Permissions & privacy

DrawShot is local-only. No telemetry, no analytics, no account. This page is the long version of what that means, what permissions are required, and what data does or doesn't leave your Mac.

If you're an IT admin reading this to decide whether to whitelist DrawShot — jump to IT admin notes at the bottom.

The short version

That's the entire network surface area: one HTTPS request to updates.drawshot.dev per day to check for a new version. It can be disabled in Preferences → Privacy → Check for updates.

macOS permissions DrawShot requests

Screen Recording (required)

DrawShot needs this to read pixels under the rectangle you've selected. macOS gates all screen reads behind this permission since Catalina (10.15).

• Granted on first capture, or manually via System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording.
• DrawShot only reads pixels at the moment you trigger ⌘⇧2 — not continuously, not in the background.
• No video recording, no audio access.

If you revoke this permission, the app still launches but every capture fails with a polite "DrawShot needs Screen Recording access" prompt.

Accessibility (optional)

Required only if you want global hotkey support — i.e. pressing ⌘⇧2 while another app is focused.

• Without it: you can still capture by clicking the menu bar icon.
• With it: hotkey works anywhere on your Mac.

Notifications (optional)

If you'd like a notification when a save completes (off by default). Grant in System Settings → Notifications.

Files & Folders (none required)

DrawShot doesn't touch your Documents, Desktop, or Downloads folders. It writes only to:

• ~/Library/Application Support/DrawShot/ (session data)
• ~/Pictures/DrawShot/ (saved files, only on ⌘S)

macOS will not prompt you for either — both are within the app's sandboxed default-allowed paths.

What gets stored where

~/Library/Application Support/DrawShot/
├── preferences.plist                 ← your settings
├── sessions/                         ← per-capture session data
│   └── 2026-05-15-104207/
│       ├── original.png
│       ├── annotations.json
│       └── rendered.png
└── update-check.log                  ← timestamp of last update check

~/Pictures/DrawShot/
└── Screenshot 2026-05-15 at 10.42.png   ← only created on ⌘S

Nothing else. No cache directory outside these two paths. No log files in ~/Library/Logs/.

Network activity, in detail

DrawShot opens exactly one type of network connection: a GET request to https://updates.drawshot.dev/v1/check once every 24 hours.

The request body contains:

• The current app version (e.g. 1.0.0)
• The macOS major version (e.g. 14)
• The CPU architecture (arm64 or x86_64)

It does not contain:

• A unique identifier of any kind
• Your IP address (the server logs nothing identifying)
• Your username, email, hardware serial, or MAC address
• Telemetry about features used, captures taken, or session length

To verify, you can:

1. Block updates.drawshot.dev in your firewall (or /etc/hosts).
2. Watch DrawShot continue to work indefinitely — you'll just stop seeing the "new version available" prompt.

Or turn it off in Preferences → Privacy → Check for updates → Never.

Clipboard handling

When you press ⌘C or ⌘S, DrawShot writes the annotated PNG to the standard macOS clipboard (NSPasteboard).

• The clipboard contains the image binary. No metadata, EXIF, or origin URL.
• macOS shares the clipboard across apps by design — Universal Clipboard syncs to iPhone / iPad if you have Handoff on.
• DrawShot does not write to a "secondary" or "secret" clipboard. What you see in the clipboard is exactly what's pasted.

What about screenshots themselves?

Screenshots can contain extremely sensitive data — passwords, customer info, credit card forms that auto-filled before you got there. DrawShot's stance:

• Capture data never leaves your Mac unless you paste or share it.
• The blur tool (B) is destructive at save time — saved files contain blurred pixels, not the original underneath.
• For higher-stakes redaction, use ⌘E → Export → "Flatten with redaction" which replaces the blurred region with solid black pixels.

If you screenshot something you regret, dismiss the toast (⌘⇧⌫) and within 24 hours the session is wiped from ~/Library/Application Support/DrawShot/sessions/.

IT admin notes

If you're evaluating DrawShot for a managed fleet:

Code signing & notarization

• Distributed as a notarized .dmg.
• Bundle ID: dev.drawshot.app
• Developer ID: Shraddha Mittal (individual, not a company).

Network egress

• Single domain: updates.drawshot.dev (Cloudflare-fronted, HTTPS only).
• Block this domain to fully air-gap the app.

No data collection

• No analytics SDK, no crash reporter, no SaaS backend.
• Crash logs stay on the user's Mac in the standard macOS crash report location (~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/). The app does not upload them.

MDM

• Standard macOS app — deploy via Jamf, Mosyle, Kandji, etc.
• Preferences file at ~/Library/Preferences/dev.drawshot.app.plist can be pre-seeded via Configuration Profile.

Source for audit

• DrawShot is not open source today. If your security team requires source inspection before approval, email [email protected] — I'll arrange a read-only repo invitation under NDA.

Reporting security issues

Found something? Email [email protected]. Coordinated disclosure is fine; I'll acknowledge within 48 hours and credit you in the changelog if you'd like.

drawshot.dev · v1.0 · macOS 13+ · free