Your files and your privacy

Your manuscript

Colophon opens your manuscript folder read-only. It never edits, moves, renames or deletes your chapter files. Make your changes in your writing app, and Colophon reads them.

Your Colophon document

Everything Colophon keeps for a book is in its .colophon document, in the place you saved it:

• your bible and continuity items
• the text of your chapters as they stood at their last baseline or recorded pass, so Colophon has something to compare against
• your recorded passes, including the paragraphs that changed

Because the document holds text from your book, treat it like a copy of your manuscript: back it up with your manuscript, and think before you share it.

What Colophon collects

Nothing. Colophon has no account, no analytics and no crash reporting, and it collects no information about you or your writing.

No network connections

Colophon doesn't connect to the internet. Nothing you write, and nothing Colophon records, is uploaded or sent anywhere by the app.

The free trial and unlocking Colophon

Starting the free trial and unlocking Colophon are purchases made through the App Store with your Apple Account. macOS talks to the App Store for you; Colophon only learns whether your trial has started and whether Colophon is unlocked, and keeps that on this Mac. Apple's handling of the purchase is covered by Apple's own privacy policy. See The free trial and unlocking Colophon.

What stays on this Mac

• Your reading settings, and your list of recent documents.
• Whether your free trial has started, and whether Colophon is unlocked.
• The error log. Nothing in it leaves your Mac unless you copy, save or mail it yourself, and those copies leave out your file names. See Use the error log.

Deleting what Colophon keeps

• To delete what Colophon keeps for a book, move its .colophon document to the Trash. Your chapter files aren't inside it and aren't touched.
• To delete what Colophon keeps on this Mac — your settings, recent documents, error log and trial record — quit Colophon and move the folder com.gabrielurian.colophon in your Library's Containers folder to the Trash. A purchase stays with your Apple Account; choose Restore Purchases to bring it back.

If you share screenshots

Screenshots of Colophon can show your prose. Crop anything you don't want someone else to read.

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