Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 2, 2026

1. Overview

Wallmate is built privacy-first. We do not require an account, the App itself runs no analytics or tracking, and we collect only the minimum data needed to deliver your license and the wallpaper library to your Mac.

This Privacy Policy describes exactly what we collect, why, and how it is handled. The short version: an anonymous device identifier for wallpaper preferences and your Polar license key stored locally on your Mac. Our marketing website (wallmate.app) uses privacy-respecting product analytics — see Section 8 for details.

2. No Account, No Sign-Up

Wallmate does not require you to create an account, sign up, or provide any personal information to use the App. We do not collect:

  • Your name
  • Your email address (Polar, our payment processor, may collect this for receipts — see Section 7)
  • Your phone number
  • Social login or OAuth identifiers

3. What We Collect

The Wallmate app communicates with Polar to verify your license and with our Cloudflare Worker to deliver the wallpaper catalog. The data involved in this communication is limited to the following:

  • Anonymous device identifier — a random UUID generated by the App on first launch and stored locally on your Mac. It is not derived from your hardware (no MAC address, no serial number, no Apple-provided device identifier). It may be sent with wallpaper catalog and like requests so we can remember which wallpapers you have liked across reinstalls.
  • License record — your Polar license key and Polar activation ID are stored locally in the macOS Keychain. Wallmate sends them to Polar to activate and validate your license. Any name, email address, or billing details you enter at checkout are handled exclusively by Polar (see Section 7); we do not receive or store them.
  • Wallpaper likes — when you tap the like button on a wallpaper, the App sends the wallpaper ID together with your device identifier so the like syncs back the next time you reinstall or open the App.
  • Submitted wallpapers (if you use the Submit feature) — if you submit a video wallpaper to the Wallmate community library, the file is uploaded to our Cloudflare-backed infrastructure together with your anonymous device identifier so we can tag the submission for moderation and review status. No personal information is attached. See Section 14 for the full terms that apply to submissions.
  • Update checks — Wallmate uses the Sparkle framework to check for new versions. The update check fetches a public XML feed and does not transmit your device identifier or any other personal information.

4. What We Do NOT Collect

We want to be explicit about what Wallmate does not collect, store, or process:

  • Personally identifiable information (name, email, phone) within the App itself
  • Location data, IP address logs for tracking, or geolocation
  • Hardware identifiers (MAC address, IOPlatformUUID, serial number, device fingerprint)
  • Browsing history, usage analytics, or behavioral profiling inside the App (the marketing website uses limited analytics — see Section 8)
  • Crash reports, telemetry, or diagnostic logs
  • Cookies or tracking pixels within the App
  • Advertising identifiers (IDFA, IDFV, or equivalent)
  • The contents of your desktop, files, screenshots, or Mac storage outside of Wallmate itself

5. How We Use Information

We use the limited data we collect only for the following purposes:

  • Verifying that your Mac has a valid Wallmate license through Polar
  • Delivering and updating the curated wallpaper catalog
  • Synchronizing your liked wallpapers across reinstalls
  • Fulfilling and supporting your purchase
  • Detecting fraud, abuse, or unauthorized resale of license keys
  • Measuring aggregate marketing-website traffic and which pages/buttons people interact with, so we can improve the product page (Section 8)

We do not use your data for advertising, profiling, or any purpose unrelated to operating the App.

6. Data Stored Locally on Your Mac

Wallmate stores a small amount of data locally on your Mac using macOS UserDefaults and Keychain. The locally stored data includes:

  • Your anonymous device identifier (described in Section 3)
  • Your Polar license key and activation ID in the macOS Keychain
  • IDs of wallpapers you have liked
  • The currently active wallpaper and its screen layout
  • Your launch-at-login preference
  • A cache of previous desktop snapshots used to restore your wallpaper after pausing

This data lives on your Mac. Uninstalling Wallmate removes it.

7. Third-Party Services

Wallmate uses a small number of carefully selected third-party services. The Wallmate macOS App does not integrate any analytics, advertising, or behavioral tracking services. Our marketing website uses one product-analytics service (PostHog) as described in Section 8.

