Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-11-01

This policy covers SpectaShell for Mac, iPad and iPhone, its notification relay, and this website. Calida Lab makes SpectaShell. In short: SpectaShell has no account, shows no ads, sends no usage data and tracks no one. What you do in it stays on your devices, on your hosts and in your own iCloud. The one thing Calida Lab holds is what a device needs to receive notifications from your hosts, and only once you turn them on.

What stays on your device#

Your device keys, your command history (kept 30 days), the settings that are this device's own, and your windows and tabs never leave the device. Passwords, passphrases and one-time codes are passed to the login that asks for them and never stored. On the Mac, your own ~/.ssh files are read and never changed or uploaded. Security and privacy in the manual lists each of them.

What your iCloud holds#

While Sync Through iCloud is on, your hosts and groups, snippets, triggers, port forwards, favourite folders, the clouds you added (without their credentials), trusted host keys, your devices' public keys, fonts and themes, and notification rules sync through the private database of your Apple Account, in SpectaShell's own iCloud container. Apple stores it under Apple's privacy policy; Calida Lab cannot read it. A group you share with a team is shared with the people you invite. A cloud's credentials are kept in the Keychain and, if you choose, in iCloud Keychain, never in SpectaShell's sync. Turn sync off in Settings to keep all of it on the device.

Notifications from your hosts#

When you turn on Notify This Device, your device registers with SpectaShell's relay (push.calidalab.ai), run by Calida Lab, so your hosts can reach it through Apple's push service.

• What the relay holds: your device's push token (an identifier Apple gives the app on that device), the public keys of the hosts that notify it, and records of keys removed. It is not linked to your name, your Apple Account or any other identity.
• What it never sees: what a notification says, which is sealed on your host to a key only your device holds, your hosts' names or addresses, your files and your keys.
• What it writes down: no request, address, token or key. It counts notifications and errors per hour, without identifiers. Cloudflare, in front of it, and Apple, which delivers the notification, see what they see for any such service.
• How long: until you turn notifications off for that device, or the app is deleted, or 180 days pass without the app refreshing its registration. The relay's nightly backups keep a copy for 7 more days.

Other places SpectaShell connects to#

SpectaShell connects to your hosts over SSH, to a cloud's API (DigitalOcean's or AWS's) when you add that cloud, and to the web pages you open in it. Those connections go from your device to them directly, never through Calida Lab. What SpectaShell puts on a host, all of it in your home folder, is in What SpectaShell puts on a host.

Apple#

The App Store, TestFlight and iCloud are Apple's services. If you choose to share analytics with app developers in your device's settings, Apple gives Calida Lab crash reports and usage figures that do not identify you. SpectaShell itself contains no analytics or crash-reporting code.

This website#

The website sets no cookies and runs no analytics. Its server logs each request with the visitor's address and keeps the log for 14 days, to keep the site running and safe. Cloudflare serves the site and sees each request. The pages load their fonts from Google Fonts, and the Korean pages also from jsDelivr, which see your address when they send them. If you write to us, we keep your email to answer it.

Your choices#

• Turn off Notify This Device to remove the device from the relay at once.
• Turn off Sync Through iCloud to keep everything on the device; delete SpectaShell's data from iCloud in your device's Settings, under your Apple Account ▸ iCloud.
• Delete the app to remove what it keeps on the device.
• Write to [email protected] with any question or request about your data.

Children#

SpectaShell is a tool for working on computers. It is not directed at children and collects nothing about anyone's age.

Changes#

A change to this policy is published on this page with a new date.

Contact#

Calida Lab · [email protected]