Putback asks for one macOS permission, Accessibility, and uses it only to read the position and size of your windows and to move them. Your layouts (window frames, app identifiers, and display configurations) live in a local file that never leaves your Mac. You can inspect or delete it anytime at ~/Library/Application Support/Putback.
A few small things travel to our servers so licensing, the trial, and stability can work. Here is every one of them, with its exact contents. There are no user accounts.
When you activate a paid license, Putback sends your license key, the device identifier described below, and the device name (so you can recognise your Macs when managing the license). Because a paid license carries your email, that identifier is linked to you until you deactivate the Mac. Nothing else.
During the 7 day trial, and after it ends until you buy, Putback checks in once a day with a device identifier, the app version, and the macOS version. That is what it needs to count the trial days. The same check-in carries a few small facts that tell us whether the trial is working: how many times your display setup has changed (a count, never which displays or what was on them), when the “Your windows just moved” notice or the trial-ended window first appeared if either has, and your answer to “Where did you hear about Putback?” if you tapped one on the first-run screen. No name, no email, no window contents. The identifier is a one-way hash of your Mac's hardware ID, so it does not carry your name, but it is deliberately stable: it survives deleting the app and reinstalling, which is what stops one Mac restarting the trial forever. The hardware ID itself never leaves your Mac.
If your trial has ended and you ask for three more days, Putback sends the email address you type along with the device identifier, so the extra days attach to this Mac once. We use that address for three emails about the trial and nothing else: one when the days start, one the day before they end, one after. Every one has a one-click unsubscribe, and unsubscribing adds you to the do-not-email list.
If Putback crashes, the next launch sends a report with no name or email on it: the app version, the macOS version, the hardware model, and the crash stack. When macOS itself raised the error, the report also carries the text macOS wrote, which can name a window or another app that was involved. Home folder paths are stripped out on arrival, because those carry your account name. Never your layouts, and never anything you typed.
Putback checks for new versions through Sparkle, the standard macOS update framework. That is a request to our update feed so the app can tell you an update exists.
If you got Putback through Setapp, Setapp handles your purchase, your licence and your updates, so none of the activation, trial or update traffic above happens. Putback asks you once whether to share usage and crash reports, and sends nothing until you say yes. If you do, it checks in once a day with the same device identifier, the app and macOS versions, the display-change count, your answer to where you heard about Putback, and what Setapp tells the app about your plan: Setapp Membership or a single-app purchase, whether it is active, and its renewal date if it has one. Crash reports are the same as above. You can turn sharing off any time in Settings.
The site uses first-party analytics only. No cookies, no advertising, no third-party trackers. Each page view records the page path, the referrer, an optional campaign tag from the link you followed, and your country (read from Cloudflare's edge, never stored alongside anything that identifies you).
Page views and download clicks also record what kind of device you're on, as one word: Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows, Linux or other. It's worked out from your browser's user agent when the visit arrives, and the user agent itself isn't stored. The page also says whether your screen is a touchscreen, because an iPad otherwise looks just like a Mac.
It also records a visitor number that is a one-way hash of your connection details (IP address and browser) mixed with the current date. Because the date is part of the hash, the number rotates every day, so it cannot follow you from one day to the next. The IP address itself is never stored.
When you finish a purchase, the thank-you page sends one more first-party beacon that ties that sale to the same session-level source above (the link or referrer that brought you), so we can tell which channels actually pay off. It carries no new identifier, no amount, and no email. We also keep a short-lived tally of how many people are on the site right now. It reuses that same daily-rotating visitor number, counts only the last five minutes, and the rows are cleared out within the hour, so it is a live count, never a history.
Voting and commenting on the public roadmap use a random token saved in your browser's localStorage, so a vote counts once without an account. Clear the site's data and the token is gone.
If you use the monitor checker, what you submit is added to a running count: the display model, the verdict, and the settings it saw. It is stored as totals only, with no visitor number and no IP attached, so a submission cannot be traced back to you.
Only when you explicitly hand it over: signing up for the newsletter, sending a support ticket, asking to be told when a roadmap idea ships, or buying a license. If you never do any of those, we never have your email.
We also keep a log of the email we send you, so we can tell whether your license key actually arrived. It records the address, the subject, whether it was delivered, and the license key it related to, if any. It never records the body of a message.
If you bought Putback or joined the newsletter, we may email you when a new version ships. Buyers may also get a link to leave a review, which is tied to the purchase, not to the email address. Every one of these emails has an unsubscribe link, and your mail app's own unsubscribe button works too. Unsubscribing adds your address to a short do-not-email list, because that list is the only thing that keeps it off every future send. Receipts, license keys and support replies still reach you.
A handful of processors help run Putback. We keep the list short and name them plainly.
Handles payments. Your card details go straight to Stripe and never touch our servers. If the checkout asks where you heard about Putback and you answer, that answer comes back to us with your purchase.
Sends transactional email: license keys, receipts, support replies, and the confirmations you ask for.
Configured as an alternate email sender we can switch to if we ever need it.
Hosts the website, stores the database, and routes inbound email to us.
Sells, licenses and updates the Setapp version of Putback, and takes payment through its own Stripe account. We see how many copies sold in Setapp's developer account, and your email only if you agree to share it in Setapp's own dialog.
Licenses, and the support tickets and email log attached to them, are kept for as long as the license is valid, because that is what lets us answer you and re-send a key years later. Crash reports and trial check-ins are kept while they are still useful for fixing bugs.
Website analytics rows are not deleted on a schedule, and we want to be straight about why rather than quietly leave it out: the visitor number in them rotates every day, so once a day has passed those rows cannot be tied to a person even by us. What is left is a count of page views. If you would rather we deleted anything at all that relates to you, ask, and we will.
To ask what we hold about you, or to have it deleted, either open a support ticket or email Peter directly at hi@petersindex.com. Either reaches the same person. Our data lives on Cloudflare infrastructure.
Last updated: October 23, 2026. Added the Setapp version of Putback: what it sends only after you say yes, and Setapp as the store that sells it.
October 20, 2026. Page views and download clicks now record the kind of device, as one word.
October 13, 2026. The trial check-in now also carries a count of display changes, when the windows-moved notice or the trial-ended window first appeared, and your answer to where you heard about Putback, if you gave one. Added the three extra trial days and their three emails, and the checkout question.
September 27, 2026. Added release emails, the review link they can carry, and the do-not-email list that unsubscribing adds you to.
August 25, 2026. Audited this page against what the servers actually store, and corrected it where the two disagreed. The trial identifier is described as what it is, a stable hash of your Mac's hardware ID rather than an anonymous one. Crash reports now say that a macOS error can name a window or another app, and home folder paths are stripped on arrival. The live-visitor tally is cleared within the hour, not within minutes. Added the monitor checker, the transactional email log, and how long we keep things.
July 7, 2026. Rewrote this page around the honest split between what stays on your Mac and what leaves, named every processor, and noted the purchase-confirmation beacon and the live-visitor count.