Polishly is built around explicit invocation. Here's exactly how your data is handled on your Mac.
When you grant Polishly Accessibility permissions, you give it the ability to read your screen and synthesize keystrokes. We do not take this lightly.
Polishly does not read your screen or your typing in the background. It only ever attempts to read the currently selected text at the exact moment you press the ⌃⌥Space hotkey. If you don't press the hotkey, Polishly sits idle.
When you use Polishly to rewrite text, your Mac communicates directly with the AI provider you have configured (e.g., Groq, Cerebras, OpenAI, Anthropic). There is no "Polishly server" sitting in between that logs, stores, or intercepts your prompts and text. You bring your own API key, and you are the only one who sees your traffic.
Your API key is stored locally on your Mac inside the macOS Keychain. It is never uploaded anywhere.
If you prefer not to use an external provider, you can use "Demo Mode." In Demo Mode, Polishly runs entirely on your Mac, performing simple rule-based cleanups without ever making a network request.
This marketing website (polishly.info) uses Vercel Web Analytics to count simple page views when the site is hosted on Vercel. It does not use advertising cookies, does not track you across other websites, and is not present in the Polishly macOS app (the app has no analytics or tracking SDKs).
Have more questions? Check the open-source code on GitHub to verify exactly what the app does.
Free, open source, and yours to run however you like.