Privacy Policy
MountedStorage lets your own devices reach the drives on your own Mac. Your files stay on your drives. This page explains the little that is handled anywhere else, and by whom.
Who is responsible
MountedStorage is made by Tauren Brown, an independent developer, who is responsible for the data described here. Questions or requests: privacy@mountedstorage.com.
Your files
Files travel directly between your devices, end-to-end encrypted. We never receive, store or see your files, their names, or what’s in them.
When a direct connection isn’t possible, the encrypted traffic passes through a relay server run by n0, Inc., the company behind the iroh networking library MountedStorage uses. A relay can see that two devices are talking, their IP addresses, when, and how much data moves, but it can’t read any of it. So your devices can find each other, each one publishes a small record to n0’s address lookup service saying which relay it can be reached through.
When you share a link, the person you send it to downloads the file directly from your Mac, encrypted end to end, and when a direct connection isn’t possible, through n0’s relay, which can’t read it. We never receive or store shared files, or the links themselves.
Search and previews
The search index, thumbnails, picture labels, text found in images and transcripts are made on your Mac and kept there, in your user folder. They’re never sent to us. Your paired devices can search them over the same encrypted connection.
Share links
A share link lets someone download one file or folder from your Mac. What that involves:
- Your IP address. Someone who opens your link connects to your Mac and can see its IP address, as with any direct connection. So can someone with an old link that has expired or been turned off. Your Mac’s address is never in the link itself.
- The link’s web address. Links start with mountedstorage.com/s. The secret part comes after the #, which browsers never send to a website, so our site can’t see it. If a link is opened in a browser, the page there has no cookies or analytics and never sends the link anywhere; it only hands it to the MountedStorage app. Our host keeps its standard request log of that visit (IP address and time), as for any page here.
- On your Mac. Your Mac keeps a list of your live links: what each one shares, when it expires, and a one-way hash of its secret. A link you turn off is deleted from it at once, and an expired one the next time the list changes.
If someone sent you a link
When you open it, the MountedStorage app on your Mac connects to the sender’s Mac, which can see your IP address, and downloads into your Downloads folder. The sender decides what the link shares and can turn it off at any time. We receive nothing about you or the download. Until a download finishes, your Mac keeps its link so it can carry on after a restart, then deletes it.
No account
MountedStorage 0.2.1 has no accounts and no sign-in: you link devices with a one-time invite, and the app sends us nothing about you, your devices or how you use it.
Sign in with Apple is planned. When it arrives, our account service will keep:
- the private identifier Apple provides for your account (not your name or email address),
- for each device you sign in on: its public key, the name you gave it (for example “Studio Mac”), whether it’s a computer or a phone, and when it signed in and was last seen,
- sign-in sessions, stored only as one-way hashes.
These will be used only to let your devices recognize each other. We’ll update this page before accounts are switched on.
This website, downloads and email
This website has no cookies and no analytics. Like any website, our hosting providers keep standard request logs (IP address, time, page or file requested) for security and troubleshooting. If you email us, we keep your message and address to reply to you.
Providers we use
- Vercel, Inc.
- Hosts this website.
- Cloudflare, Inc.
- Runs DNS for mountedstorage.com, stores the downloads (R2) and forwards email sent to mountedstorage.com addresses (Email Routing).
- n0, Inc.
- Runs the relays and address lookup the app uses to connect your devices, and to deliver share links when a direct connection isn’t possible. It never receives readable file data.
- Apple
- Notarizes the Mac app and distributes the iPhone app through TestFlight. Apple will also handle Sign in with Apple once accounts arrive.
On your iPhone
The iPhone app is in TestFlight. If you turn on backup, it reads the photos and videos you allow it to and sends them only to the computer you chose. The camera is used only to scan a pairing code; nothing is recorded.
What we don’t do
No advertising, no analytics or tracking, no selling or sharing of data with anyone for their own use.
Deleting your data
Everything MountedStorage makes lives on your own devices, including your list of share links: turn off any link from the menu, or delete the app, its folder (~/Library/Application Support/MountedStorage on a Mac) and, since 0.2.1, its device keys in your login Keychain (the items named “MountedStorage device key”, in Keychain Access). To have your emails to us deleted, write to privacy@mountedstorage.com.
Children
MountedStorage isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, we’ll update this page and its date. Questions: privacy@mountedstorage.com