Effective Date: July 20, 2026
Overview
Desktop Scientists is a desktop companion app made by Nondescript Software Inc. A pixel scientist floats above your Dock and does their life's work in time with your typing. The app runs entirely on your computer. It has no server, no account system, and no network features of any kind.
What we collect
Nothing. Desktop Scientists does not ask you to create an account or sign in, and does not collect your name, email address, device identifier, advertising identifier, or location. There is no analytics SDK, no crash-reporting SDK, and no advertising SDK in the app.
What the app sends over the network
Nothing. The app makes no network requests. It does not contact a server we operate, because we do not operate one for this app. It works identically with your computer offline.
Keyboard access
The scientist animates in response to your typing, so the app needs to know when a key is pressed — anywhere on your system, since the app sits in the background while you work in other applications. macOS requires your explicit permission for this, and the app will not receive anything until you grant it.
What the app actually receives from the keyboard is deliberately minimal. The listener is passive: it observes key-down events and cannot modify, suppress, remap, or repost them. It passes exactly one piece of information to the rest of the app for each key press — a single yes/no value indicating whether the key was the space bar, which selects the scientist's "big" animation instead of the small one. Keys pressed with Command, Control, or Option are discarded entirely.
The app does not read the characters or text you type, your clipboard, or which application you are using. No keystroke information is written to disk, and none of it is transmitted anywhere — there is nowhere for it to go, as the app has no network capability.
The permission appears in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Input Monitoring, where you can revoke it at any time. If you never grant it, the rest of the app still works; the scientist simply does not react to typing.
What the app stores on your device
The app saves your display preferences — such as your chosen scene size — to a small preferences.json file in its own application-support folder. Your selected scientist and window position are likewise kept locally. This data stays on your computer, contains nothing personal, and is never read by us or transmitted anywhere.
Purchases
Desktop Scientists is sold as a paid app. On the Mac App Store, the purchase is handled entirely by Apple; on itch.io, by itch.io. We never see your payment information or your Apple ID. The app does not contain in-app purchases and does not transmit purchase or license details to any server we operate.
Third parties
The app itself embeds no third-party services. The only companies involved are the ones that sold you the app:
- Apple — distributes the Mac App Store version, handles payment, and (if you have opted in to share crash data with developers in System Settings) may provide us with anonymous crash reports. Governed by Apple's privacy policy.
- itch.io — distributes and handles payment for the itch.io version. Governed by itch.io's privacy policy.
These relationships are between you and the respective store. Once the app is installed, it does not communicate with them or with us.
Children's privacy
Desktop Scientists does not collect personal information from anyone, including children under 13.
Changes to this policy
If we update this privacy policy, the revised version will appear on this page with a new effective date. If anything substantive changes — for example, if the app ever gained a network feature, analytics, or crash reporting — we will mention it in the app's release notes.
Contact us
Questions about this policy?