Privacy Policy

Last updated: April 17, 2026

PithyFeed is a news reader for macOS. This policy explains what data the app handles and what leaves your device.

Data we collect

None. PithyFeed does not operate any server, database, or analytics pipeline. We cannot see what feeds you subscribe to, what articles you read, or any other information about your use of the app.

Data stored on your device

PithyFeed stores the following locally on your Mac:

• RSS feed subscriptions, article metadata, and article content fetched from publishers
• AI-generated summaries produced on-device by Apple Intelligence
• App preferences (view mode, sort order, blocked keywords, etc.)

You can delete all local data from Settings → Advanced → Clear All Data at any time.

iCloud sync (optional)

If you turn on Sync with iCloud in Settings → Advanced, the data listed above is synchronized through Apple's CloudKit service to your personal iCloud account. It is stored in your private iCloud database; only you, signed into the same Apple ID, can access it. PithyFeed and its developers cannot read or access that data.

iCloud sync is off by default. You can turn it off at any time, and optionally delete the copy stored in iCloud.

AI summarization

Article summaries are generated on-device using Apple Intelligence (the Foundation Models framework). The article text is sent to the on-device model and the summary is stored locally. Nothing is transmitted off-device for the purpose of summarization.

If you opt in to the offline fallback model, PithyFeed downloads an open-source language model from Hugging Face on first use. After download, the model runs entirely on your Mac.

Network activity

PithyFeed makes network requests to:

• RSS feed URLs you subscribe to, to fetch articles
• Publisher websites, to load inline images and optionally full article content
• Public stock price APIs (Yahoo Finance), only if you enable the stock ticker feature
• Hugging Face, only if you enable the offline fallback AI model (one-time download)

These requests are made directly from your device to those servers. Nothing is proxied through us.

Third-party libraries

PithyFeed includes the following open-source libraries. None of them collect, transmit, or track any user data:

• FeedKit (RSS parsing)
• SwiftSoup (HTML parsing)
• MLX Swift (local AI inference, optional)

Children's privacy

PithyFeed is not directed to children under 13 and does not knowingly collect any information from anyone, including children.

Changes to this policy

If this policy ever changes, the revised version will be posted at this URL with a new "Last updated" date.

Contact

Questions? Email support@pithyfeed.news.