Privacy Policy

Focen is built to need as little of your data as possible. This policy explains the little we touch, why, and the control you have. Plain language first; the legal specifics follow.

The short version: Focen runs locally on your computer, with an optional iPhone companion. Your activity (which apps and sites you use) is processed on your device. What leaves your device is a count of how many sites and apps you classify (linked to your account, never which ones), and, only if you turn on anonymized sharing, pooled site or app categories with no link to you. The content of any page never leaves, and your browsing history is not uploaded or stored on our servers. Focen reads only the name of the app you’re on and, in a browser, the address and tab title. It never reads the content of any page. On our servers we keep your email, your subscription tier, and basic subscription and trial status, plus a count of how many sites you classify (never which ones), and any support messages you send us. We will never sell your data.

1. Who we are

Focen (“Focen,” “we,” “us”) is an independent software project based in Massachusetts, United States. For any privacy question, contact support@focen.app.

2. What we process and where

On your device (local-only)

Session detection, distraction monitoring, break enforcement, focus mode, and your session history are all computed and stored locally on your Mac (and, when available, Windows). This data is not transmitted to us and is not stored on any server we control.

What Focen reads on your device

To notice which app or site you’re on, Focen reads the name of the frontmost app and, when that app is a browser, the address (URL) and tab title of the active tab. That is all. It never reads the content of a page, the text you type, your form fields, messages, or documents. On macOS, reading the address of the page you are on asks for the Automation permission for that browser, which is the dialog macOS shows the first time Focen looks; Firefox instead uses the Accessibility permission. Both are granted broadly by the operating system, and Focen chooses to read only the app name, address, and tab title with them.

How Focen blocks a site

When you open a blocked site during a session, Focen replaces that tab with a local Focen page stored on your device and switches you back to your last productive tab. The address of the site you left is kept on your device so it can be restored when the session ends. Focen reads the site’s address to know it is off-limits; it does not read the page, and the page never leaves your computer.

Incognito and private windows

Some browsers tell apps when a window is private. In Chrome, Edge, Brave and Arc, and most browsers on Windows, a private tab's address is used on your computer and sent nowhere. Focen checks it against what your machine already knows: your own work and distraction lists, the built-in lists, and any verdict the AI gave that site on an ordinary visit. A site you have already told Focen to block is still blocked in a private window.

What does not happen there: the address is never sent to the AI classifier, so a site you only ever visit privately is never looked up and never learned; it is not written to your activity history; it earns no focus credit; and it is not shown in the Focen panel. Nothing about a private tab leaves your computer or is recorded on it.

Focen used to ignore private windows completely. That was a stronger promise than it sounds: it also meant a private window was a way around the product entirely, which is not what anyone turning on a focus app wants.

Safari and Firefox on Mac do not expose that signal, so Focen cannot tell one of their private windows apart from a normal one. On the free plan this only affects on-device processing and nothing leaves your computer. On the AI plan, a private Safari or Firefox site's domain, path, and title could be sent for classification like any other site, so keep that in mind if you rely on private browsing there. We are working on detecting private windows in those two browsers as well.

AI plan, and the 7-day trial

When AI classification is on, Focen sends the site’s domain, URL path, and page title to our classification service so it can label a site you haven’t categorized (for example, telling a document on docs.google.com from a video on a streaming site). Today it sends none of these: full query strings, page content, or the text you type. If that ever changes it will be behind its own separate opt-in, off by default, and this page will say so before the code ships. The request is authenticated with your account (a signed token in the request header) so that only paid plans can use the classifier and we can prevent abuse; the site data we send is not tied to a profile of you and is used only to return a category. For a site we don’t recognize, the classifier may additionally look the domain up on its own (for example, searching “what is example.com”) via Google Search to work out what the site is. Only the bare domain is used for that lookup, never the path, title, or page content. This applies on the AI plan and during the 7-day trial that every new account starts with. Classification is on while your plan or trial is active, and you can switch it off at any time in Settings. On the free plan, nothing goes to the classifier.

Classification count

Focen keeps a count of how many sites and apps you classify, per day and in total, linked to your account. This is a number we use for product metrics. It never includes which sites or apps you classify, only how many. This count applies on every plan, including the free plan.

Anonymized sharing (optional, off unless you turn it on)

You can turn on a setting that helps improve Focen by sharing the category of each site or app it classifies, for example that a site was classified as a distraction. This is a desktop-app setting and is off unless you turn it on. When it is on, only the site or app and its category are pooled into a shared database, with no link to you, your account, your device, or your IP. Your IP address is used only for a brief rate check and is never stored with the shared data. You can turn it off at any time in the app. The Focen iPhone app collects and shares none of this.

iPhone companion

The optional iPhone app is a companion to the desktop app. It signs you in to your Focen account and uses Apple’s Screen Time (Family Controls) API, which applies only to your own device. That API gives Focen opaque tokens for the apps you select, not their names, so Focen cannot tell which app you are on, only whether an app you chose is one you asked to treat as a distraction. The iPhone app does not read page content and does not send us the apps or sites you use. If you enable notifications, it registers a device push token with us so we can send focus notifications, and that token is used only for that.

