Your work stays on your Mac.
How Needed Tools, the Needed Vault iPhone app and this website handle your information, in plain words.
Last updated 28 September 2026
- Your projects, stills, films, designs, invoices and contacts are kept in folders on your own Mac. We never receive them.
- When you sign in, we keep your name, email address and an account ID, so we know who you are.
- Payments are handled by Lemon Squeezy. We never see your card.
- There are no ads, no tracking and no analytics, and we never sell your information or use it to train AI.
- You can ask us to delete your account at any time.
Who we are
Needed Tools is made by This Was Needed, the studio of Nathan Burland, based in London and Toronto. In this policy, “we” and “us” mean This Was Needed. We decide how the information described here is used and are responsible for it.
Questions or requests: privacy@thiswasneeded.info.
What stays on your Mac
Needed Tools (Vault, Grab, Sort, Design, Pay and the project pages) works with folders you choose on your own Mac. All of the following stays there. It isn't uploaded to us, and we can't see it:
- your vault, projects, stills, films, GIFs, moods, treatments and designs
- invoices, clients, rates and the Pay ledger
- your details (name, company, address, phone, website), used on your invoices and pages
- contacts you add to a project
- app settings, labels, tags and colour palettes
Your email app password, if you add one in Pay, is kept in your Mac’s Keychain. Your sign-in session is kept in a file only your Mac user account can read (~/Library/Application Support/NeededTools).
Backups, Time Machine and iCloud Drive work as you’ve set them up on your Mac. We don’t add any cloud storage of our own.
Signing in
You sign in with Google or Apple. Their own sign-in page opens in your Mac’s secure sign-in window, and Needed Tools never sees your Google or Apple password.
What we receive and keep
- Your email address and name, as Google or Apple share them
- An account ID and which service you signed in with
- Sign-in records kept by our sign-in provider: when you signed in and when your session was renewed
We use these to know who you are, keep you signed in, link you to your subscription, and help if you contact us. The app also fills your email into your details, as the default address Pay sends your invoices from. You can change it at any time.
If you choose Apple’s Hide My Email, we receive a private relay address instead of your real one. It’s never used as the address your invoices come from.
Sign-in is run for us by Supabase, which stores the account details above on our behalf.
Paying
Subscriptions are sold by Lemon Squeezy, which acts as the merchant of record. That means they take the payment, handle tax and send your receipts. Your card details go to Lemon Squeezy and its payment processors, never to us.
From Lemon Squeezy we can see your name, email address, country, which plan you’re on, and your payment and renewal history.
To keep your licence active, the app checks your licence key with Lemon Squeezy about once a week. The check sends only the key and a random ID for your Mac, which lets you move between Macs. Nothing about your work is included.
When a feature reaches another service
A few features connect to other services, and only when you use them. In each case the information goes directly from your Mac to that service, not through us.
| Feature | What’s sent, and to whom |
|---|---|
| Sending an invoice | The email and its PDF go out through your own email account (Gmail, iCloud, Outlook or your own mail server), or through the Mail app if you choose Open in Mail. |
| Grab | A link you paste is used to fetch that video from the site it’s on (for example YouTube or Vimeo). That site’s own terms and privacy policy apply. |
| Address suggestions | As you type an address in Pay, the text is sent to Apple Maps to suggest matches. |
| Claude and Codex | If you connect them, Needed Tools is reachable only from other apps on your own Mac. Whatever those apps read through it, and whatever you ask them, goes to Anthropic or OpenAI under your own account with them and their privacy policies. Nothing is shared unless you connect and use them. |
| Needed Vault on iPhone | Grabs stay on your phone until you send them to your Mac over your own Wi-Fi. They don’t pass through the internet or through us. If you allow it, the app reads the photos you choose. |
What we don’t do
- No advertising, and no advertising or tracking code in the app.
- No analytics or usage tracking in the app.
- We don’t sell, rent or trade your information.
- We don’t use your work or your information to train AI.
- We don’t read your projects. They never reach us.
This website
thiswasneeded.info is hosted by Netlify, which keeps standard server logs (such as IP address, browser and pages requested) for security and to keep the site running. The site loads its typefaces from Google Fonts, so your browser also contacts Google. The site uses no cookies of its own and no analytics.
The Needed Vault page on this site (/vault/) keeps what you grab in your phone’s own browser storage until you send it to your Mac.
Who helps us
These services process information for us only as described above:
- Supabase: sign-in and account details
- Google and Apple: sign-in, when you choose them
- Lemon Squeezy: payments, subscriptions and licence keys
- Netlify: hosting this website
Some of them store information outside your country, including in the United States. Where the law requires it, the transfer is covered by safeguards such as standard contractual clauses.
How long we keep it, and deleting it
We keep your account details for as long as you have an account. If you ask us to delete your account, we delete your sign-in details within 30 days.
Lemon Squeezy keeps payment and tax records for as long as the law requires, which is usually several years.
Signing out on a Mac removes the session from that Mac. Deleting the app doesn’t touch your vault; your work stays in your folders until you delete it.
Your rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- show you what we hold about you
- correct it
- delete it
- send it to you in a portable format
You can also object to or limit how we use it. Email privacy@thiswasneeded.info and we’ll reply within 30 days.
We use your information because it’s needed to provide what you signed up for (your account and subscription), and for our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure.
If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, you can complain to your data protection authority: in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office; in Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner; in the EU, your local authority.
Children, security and changes
Needed Tools is made for working professionals and isn’t intended for anyone under 16.
Sign-in uses secure, encrypted connections and never gives the app your password. Account details are held by our providers under their security measures, and on your Mac they’re readable only by you. No system is perfectly secure, but we keep what we hold to the minimum.
If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top. If a change is significant, we’ll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.