Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2026

Overview

Vidgest is designed with privacy at its core. Your transcripts, AI results, and preferences are stored locally on your Mac. When you use AI features, Vidgest sends the transcript text, the video title and any question you ask about it to AI providers for processing, either through our servers to Google Gemini or, when you use your own API key (Max), directly to your chosen provider. Vidgest collects pseudonymous usage analytics (see Analytics section below) and uses a pseudonymous device identifier for rate limiting.

What We Collect

Vidgest creates two random identifiers on your Mac and keeps them in your Mac’s Keychain: one is sent with AI analysis requests that go through our servers, for rate limiting, and the other is sent with analytics and crash reports. Neither is made from your hardware or from anything about you, and neither is linked to your Apple ID or any personal information. Vidgest collects pseudonymous usage events (app launches, transcript fetch outcomes, AI analysis usage, export format usage) to improve the app. No video URLs, transcript content, or personal data is included. When you use AI analysis, pseudonymous token usage metrics (token counts, model name) reach our servers for cost monitoring: our servers record them for an analysis they run, and the app sends them after an analysis made with your own Google Gemini API key. If you choose to submit feedback through the app, your message text, selected category, app version, and macOS version are sent to our servers. Feedback is pseudonymous: no personal data is attached.

Video Data

Vidgest accesses publicly available caption and metadata information from video platforms — the same data your browser receives when visiting a video page. No third-party account or API key is required. Vidgest is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any video platform. Video URLs you process are stored locally on your device only.

AI Analysis

Vidgest offers AI analysis through two paths: (1) Without your own API key (Free and Pro, and Max when your own key is not in use): The transcript text, the video title and any question you ask about it are sent to Vidgest servers, which forward them to Google Gemini for processing. We do not store transcript content, titles or questions; they are forwarded in real time and discarded. (2) With your own API key (Max): The transcript text, the video title and your questions are sent directly from your Mac to your chosen AI provider (Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, or OpenAI) and do not pass through Vidgest servers. With a Google Gemini key, the app then reports token counts and the model name to Vidgest for cost monitoring, as described above. In both cases, refer to Google's, Anthropic's, and OpenAI's respective privacy policies for their data handling practices.

Data Processing Location

Vidgest servers are hosted in the United States (AWS us-east-1, Virginia). When you use AI analysis without your own API key, the transcript text, the video title and any question you ask are processed by our servers in the United States and forwarded to Google’s Gemini API. This data is processed in transit and is not stored. For users in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or other jurisdictions with data transfer restrictions, these transfers are supported by the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework adequacy decision and, where applicable, Standard Contractual Clauses.

API Keys

If you use your own API keys (Max), they are stored securely in the macOS Keychain, encrypted by the operating system and accessible only to Vidgest. Keys are never transmitted anywhere except directly to the respective AI provider's API endpoint. Free and Pro tier users do not need API keys.

Local File Processing

When you import audio or video files for transcription, all speech recognition (Whisper) happens entirely on your device using Apple's Neural Engine. Your audio and video files are never uploaded to our servers or any third party. However, if you use AI analysis features on the resulting transcript, the transcript text and its title (for an imported file, its file name, unless you have edited the title), never the audio, may be sent to AI providers as described in the AI Analysis section above. You are responsible for ensuring you have the right to process any files you import.

Analytics

Vidgest collects fully pseudonymous usage analytics to improve the app. This includes app launch events, transcript fetch outcomes (success/fail), AI analysis usage (started/completed/failed), export format usage, onboarding interactions, paywall impressions, purchase events (plan name only, no payment details), and service status changes. For a transcript fetch that succeeded, the app sends how long the fetch took. For one that failed, it sends the kind of failure, such as an unavailable video or a network problem, and, where it has one, the app’s own fixed sentence about it, such as “This video is private.” Either way, it also sends whether the link was fetched on its own or together with other links. All analytics are pseudonymous and cannot be linked to your identity. Each event is associated with the random analytics identifier described above, which is not made from your hardware or from anything about you. No video URLs, transcript content, or personal information is included in analytics data. Analytics data is sent to Vidgest servers (AWS us-east-1) and retained for up to 365 days. Vidgest does not use any third-party analytics SDKs or advertising frameworks. We do not share analytics data with third parties. Vidgest also uses Apple’s MetricKit framework for crash, hang, disk-write and CPU diagnostics. These are uploaded to Vidgest servers (AWS us-east-1), not merely received on your Mac: each carries a call stack plus the app build, macOS version and processor type, is associated with the same random identifier as the analytics above, and is retained for 90 days rather than 365. They are individual reports, not aggregates. Before a report leaves your Mac the app rebuilds it from a fixed list of things it recognises, so what reaches us describes the fault and not you. You can turn off both the analytics and the crash and diagnostic reports in Settings, under Privacy & Data Sharing, with Share Usage Analytics and Crash Reports. While it is off, the app sends neither and deletes any events it has not yet sent. Turning it back on starts again from that moment: a report about the time it was off is never sent.

