Privacy
Short version: Menu Band has no analytics, advertising, account, or automatic crash reporting.
What Menu Band collects
Nothing about you. No analytics, no usage telemetry, no automatic crash reporting, no account, and no identifiers.
Network features
- Direct-download update check. The direct-download build fetches a small JSON manifest from
https://assets.aesthetic.computer/menuband/latest.jsonat most once an hour. It contains no identifier for you, your Mac, or your install. The Mac App Store build does not perform this check; the App Store handles its updates. - Direct-download crash report upload. If macOS has captured a Menu Band crash log, the direct-download build can show a Send button. Nothing is uploaded unless you press it. The Mac App Store build does not read or upload system crash logs.
- Content you open. Radio streams, KidLisp TV, and pages from aesthetic.computer connect only when you choose those features. These ordinary web requests include the network information your operating system sends with any request, such as your IP address and user agent, but Menu Band adds no account or install identifier.
What Menu Band stores locally
A handful of preferences in UserDefaults on your own Mac: which input mode you last used, the selected General MIDI patch, the octave shift, and whether MIDI output is enabled. None of this leaves your machine.
Permissions Menu Band may request
Accessibility access. The direct-download build asks only when you enable global Notepat or Ableton typing. The Mac App Store build never asks: typing works locally while Menu Band is active. Menu Band uses keystrokes solely to play notes; nothing is recorded, logged, or transmitted.
TrackDrum helper. This optional, separately downloaded helper reads normalized trackpad contacts only while Menu Band has armed its performance surface. During that session it hides the pointer and blocks mouse buttons, context clicks, scrolling, and gestures from reaching other apps. Escape or another double-tap of Command always exits. It sends at most 16 contact positions over a loopback connection on your Mac. It has no audio engine, instrument window, analytics, internet connection, or file access, and it does not require an Accessibility grant.
Third parties
The update manifest and crash endpoint are operated by aesthetic.computer; user-opened radio or web content connects to the named stream or website. There are no third-party analytics, advertising, or data-sharing services. Audio and MIDI use Apple's built-in CoreMIDI and AVAudioEngine. The virtual MIDI source named Menu Band is published to your Mac's CoreMIDI server so DAWs on your Mac can receive notes — that traffic is local-only.
Children
Menu Band does not collect data about users, so there is nothing to disclose about users of any age.
Changes
If anything else ever leaves your Mac (say, an opt-in cloud feature), this page will be updated and the change called out in the app's release notes. The default will always be: as little as possible, and never without your knowledge.
Contact
Email: [email protected] · Web: aesthetic.computer