Privacy

Last updated October 11, 2026.

Expando is a Mac app sold by High5 Labs LLC. It has no account, no server holding your snippets, and no analytics. This page says exactly what the app does and does not do with your information, and what happens when you buy it.

What stays on your Mac

Your snippets, their abbreviations, labels, tags and notes are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Expando as plain JSON files. So are your settings, your daily backups and the expansion log. We cannot read any of it, and none of it comes to us.

Expando watches keystrokes in order to notice its own abbreviations. What you type is held in memory in a 64-character buffer and is never written to disk, never transmitted, and discarded when the app quits. Expansion never happens in a password field, on the lock screen, or while another app has a password field open (macOS calls this Secure Input).

The expansion log records that a snippet expanded, in which app, by which mechanic, how long it took, and how many characters were involved. It never records the text of an abbreviation or an expansion. You can set how long it is kept, or clear it, in Settings, then Expansion.

Suggested snippets, if you turn the feature on, count repeated phrases in memory only. Nothing captured is written to disk, backed up or synced, and it is gone when Expando quits. Terminals, password managers, apps you have turned expansion off in, and anything typed while another app has a password field open are never watched at all.

The only times Expando uses the network

By default, two things: claiming your license once, and the daily update check. Everything else is off until you turn it on.

1. Claiming your license, once. When you activate a key, Expando writes one record to its own iCloud container through your iCloud account, which is how one license covers every Mac signed in to your Apple Account. The record holds a hash of the key and an iCloud user id that Apple issues for Expando alone and that means nothing outside it. Nothing else: not the key, not your email, not your order.
2. The update check. Once a day, Expando asks our update feed whether there is a newer version. The request carries the version you are running and nothing else. Turn it off in Settings, then About.

Everything else is off until you turn it on:

1. Sync. Through your own iCloud, where snippet groups go to the private database of your iCloud account, encrypted end to end, or through a folder you choose that another service keeps in step (Dropbox, iCloud Drive, a NAS). Either way your snippets do not come to us. App rules, shortcuts, keys and other settings stay on each Mac.
2. An AI snippet, while it is expanding. If you write a snippet that asks a model, the instruction goes to Anthropic or OpenAI with your own API key, on your own account. It happens only while that snippet expands, and it sends only that snippet’s instruction. We have no key, no proxy and no visibility.

Tester builds, which go only to beta testers, also check in with expando.app when they launch and every four hours, with the version and a random id made on the Mac, so a leaked copy can be switched off. Builds sold to customers do not contain this check.

There is no account, no telemetry, no crash reporting service, no advertising identifier and no analytics of any kind.

Buying

Purchases are handled by Paddle.com Market Limited, which is the merchant of record. Paddle collects your email address and payment details and handles tax; we receive your email address and an order reference so we can send your license key and answer support. We do not receive your card details. Paddle's privacy notice covers what they do with it.

Your license key is verified on your Mac. Beyond the one claim above, Expando does not phone home to check it, count your Macs, or report that you launched it.

Email

If you write to us, we keep the message so we can answer it. Writing to us does not add you to a mailing list.

If you sign up for the newsletter on expando.app, we keep that address, when you signed up, and whether you have unsubscribed, and we send to it through Resend. We use it only for news about Expando. Every newsletter email has a one-click unsubscribe, and once you use it we stop sending.

Your choices

Everything Expando stores is a file you own, and you can read, move, export or delete it yourself. Deleting ~/Library/Application Support/Expando removes every trace of your library from the Mac. To have us delete a support email or your purchase record, write to support@expando.app.

Children

Expando is not directed at children under 13 and collects nothing from anyone.

Changes

If this notice changes in a way that matters, the release notes for that version will say so.

Who we are

High5 Labs LLC, 4030 Wake Forest Road, Ste 349, Raleigh, NC 27609, United States. support@expando.app.