Website Analytics

The Vidgest website (vidgest.app) collects pseudonymous usage data to understand how visitors interact with the site. This includes page views (with page URL, referrer, and UTM parameters), scroll depth, click interactions (link text and destination), session duration, device type (mobile/tablet/desktop), browser name, and screen dimensions. No cookies, localStorage, or browser fingerprinting techniques are used. All website analytics data is sent to our own self-hosted servers (AWS us-east-1) — no third-party analytics or advertising services are involved. Website analytics data is retained for up to 365 days.

Purchases

In-app purchases are processed entirely by Apple through StoreKit. Vidgest never sees, handles, or stores your payment information.

Data Storage & Retention

All app data, including transcripts, AI analysis results, and preferences, is stored locally on your Mac. You can delete all data at any time from Settings, with one exception: a file of saved AI results that Vidgest could not read and could not put aside. Vidgest keeps such a file on your Mac, unchanged; contact support if you want to remove it. A file it could not read but did put aside stays on your Mac, unchanged, until you delete it in Settings with Delete Unreadable Files. No data is synced to external services.

For data processed on our servers: the pseudonymous device identifier used for rate limiting, and the one-way hashes our servers keep to recognise a video already counted that day, are set to be deleted automatically 35 days after the last analysis counted on that day, or in that month on Pro. Apple also sends our servers a notice when something happens to a Vidgest purchase or subscription, such as a purchase, a renewal, a cancellation or a refund: we keep a record of each notice (the kind of event, the product, Apple’s transaction numbers for the subscription and for the individual charge, Apple’s number for the notice itself, the expiry date where there is one, whether it was a test purchase, the time Apple stamped on the notice, and when it arrived), set to be deleted automatically one year after it arrives and gone from our backups within 35 days after that, and a copy of most of them is emailed to us, where it is kept until we delete it. Feedback submissions are retained for up to one year for product improvement purposes and then automatically deleted. Support emails are retained for as long as needed to resolve your inquiry.

Third-Party Services

Vidgest communicates only with: (1) Video platform servers to fetch publicly available captions and metadata, (2) Vidgest servers for AI analysis without your own API key, pseudonymous usage analytics, and pseudonymous usage metrics, (3) Your chosen AI provider's API when you initiate AI analysis with your own API key (Max tier only), (4) huggingface.co, which hosts the on-device speech model used for local audio and video transcription and is contacted whenever that model needs loading, not only on first download, and (5) Apple's servers, which our servers ask for the status of a subscription and for notices that did not arrive; only Apple's own transaction numbers are sent. huggingface.co receives no content: the model file is fetched, and your audio is never sent anywhere for local transcription.

Your Rights (GDPR / CCPA)

Vidgest follows a data-minimization approach. The pseudonymous device identifier used for rate limiting cannot be linked to your identity. The app does gather pseudonymous data: the random identifiers above, the analytics events listed, and the crash diagnostics described. None of it names you or can be traced back to you by us. Analytics expire after 365 days and diagnostics after 90, automatically. Because the identifiers are random and the app does not show them, a request cannot say which records are yours; they expire on their own as described above, and turning off Share Usage Analytics and Crash Reports in Settings stops analytics events and crash reports from being sent. If you are located in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or California, your rights under the GDPR and CCPA are respected through this approach. If you have questions or concerns about your data, contact us at support@vidgest.com.

Children's Privacy

Vidgest does not knowingly collect any information from children under 13. The app does not require or collect personal information from any user.

Changes to This Policy

If we update this privacy policy, the changes will be included in the next app update and posted on this page. The "Last updated" date at the top will reflect the most recent revision.

Contact

Questions about this privacy policy can be directed to: support@vidgest.com