Your privacy matters. Here's how Resurf handles your data.
Resurf is a local-first application. All your captures, notes, images, and personal data are stored on your own devices: your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. We do not have access to your content, and it is never uploaded to our servers.
You can sync your captures between your devices through iCloud. Synced data is stored in your personal iCloud account (a private CloudKit database) and handled by Apple under Apple's privacy terms. We cannot read, access, or share anything you sync. You can turn sync off at any time in Settings → Sync and keep everything local-only.
AI features are off by default and work with your own OpenAI API key. The app asks for your permission before anything is sent: turning AI on shows exactly what will be shared and with whom, and lets you decline. Until you agree, nothing leaves your device.
When enabled, the content needed for the feature you use (a capture's text, text recognized in your images, or a voice recording for transcription) is sent directly from your device to OpenAI under your own account. Image files themselves are never uploaded: text is recognized on your device first, and only that text is sent. It never passes through our servers. OpenAI processes this data under its API data protections and privacy policy, which provide that API data is not used to train OpenAI's models by default.
Your API key is stored in your device's Keychain. On iPhone, you can also choose on-device transcription, which processes voice notes entirely on your device and sends nothing anywhere.
To help us improve Resurf, the Mac and iPhone/iPad apps collect anonymous product analytics via PostHog. This is optional and can be turned off at any time in Settings on either platform.
Analytics are anonymous by design. We do not create user profiles, we never link events to your name, email, or license, and screen recording and session replay are switched off. Automatic event capture is disabled too, so the app only ever sends the specific events listed below.
When enabled, we collect:
We never send the content of a capture, a note body, a title, a URL, a file name, or the text you typed into search — the number of results is recorded, never the query.
The Mac app uses Sentry to collect crash reports and error data. This helps us identify and fix bugs to improve app stability. The iOS app includes no third-party crash reporting. Crash reports include:
Crash reports never include your captures, notes, images, or any personal content.
The Resurf Chrome extension lets you capture web content directly to your local Resurf library via right-click. When you choose to capture something, the extension reads:
This data is passed directly to the Resurf app on your Mac via a local protocol. It is never sent to our servers, never stored by the extension, and never shared with any third party. The extension only acts on explicit user gestures. It does not run in the background, monitor your browsing, or access pages you haven't interacted with.
If you purchase a license, your license key is validated with our server to activate the app. No personal data is shared during this process.
You can disable analytics at any time. On Mac, go to Settings → General → Analytics. On iPhone and iPad, open Settings and turn off Share anonymous usage analytics. Analytics are enabled by default to help us improve the app. If you prefer not to share any usage data, we recommend turning it off on first launch.
Resurf is operated from Canada. If you are accessing the app from the European Union or another region with data protection laws, the following applies:
If you have any questions about our privacy practices, please contact us at support@resurf.so
© 2026 Resurf.