The short version: your catalog never leaves your Mac.

What stays on your Mac

The catalog. When you scan a drive, CutCatalog records what it found: library names and paths, event and project names, the dates they last changed, where each library's media links point, drive names and identifiers, and the sizes of render files and backups. All of it is written to a single file on your Mac, inside the app's own sandbox folder at ~/Library/Containers/com.rivotlabs.cutcatalog/Data/Library/Application Support/CutCatalog/, and it is never uploaded. Like any app's data it can be included in your Time Machine or other backups. Deleting the app's folder removes it.

Your libraries themselves. Scanning is read-only. Final Cut's databases are opened in SQLite's read-only, immutable mode, so a scan writes nothing, takes no locks and leaves no journal files. CutCatalog never opens, copies or transmits your media.

Which folders you allowed. CutCatalog runs in Apple's App Sandbox, so it can only read the drives and folders you pick in an Open panel. Each choice is remembered on your Mac as a security-scoped bookmark so you do not have to grant it again. Those bookmarks stay on your Mac.

Your searches. Searching runs entirely against the local catalog. What you type is never sent, and the app makes no network request in order to search.

Files it copies and moves. When you offload a card, CutCatalog copies it to the drives you choose, reads every copy back and writes the checksums, and an ASC MHL record if you want one, onto those same drives. When you clear render files, trim old Final Cut backups, or remove duplicate copies found by Compare Folders, the items go to that drive's Trash. All of this happens on your own drives. Nothing about those files, beyond the rounded counts below, leaves your Mac.

CutCatalog Pro. Whether you own CutCatalog Pro is checked with Apple on your Mac, through the App Store. Which Pro tools have already used their one free run is kept in the app's settings on your Mac. Neither is sent to us.

What CutCatalog sends, and why

So we can see which features earn their place and where people get stuck, CutCatalog sends a fixed list of events to PostHog, our analytics provider. Nothing is linked to your identity: the app has no account, never asks who you are, and nothing in it creates a person profile. Every count is rounded into a range before it is sent, and every other value comes from a fixed set of words, so no exact figure from your catalog goes out. The ranges are 0, 1, 2-5, 6-20, 21-50, 51-100, 101-500 and 501+; sizes are rounded to under 1 GB, 1-10 GB, 10-100 GB, 100 GB-1 TB or 1 TB+, and durations to under 10s, 10-60s, 1-5m, 5-15m or 15m+.

This is the whole list of events, and everything each one carries:

• The app was opened, with how many libraries and drives are in your catalog, as ranges.
• A scan finished or was stopped, with whether the drive was local or on a network, whether it was new to the catalog, how many libraries and projects were found, how long it took, and whether you stopped it.
• A scan failed. No details.
• A search was run, with how many results it returned, as a range. Never what you typed.
• A result was opened, with whether it was a project, an event or a library, and whether its drive was connected.
• Reveal in Finder was used. No details.
• A CSV was exported, with how many rows and whether it came from a search.
• Render files were moved to the Trash, with how many libraries, the total size as a range, and whether anything failed.
• Old backups were moved to the Trash, with how many, the total size as a range, and whether anything failed.
• Two folders were compared, with how many items, how much there was to copy, whether it ran both ways, and how long it took.
• Files were copied, with how many items and libraries, the total size, and whether anything failed.
• Duplicate copies were moved to the Trash, with how many went and how many were kept, the total size, and whether anything failed.
• An offload finished, with how many files and destinations, the total size, which checksum was used (xxHash64, MD5 or SHA-1), how long it took, and whether it completed or was stopped.
• A folder was checked against its MHL record, with how many files and whether every one matched.
• The CutCatalog Pro screen was shown, with where it was opened from (the toolbar button, the menu, or the Pro tool you tried) and whether it appeared right after a free run.
• A Pro tool's free run started, with which tool it was.
• Unlock Pro was clicked, with where the Pro screen was opened from.
• CutCatalog Pro was bought, with where the Pro screen was opened from and whether it was a real App Store purchase or a free TestFlight or developer test. Never your Apple Account, payment details or the price you paid.
• An earlier purchase was restored, with whether it was a real App Store purchase or a test.

This is on unless you turn it off. Open CutCatalog > Settings and switch off Share anonymous usage data under Privacy, and the app stops sending immediately.

What is never sent

• The names of your projects, events, libraries or drives.
• File paths, folder names or anything else about where your work lives.
• What you type into the search field.
• Your media, or any part of a Final Cut library's contents.
• Exact counts or exact file sizes. Everything is rounded into the ranges above.
• Your name, email, Apple Account, contacts or precise location.

