Sortroom Privacy Policy
Sortroom: Photo Organizer (“Sortroom”) is made by Nabil Ahmed Emon (“we”), an independent developer. Effective 5 October 2026.
The short version
- Sortroom has no account, no Sortroom server, no analytics and no tracking. We don’t collect any data about you or your photos.
- Your photos stay where they are. Sortroom reads them on your Mac and never uploads them.
- Two things can send data off your Mac, and both are off until you turn them on: iCloud sync (to your own iCloud account) and the Claude integration (through Claude Desktop, which you install and control).
What Sortroom stores, and where
| Data | Where it’s kept |
|---|---|
| Your labels: status (post-worthy, private…), categories, edit marks, the post log, custom place names | In a .sortroom folder on the drive or folder you added, and in Sortroom’s storage on your Mac |
| Photo details Sortroom reads (capture date, camera, size, GPS position) and on-device image analysis results | Same places, as a cache |
| Thumbnails | A cache on your Mac (up to 500 MB, clear any time in Settings) |
| Preferences | Your Mac’s standard app preferences |
Image analysis (categories, finding people) uses Apple’s Vision framework on your Mac. Place names come from a list built into the app, so looking up a place never goes online.
Sortroom only renames and moves files after you approve, never changes the image data inside a file, and never deletes a file. If “Show categories and status as Finder tags” is on, Sortroom adds Finder tags to your files.
Optional: iCloud sync
If you turn on iCloud sync (off by default), your labels are copied to your own private iCloud storage using Apple’s CloudKit, so your other Macs can use them. Your photos themselves are not uploaded. We cannot see this data. Apple’s privacy policy applies to iCloud: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/.
Optional: Claude integration
The Claude connection is off until you click Install in Claude Desktop (or turn it on in Settings). Then, while Sortroom is open, it runs a small server that only accepts connections from your own Mac (127.0.0.1), and only with a secret key built into the extension you install. Claude Desktop can then ask Sortroom for photo information, and anything Claude Desktop receives is sent to Anthropic under your agreement with Anthropic. Turn it off any time in Settings ▸ Claude & Privacy.
What Claude can receive:
- File names, folders, dates, camera details, your labels, and the city and country of a photo (never GPS coordinates, never your custom place names; you can turn place names off).
- Small previews (at most 512 pixels) only if you turn that on in Settings (off by default). By default no previews are sent of photos with people in them, or of photos not yet checked for people.
- Never anything in a folder you marked Private.
Claude can only suggest changes. Nothing is renamed or moved until you approve it in Sortroom. Anthropic’s privacy policy: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy.
Other things to know
- Crash reports: if you choose to share analytics with app developers in macOS settings, Apple may send us anonymous crash reports. We use them only to fix bugs.
- Open in Maps hands a photo’s position to Apple Maps when you click it.
- Children: Sortroom doesn’t collect data from anyone, including children.
- Deleting your data: remove a folder in Sortroom’s settings and delete its
.sortroomfolder, clear the thumbnail cache in Settings, turn off iCloud sync and delete Sortroom’s iCloud data in System Settings ▸ [your name] ▸ iCloud, and delete the app.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. Questions: support@sortroom.app.