Privacy

Effective September 17, 2026. LightTable is published by Chonkers LLC.

What stays on your computer

LightTable reads the photos and folders you choose and does all of its image processing on your computer. Its catalog can hold file paths, camera details, capture dates, GPS coordinates already in your photos, keywords, ratings, edits and thumbnails. Preferences, logs and caches are stored there too. Exports and optional metadata sidecar files go wherever you save them.

None of this is sent to us. If you keep photos or catalogs in a cloud-synced or network folder, that storage service handles those files under its own policies.

Uninstalling LightTable leaves your photos, catalogs and preferences in place so you don't lose work by accident. Delete them yourself if you want them gone.

Face matching

People is off until you turn it on. When you do, LightTable downloads its face-analysis model files from GitHub. That download doesn't include your photos. Matching then runs on your computer and stores face thumbnails, numerical descriptions of faces, suggested groups and any names you enter in your local catalog.

Face descriptions can be sensitive personal information. They stay on your computer and are never sent to us. Pausing People stops new matching but keeps existing face data. Use “Delete face data…” in People to clear it.

Crash reports

When a released LightTable first opens, it asks whether it may send crash reports to its developers. It sends nothing unless you choose Send Crash Reports. Closing the question without choosing asks again next time. You can change your answer whenever you like with Send crash reports in Settings → General; turning it off also discards any report that has not been sent.

With reports on, LightTable sends a report the next time it starts after the app or its rendering engine crashed. A report holds only technical facts: the LightTable version and build, your operating system and its version, processor type and count, memory, and on a Mac the model identifier such as Mac16,10. It says which part crashed, how it ended, whether LightTable was decoding, rendering or exporting, and where in the program's own code the crash happened, meaning function names, file names of LightTable's code and line numbers. On a Mac it can include the stack that macOS recorded, with symbol and library names.

A report never includes your photos, photo metadata, file or folder names, paths, catalog contents, log text or anything you typed, and it carries no identifier for you or your computer. You can read the same information locally: on a Mac, Help → Report a Problem… shows the full diagnostic report, which stays on your computer unless you email it yourself.

Reports go to reports.lighttable.app, a small service we run on Cloudflare, which files them as issues in a private repository on GitHub so we can group and fix them. It doesn't store your IP address; it uses a salted, daily hash of it in memory to limit abuse, and keeps no request logs. Cloudflare and GitHub handle the traffic under their own policies (Cloudflare Privacy Policy, GitHub Privacy Statement). A report that can't be sent waits on your computer and is discarded after two weeks.

When the app connects to the internet

• Update checks. LightTable checks its signed update feed on GitHub for new versions and downloads an update when one is available. You can turn this off with “Automatically check for updates” in Settings. If you installed LightTable through an app store or package manager, that service may handle updates instead, under its own privacy policy.
• Community presets. Opening the Community collection or downloading a preset fetches the preset list and files from lighttable.app.
• Face-matching models. Downloaded from GitHub the first time you turn on People, as described above.
• Crash reports. Sent only if you turned them on, as described above.
• Maps. If you choose to open a photo's location on a map, LightTable opens Apple Maps in your browser with that photo's latitude and longitude in the link.
• Links you open. Help, support, preset author and project links take you to those websites.

Apart from a crash report you agreed to send, these requests only download files. None of them sends your photos, edits or catalog. Like any internet request, they reveal ordinary connection information such as your IP address to the service that answers them, which is GitHub for updates, presets and models. GitHub may keep its own logs under the GitHub Privacy Statement. We don't receive visitor logs from GitHub. We can see the total download counts GitHub shows for release files, not who downloaded them.

Your operating system, and components such as Microsoft WebView2 on Windows, have their own privacy settings and policies.

Contacting us and contributing

If you email hello@lighttable.app, we receive what you send and use it to reply. Issues and preset submissions on GitHub are public. LightTable logs can contain file names and folder paths, so check a log before attaching it, and don't attach photos you don't want to share.

Website analytics

We use Google Analytics on lighttable.app to understand which pages people visit, how they find the site, and which app and preset download links they click.

The site works the same if your browser or a content blocker prevents Google Analytics from loading.

Google Analytics receives website interaction data, page addresses, referral information, and browser and device information. It uses cookies to distinguish visits. Our page-view configuration omits URL query strings and fragments, and we disable Google signals and advertising personalization. We do not send your name, email address, photos, or LightTable catalogs through this tracking.

This tracking applies to the website. It does not add analytics to the LightTable desktop application.

See Google’s privacy policy and how Google uses data from partner sites.

Changes and questions

If LightTable's data practices change, we'll update this page and its effective date. Questions: hello@lighttable.app.