What PostHog adds on its own

Alongside each event, PostHog's software records a standard set of details about the app and the Mac it is running on. We do not choose these individually, and they are:

• The app's name, bundle identifier, version and build number.
• Your macOS version, the device type ("Desktop"), the manufacturer ("Apple") and the chip architecture (for example "arm64"). The device name is a generic "Mac", not whatever you have called your own.
• Your language, time zone, screen size, and whether the Mac is on Wi-Fi.
• A random identifier for this installation and another for the current session, both created by the app. They are not linked to you, and removing the app removes them.
• Your approximate country, state or region, and continent, looked up from your IP address. The address itself is discarded and not stored, and city, postal code, coordinates and accuracy radius are stripped before the event is saved. CutCatalog itself never reads your location.

PostHog's software also reports its own lifecycle events, such as the app being installed, opened or updated.

The TestFlight beta

CutCatalog is currently distributed as a beta through Apple's TestFlight, which involves Apple as well as us.

• Joining is self-serve through a public TestFlight link, so you do not have to give us anything to get in. Apple shows public-link testers to us as anonymous, with no name and no email address.
• What Apple does show us for each tester is the day the app was installed, the version installed, and how many sessions and crashes there have been.
• If you send feedback from inside TestFlight, we receive what you wrote, any screenshot you attach, and the device and app details Apple includes with it. Apple attaches your email address to that feedback unless you choose not to provide it.
• If you email us yourself, we have whatever address you wrote from, and we use it only to talk to you about the beta.
• If we invited you by email rather than the public link, Apple shows us that address and your name.
• If you have agreed to share crash data with developers, we receive crash reports through Apple.
• Apple's handling of all of this is covered by the Apple Privacy Policy.

We hold no list of public-link testers, because Apple never gives us one. Any address you have written to us from, or that Apple shows us for an email invitation, is deleted when the beta ends. Ask us to remove you at any point and we will.

Who receives it

• PostHog, Inc. (United States) provides the usage analytics and processes them only on our behalf. See PostHog's privacy policy.
• Apple distributes the app through TestFlight and the App Store, and passes on tester details, feedback and crash reports as described above. Apple also handles every CutCatalog Pro purchase. We never see your payment details.
• Cloudflare, Inc. hosts this website.

Nobody else. We do not sell data, share it for advertising, or combine it with data from other companies.

Tracking

CutCatalog has no ads and does not track you across other companies' apps or websites. It creates no person profile, and nothing it sends identifies you.

How long we keep it

On the PostHog plan we use, usage analytics stay available to us for one year, and older events drop out of our reports. PostHog does not promise to erase them at that point, so they may remain in its storage, still not linked to you. We never receive an email address for a tester who joined through the public link. Any address we do hold, because you wrote to us or because we invited you by email, is deleted when the beta ends, or sooner if you ask.

Your choices

Turn analytics off. CutCatalog > Settings > Privacy, then switch off "Share anonymous usage data". The app stops sending straight away, and the setting is remembered.

Take back a folder. CutCatalog can only read the drives and folders you have allowed. Removing a drive from the catalog ends its access.

Delete everything local. Deleting the app and its folder in ~/Library/Containers/com.rivotlabs.cutcatalog/ removes the catalog, your saved folder permissions, your free-run record and the random identifiers.

Because none of the analytics is tied to your name or an account, we usually cannot tell which records are yours. If you would like us to look for and delete data anyway, or you have a question about your privacy rights where you live (for example under GDPR or California law), email us and we will help.

About this website

rivotlabs.com is a static site hosted on Cloudflare Pages. It runs no JavaScript (blocked by our own Content-Security-Policy), sets no cookies, and includes no analytics. The only third-party resource loaded is Google Fonts, which may log standard request metadata (IP address, user agent) per Google's Fonts privacy notice. We don't see or store any of it.

Children

CutCatalog is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes

When what CutCatalog collects changes, we update this page and the date at the top. The first version was published alongside the first TestFlight beta on November 2, 2026. On November 6, 2026 we added the Offload and CutCatalog Pro events, explained how Pro purchases are handled, and corrected where the catalog file is stored. On November 7, 2026 the beta moved to a public TestFlight link, so joining no longer asks you for an email address, and we rewrote the TestFlight beta section to say that Apple shows public-link testers to us anonymously.

Contact

Questions, concerns, or requests about your data: support@rivotlabs.com. We answer every email personally.