Searching your Mac
Whole-Mac search reads macOS’s Spotlight index for your home folder and Applications, on your Mac: file names, kinds, sizes, dates, where a file was downloaded from and the text inside documents. Orrel asks the index questions locally. Nothing about your files is sent anywhere.
Orrel also reads the text in screenshots, images and PDFs, scanned PDFs included, with Apple Vision on your Mac. It uses that text to make files searchable and to recognise and name invoices, receipts and screenshots. If you turn on Apple Intelligence on macOS 26, Orrel uses Apple’s on-device model to pick out invoice vendors; this also runs on your Mac. Duplicate finding reads file contents locally and compares their hashes.
Converting files
Conversions and PDF tools — images, PDFs, video, audio, Markdown and documents — use frameworks built into macOS and run on your Mac. Each one writes a new file beside the original and never changes or replaces the original. No file is uploaded to convert it.
Permissions
Orrel is distributed outside the Mac App Store and isn’t in the App Sandbox, so it relies on the permissions macOS gives you control of.
Full Disk Access is optional. It lets Orrel search everywhere on your Mac. Without it, macOS keeps some locations out of reach and asks before Orrel opens your Desktop, Documents or Downloads folders.
Screen Recording is needed to take screenshots, record the screen and copy text from the screen. Orrel uses it only when you start a capture or recording. Microphone access is asked for only if you choose to record your voice. Captures and recordings stay on your Mac until you copy, save or drag them somewhere yourself.
You can turn either permission off in System Settings › Privacy & Security.
What is stored on your Mac
Application data. The text Orrel has read, the invoice details taken from it, a list of the files in your folders and your tidy history are saved in Orrel’s folder inside ~/Library/Application Support. The history holds the original and new location of every file moved, so any run can be undone.
Preferences. Folder access, your tidy folder, template choices, saved searches, shortcuts, appearance settings, trial and licence details, and your licence key are kept in Orrel’s preferences.
Removing Orrel, its Application Support folder and its preferences removes all of this. macOS may also keep its own Quick Look thumbnails and Spotlight index, as it does for every app.
Updates
Orrel checks this website for updates. It asks whether a new version exists and installs updates only when they carry Orrel’s signature. These requests include the standard information any web request does, such as your IP address, and the version of Orrel you’re running. You can turn automatic checks off in Orrel’s settings and check for updates yourself whenever you like.
AI assistants
If you connect an assistant such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code or Cursor, Orrel runs the assistant’s tool requests on your Mac and makes no network requests of its own to do so. What a tool returns, such as file names or the text of a document, is passed to the assistant as part of your conversation and is then handled under that assistant’s own privacy policy. Tools that write files or stop processes are marked so the assistant asks you first.
Buying and activating a licence
Payments are handled by Stripe. Orrel and this website never see your card details; Stripe’s privacy policy covers the payment itself. After you pay, this website asks Stripe to confirm the checkout and reads the email address you gave, which is included in your licence key so the key shows who it belongs to.
A licence covers one, three or five Macs, so it is activated online once on each Mac. Activating sends your licence key, an anonymous identifier made from a one-way hash of the Mac’s hardware ID, and the Mac’s name (so you can tell your Macs apart when freeing one) to this website, which keeps a record of the Macs using each licence. Freeing a Mac from Orrel’s settings removes it from that record so the licence can move to another Mac. Nothing about your files is sent.
Your control
The Tidy screen shows every move before it happens. Tidy Now from the menu bar or Shortcuts, and automatic tidying, apply your templates directly, and every run can be undone from History. Tidying moves files and never deletes them. Clean Up moves files to the Trash only after you’ve reviewed them. You can turn off automatic text reading, Apple Intelligence and update checks in Settings.
This website
The website uses Google Analytics and Matomo (hosted at tracking2.lindoai.com) to count visits, which pages people arrive on, and clicks on links and the download and buy buttons. Both set cookies and receive standard connection information such as your IP address; neither sees anything from the app or your Mac. You can block them with any content blocker and the site works the same. Its interactive examples use made-up sample files and cannot read your Mac. The home and privacy pages request fonts from Google Fonts, which receives standard connection information such as your IP address. The web host may keep ordinary access logs.