Lifeboat Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 23, 2026

Lifeboat is a macOS backup utility made by Sajan Sahoo. It copies photos and files you choose to a destination folder or drive you choose. This policy explains what information Lifeboat handles and what, if anything, leaves your Mac.

Your backups stay on your devices

Everything Lifeboat backs up — your photos, videos, files, their names, and their locations — is read from your Mac and written only to the destination you selected. Backup content is never uploaded anywhere, and Lifeboat has no server of its own. Lifeboat requires no account and collects no name, email address, or other identity.

Anonymous usage analytics and crash reports

To understand how many people use Lifeboat and to find bugs, the app sends a small set of anonymous events to PostHog, an analytics service. These events include:

• App lifecycle: app opened, installed, or updated.
• Backup activity: a backup started, finished, was paused, resumed, or failed — with counts of files copied, skipped, or failed, total bytes, duration, the source type (Apple Photos or iCloud Drive), and a stable error code when something went wrong.
• Configuration facts: which options a backup job uses (verification mode, organization preset, deletion quarantine on or off).
• Crash reports: a stack trace plus app and macOS version, so crashes can be fixed.
• Basic device information collected by the analytics library: Mac model, macOS version, app version, and locale.

Events are grouped under a randomly generated identifier created on first launch. It is not derived from and cannot be linked to you, your Apple ID, or your hardware serial numbers.

These events never include file names, file paths, folder names, job names, photo identifiers, media contents, or anything else from the data you back up.

Analytics data is processed by PostHog Inc. and stored on its United States cloud. It is used only to operate and improve Lifeboat — never for advertising or tracking, and it is never sold or shared.

Diagnostics you export yourself

The in-app Export Redacted JSON button writes a diagnostics file to a location you pick. It contains the same kind of redacted counters and error codes described above and is only ever shared if you send it to us yourself.

Permissions

Photos and folder access are granted by you through macOS system prompts and are used solely to perform the backups you configure. Access can be revoked at any time in System Settings without affecting data already backed up.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: lifeboat@sajansahoo.com.

Changes

If Lifeboat's data practices ever change, this policy and the app's App Store privacy details will be updated before the change ships.