BlankKey Privacy Policy
BlankKey — a Quick Look extension for Markdown on macOS, and a window for reading and editing it.
Effective 26 September 2026.
The short version
BlankKey has no accounts, no analytics, no telemetry and no crash reporting. Your documents stay on your Mac. Nothing about you or about what you read is sent to the developer, and there is no server of ours for it to be sent to.
When you edit a document, BlankKey writes it back to the file you opened, and only when you save. BlankKey does not automatically save changes to the original document or upload its contents. System services such as backups and Quick Look may keep local copies according to your macOS settings.
What BlankKey stores
BlankKey’s preferences are stored locally in its app container. macOS also manages recent documents and system caches:
- Your settings — the interface language you chose and window layout.
- Folder permissions — when you allow BlankKey to read a folder so that images stored beside a document can be shown, macOS gives the app a bookmark to that folder. The bookmark is kept in the app’s preferences. It grants reading, nothing else, and you can remove any of them at any time in Settings. Removing one prevents further image reads under that grant and removes its loaded images from open BlankKey windows. Other grants may still cover the same folder. A document you explicitly opened remains open.
- Recently opened documents — kept by macOS itself, the same way it does for every document-based app. Clearing the list is in the File menu.
None of it leaves your Mac.
Network access
By default BlankKey makes no network requests at all.
Images can be fetched when you ask for them. A Markdown document can name an image that lives on a web server. BlankKey does not fetch such images on its own — it shows a bar naming the server and offers to. If you choose to show them, your Mac requests those images directly from that server. That server then sees your IP address and can tell that someone opened a document referring to it.
Nothing is proxied through the developer, and the choice is not remembered: the next document asks again.
Following a link opens your default browser or the app assigned to that link type. That app may contact the destination under its own privacy policy. Quick Look does not fetch remote images.
What the developer receives
Nothing, unless you write to us.
If you send a support message, we receive your email address and whatever you put in the message, including any attachments you choose to send. We use it to handle your support request, not for advertising or a mailing list. Email is processed by our email provider (Google/Gmail) and your provider to deliver and store the correspondence; their privacy policies also apply. Do not send sensitive documents unless needed for your request.
Apple may separately provide sales, usage or diagnostic information according to your Apple privacy and diagnostic-sharing settings. BlankKey has no embedded analytics or crash-reporting SDK. Apple handles its services under Apple’s privacy policy.
Retention and deletion
Local preferences remain until you change or remove them. Folder grants can be removed in Settings; recent documents can be cleared in the File menu. Documents remain where you saved them until you delete them yourself using Finder. BlankKey does not remotely store or delete your documents. macOS controls the retention of its caches and backups.
Support correspondence is retained only as long as needed to resolve and follow up on the request, or to meet applicable legal obligations. You can request deletion by emailing knstwhips@gmail.com from the address used for the request. We delete correspondence that is no longer needed, subject to any required legal retention and the email provider’s backup retention. No BlankKey account exists to delete.
Children
BlankKey is a document viewer and editor. It collects nothing from anyone, of any age.
Changes
If this policy changes, the revised version will carry a new date at the top, and it ships inside the app so you can always read the version you have.
Contact
This policy covers the BlankKey app. This website is covered by the separate website privacy notice.