  • Polar — our authorized merchant of record. Polar handles checkout, payment processing, tax compliance, receipts, and license key delivery. They collect the information required to process your payment (such as billing email, card details, and tax-residency information). We never see or store your full payment card details.
  • Sparkle — the open-source macOS auto-update framework. Sparkle fetches a public app-cast XML feed to check for new versions and does not transmit personal data.
  • Cloudflare Workers — hosts our wallpaper catalog, likes API, downloads, submission uploads, and update feeds. Cloudflare processes your anonymous device identifier for wallpaper preference sync and submission tracking on our behalf as our infrastructure provider, under their own security and privacy commitments.
  • macOS Aerial (optional integration) — if you choose to use the Aerials picker feature, Wallmate reads the list of videos already downloaded to your Mac by the third-party Aerial app. Wallmate does not communicate with Aerial's servers and does not transmit your video selections externally.
  • PostHog (US region, us.i.posthog.com) — product analytics for the marketing website only. PostHog processes anonymous page views and click events so we can understand which pages are useful. Session recording, heatmaps, and surveys are disabled. PostHog never runs inside the macOS App.

We do not sell, rent, or share your data with any other third parties.

8. Website Privacy

Our marketing website (wallmate.app) uses PostHog to measure aggregate traffic, page views, and which buttons or links visitors interact with. The data PostHog processes for us is limited to: an anonymous visitor identifier stored in your browser, the pages you visit on wallmate.app, the elements you click on, your approximate device class (browser, OS, screen size), and a coarse country derived from your IP address. We have disabled session recording and heatmaps, so no recording of your mouse movement or screen contents is captured.

We do not use this data for advertising, retargeting, or profile-building, and we do not share it with ad networks. PostHog stores the data on our behalf in its US region. You can opt out at any time by enabling "Do Not Track" or a tracker-blocking extension in your browser, or by visiting https://us.posthog.com/opt-out.

When you proceed to checkout, you are redirected to Polar's hosted checkout. Polar's privacy practices apply to that checkout experience.

9. Data Retention

Wallpaper like history associated with your anonymous device identifier is retained for as long as needed to operate preference sync. Your Polar license key and activation ID remain on your Mac until you remove the App data or replace the license. You may request deletion of data we control at any time by contacting us using the details in Section 13.

Polar retains payment, tax, receipt, and license records under its own retention schedule, independent of Wallmate.

10. Your Rights

You have the right to:

  • Access the data we hold about your device identifier and license
  • Request correction of inaccurate data
  • Request deletion of your license record and associated data
  • Request a portable copy of your data
  • Withdraw consent and stop using the App at any time

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details in Section 13. Requests related to payment or Polar-hosted license data should be directed to Polar, who is the data controller for that information.

11. Security

All communication between Wallmate and our servers is encrypted in transit using TLS/HTTPS. Because we collect almost no personal data, the surface area of any potential breach is intentionally small. We do not store passwords, payment details, or sensitive personal data of any kind.

12. Children's Privacy

Wallmate is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect any personal information from children. Because we do not collect personal information from any user, this protection is structural rather than reliant on age verification.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will be reflected on this page with an updated "Last updated" date above. Continued use of the App after the updated policy is posted constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

14. User-Submitted Content

Wallmate allows users to submit video wallpapers for community review and sharing. By submitting content through the App, you confirm that:

  • You are the original creator of the submitted video content, or you hold all necessary rights and permissions to share it
  • You consent to the content being made available to the Wallmate community for personal, non-commercial use
  • Your submission does not infringe the intellectual property, privacy, or any other rights of any third party

Wallmate does not claim ownership of any user-submitted video content. Ownership remains solely with the original creator or rights holder. Wallmate acts only as a platform for community sharing and does not exercise editorial control over submitted content beyond moderation for community guidelines.

To facilitate the review and moderation process, submitted wallpapers are tagged with the anonymous device identifier described in Section 3. This is used solely for submission tracking and review status identification, and does not reveal your identity.

If you believe any content available on Wallmate infringes your copyright or other intellectual property rights, please contact us at support@wallmate.app with the following information: a description of the copyrighted work or intellectual property you claim has been infringed; sufficient evidence of your ownership or rights to the content; identification of the specific content you are requesting be removed; and your contact information.

Upon receipt of a valid report with supporting evidence, we will review the claim and remove the content promptly. Wallmate reserves the right to reinstate content if a counter-claim is substantiated.

15. Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or want to exercise your data rights, please contact us at support@wallmate.app.

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