Your ideas stay
on your Mac.
The work happens where you are.
Phosphene makes your video, audio and images on your own Mac. It uploads no prompts, pictures, videos or songs. Filenames, paths, seeds, LoRA names and character names stay local too. Download the models, and you can render without an internet connection.
The app opens in your browser at 127.0.0.1, an address on your own Mac. It has no login and isn't designed to be exposed to a network.
What does go online
A fresh install makes these three kinds of outbound request:
| request | when | how to stop it |
|---|---|---|
| Update check to GitHub | every 30 minutes | PHOSPHENE_DISABLE_VERSION_CHECK=1 |
| Model and LoRA downloads (Hugging Face, CivitAI, GitHub release assets) | when you install a model or press download | Only download the models you want |
| Anonymous usage counts (PostHog) | once per install, per panel start, per finished or failed render | Settings → Anonymous usage analytics → Turn off, or PHOSPHENE_ANALYTICS_DISABLED=1 |
Anonymous analytics are on by default. You can turn them off.
Usage counts help spot broken builds and see which features get used. The app tells you about them in the log on its first run. To opt out, go to Settings → Anonymous usage analytics → Turn off, or set PHOSPHENE_ANALYTICS_DISABLED=1.
You can inspect every event in state/usage-log.jsonl. Here's what the counts contain:
- Install ID: a random ID made on your Mac (UUID4), not your name or account. Deleting it gives the install a new ID.
- Hardware class: chip family, such as “M4 Max”, memory in GB and macOS major.minor version.
- Render stats: engine, mode, quality tier, output size class, frame count and duration grouped into a range. Also the number of LoRAs, never their names. A failed render reports an error category from a fixed list.
- Feature use: counts of clicks on parts of the app. No text you entered.
- Location: the app sends no location field. The analytics service derives and keeps your country and city from the connection's IP address. It is configured to discard the IP address itself. That depends on the server's settings; the app's source code cannot verify it.
The full field list and its history are in docs/ANALYTICS.md. Anything sent outside that list is a bug. Please report it.
What about the planned cloud models?
They haven't shipped. Optional cloud models are planned for Pro and will use your own API keys. If you choose one, the work you submit goes to that provider. The local engines described here keep running on your Mac.
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Something unclear?
Ask a privacy question or flag a problem on GitHub.