3. Accounts and billing data

Focen requires an account. You sign in with Google or Apple, and we receive your email address from that provider to identify your account. We store your email, subscription tier, and basic subscription and trial status (for example, when your trial started) so we can verify which plan you’re on. We never receive your Google or Apple password.

For payments, Lemon Squeezy acts as our merchant of record and collects the information needed to bill you (such as your email and a payment token). We do not store full card numbers, and we keep billing records only as needed to manage your subscription and meet tax and accounting obligations.

Website

When you click a download button on this site, we record an anonymous download count (platform only). If you contact support or submit a data request, the message you send (including your email) is delivered to us through our website host and kept as long as needed to help you.

Email

We use your email to send account and trial messages: for example a welcome note, a mid-trial summary, a reminder before your trial ends, receipts, and account notices. These are service messages tied to your account and are sent to all account holders. With your separate opt-in, we may also send occasional product updates and tips (marketing email). You can withdraw marketing consent at any time using the unsubscribe link in any email or the “Product updates & tips” toggle in the app; account and trial emails continue regardless. We store your email, your marketing opt-in status, and an unsubscribe token in a mailing-list record. Email is delivered through Resend.

3a. Service providers

A small number of providers process limited data to run Focen. Each receives only what its job requires:

• Supabase:accounts (email, tier, trial status), the mailing list, the download counter, your classification count (a number linked to your account, never which sites), and, if you turn on anonymized sharing, pooled site or app categories with no link to you.
• Resend:delivers account, trial, and (with your opt-in) marketing emails.
• Google (Gemini API + Google Search):on the AI plan only, the domain, URL path, and page title for classification, and, for a site we don’t recognize, the bare domain to look up what the site is.
• Cloudflare:relays those classification and lookup requests to Google; we keep our API keys there, not on your device.
• Lemon Squeezy:payments, as merchant of record.
• Netlify:hosts this website and delivers support and data-request form submissions.
• Apple:on iPhone, delivers focus notifications through the Apple Push Notification service to the device token you register.

4. What we never do

• We never sell or rent your personal information.
• We never serve third-party advertising.
• We never read the content of your pages, messages, or documents. (On the AI plan, the page title and site address are used for classification as described in section 2, never the page itself.)
• We never collect your browsing history tied to you, the contents of any page, or anything you type. The one exception is the day-4 trial email, described below, and it is the only one.
• We never send an incognito or private tab's address to the AI classifier, and never record one in your history, wherever the browser lets us detect that a window is private (see the note in section 2 about Safari and Firefox on Mac).
• On the iPhone, Focen works from the opaque tokens Apple provides and never learns which apps you use, only whether an app you selected is one you asked to block.

What the day-4 trial email contains

Four days into the 7-day AI trial, Focen sends one email showing where it caught you drifting that week. To do that, your computer works out your three most-interrupted sites or apps from the last seven days and puts those names, with a number of minutes, into the email it asks our server to deliver.

This is the only place in Focen where real activity leaves your machine, and we would rather say so plainly than let the sentence above imply otherwise. The ranking is computed on your device, we do not store it, and nothing about it is kept after the email is sent. It is sent once, only during a trial, and only to you.

5. Legal bases (GDPR/UK GDPR)

Where the GDPR applies, we rely on: performance of a contract (to provide the app you subscribe to); legitimate interests (to keep the service secure and working); consent (for any optional analytics); and legal obligation (for tax and accounting records). You may withdraw consent at any time.

6. Your rights

Depending on where you live (including under the GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act), you may have the right to access, correct, delete, port, or restrict processing of your personal data, and to object to certain processing. Because most of your data never leaves your device, you can exercise many of these rights simply by managing or deleting data in the app. For anything held by us (such as billing records), submit a data request. We respond within 30 days and never charge for a first request.

7. Children’s privacy

Focen is for users 13 and older, matching our Terms: it is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you are 13 to 17, use Focen with a parent or guardian’s permission. In some countries their consent may be legally required for an account.

If a parent or guardian believes a child has provided us personal information, contact support@focen.app and we will delete it promptly. A school or parent who installs Focen on a minor’s device is responsible for obtaining any consent required by law. See our Terms for age and parental-consent requirements.

8. Security

We minimize risk by keeping data on your device. Where data does reach us (billing, optional domain classification, support email), it is transmitted over encrypted connections (TLS/SSL) and access is limited to what is necessary. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, but local-first design removes the central honeypot that most breaches rely on.

9. Data retention

On-device data persists until you delete it. Billing records are retained only as long as required for legal and accounting purposes. Domain classification and lookup requests are not retained in a form tied to you. The classification count is kept as an aggregate number linked to your account; any anonymized shared categories are kept with no link to you.

10. International transfers

If you contact us or subscribe from outside the United States, the limited data involved may be processed in the U.S. Where required, we use appropriate safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses.

11. Changes

We may update this policy. Material changes will be reflected by the “last updated” date above and, where appropriate, an in-app or email notice.

12. Contact

Questions or requests: support@focen.app.