Effective March 17, 2026 · Last updated March 17, 2026
PicSift processes your photos entirely on your device. We don't collect your photos, scores, or personal information. We don't run analytics. We don't have servers that see your data.
PicSift accesses photos you select through the macOS/iOS file picker or the Photos library (with your permission). For each photo, PicSift reads:
This data generates quality scores, detects scenes, identifies faces, finds duplicates, and powers search. All processing happens on your device using Apple's CoreML framework. Your photos and metadata are never transmitted to any server.
PicSift uses on-device machine learning to detect faces in your photos. This produces face bounding boxes, face embeddings (mathematical representations for grouping), and quality metrics. Face data is stored locally and never transmitted off-device. You can delete all face data by removing PicSift's database or uninstalling the app.
Your keep/skip/reject decisions, star ratings, tags, and Smart Album configurations are stored locally on your device.
PicSift maintains a local SQLite database on your device containing references to photo file paths (not copies), quality scores, scene categories, face embeddings, semantic search embeddings, your curation decisions, and Smart Album configurations. This database exists only on your device. You can delete it at any time.
PicSift may offer iCloud sync as a feature. If enabled, it uses Apple's CloudKit to sync curation decisions only (keep/skip/reject status, star ratings) between your devices. No photos, scores, face data, or embeddings are synced. We cannot access your iCloud data. You can disable sync at any time.
| Connection | Purpose | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub API | Check for app updates | On-demand |
| GitHub Releases | Download optional ML models | On-demand |
| Apple CloudKit | Sync curation decisions (if sync enabled) | When sync enabled |
| Apple StoreKit | Verify purchases | On app launch |
PicSift does not contact any Syrinx Ventures servers.
PicSift bundles and optionally downloads ML models for photo scoring and search. These run entirely on your device. No photos or results are sent to any server. Models are downloaded from GitHub using standard HTTP requests.
PicSift does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The app does not require an account and processes everything locally.
All data is stored on your device. Delete PicSift's Application Support folder or uninstall the app to remove all data. For iCloud sync data, disable sync and use Apple's iCloud storage management. We retain no data on any server.
Because PicSift does not collect or transmit personal data to our servers, you have full control via your device's file system. Your data is in a SQLite file you can inspect, back up, or delete at any time.
We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be noted in PicSift's release notes.
Syrinx Ventures, LLC
privacy@syrinxventures.com