there is a newer one, you get a notification; installing is up to you.
Messages from Stayaway are fetched once a day, in the 11 o'clock hour, while you are at the computer. That request carries nothing about you or the computer, and which messages you see is decided on your computer. You can turn them off in Settings, under Notifications and data.
Usage data
Unless you turn it off, Stayaway also sends a little data about the app itself:
- when it starts and stops, and whether the last session crashed;
- whether signing in worked, and if not, the error code;
- whether you saw, opened or closed a message from us.
Each of those carries this computer's machine ID, whether it is Windows or macOS, and the app version. It never carries your account or your email, so it tells us how the app is doing on a computer, not what any person did. It is sent at most every fifteen minutes and when you quit, and a batch that fails is dropped rather than retried.
It is on unless you switch it off, in Settings, under Notifications and data. Switching it off takes effect at once, and throws away anything not yet sent.
What the app never sends
- Mouse coordinates, movement paths or clicks
- Keystrokes, or which keys were pressed
- Window titles, the names of the apps you run, web addresses, or anything on your screen
- Screenshots. Stayaway never captures your screen.
- Your location, your contacts or your files
- Your settings, including the time tracker you picked during setup
- Your account or email with usage data
On a Mac, Screen Recording permission is used for one thing only: reading which app is in front, for Screen Rotation. Nothing it reads leaves the computer.
Where your settings live
Your settings stay on your computer, in %APPDATA%\app.stayaway.desktop on Windows. They are encrypted, but we want to be exact about what that buys: the key is part of the app, so the encryption stops the file being casually edited or corrupted. It is not meant to keep your own settings secret from you, and we do not sell it as a privacy feature.
Your sign-in session is stored the same way, under a key tied to this computer, so a copied file does not work on another machine.
What we keep, and for how long
- Your account: your email address, your trial and plan dates, and one record per computer you have signed in on. Kept for as long as you have an account.
- Sign-in codes: deleted after a day.
- Sign-in sessions: deleted 30 days after they end.
- Account emails: a note of which ones we sent you and when, not what they said, so the same one is never sent twice. Kept for as long as you have an account.
Payments go through our merchant of record. Stayaway never sees your card.
The website, too
The site counts page views with Vercel Web Analytics. It sets no cookies, strips everything after the ? from every address, and sends nothing at all from your account pages or the sign-in page.
Deleting your account
You can do it yourself: sign in to your account page and use Delete your account. It deletes the account and everything attached to it, and signs out every computer that was using it. If you pay monthly or yearly, cancel the plan in billing first, so you are not charged for an account that no longer exists.
Payment records stay with our merchant of record, who has to keep them for tax law. If you would rather we did the deleting, write to hello@stayaway.app from the address you sign in with.
If this ever changes
If Stayaway ever needs to send something new, the privacy page will list it, field by field, before an app update that sends it ships. That page is the complete list. This post is the same list, with the reasons.