Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-04-26

What this app does

YouTube Desktop is a desktop wrapper around youtube.com. When you watch videos, sign in, comment, subscribe, or do anything else on YouTube, your data flows directly between your computer and Google. We do not see, intercept, or store that data.

What we collect

Device telemetry (opt-out)

On launch and every five minutes the app sends a minimal payload to our backend:

• A locally derived device identifier (hash of hostname + OS + arch)
• App version, OS version, architecture, system locale
• Uptime in seconds

We use this to estimate the active user base, plan rollouts, and detect crashes. You can disable it in Settings → Privacy. No content from YouTube and no personal data are included.

Crash reports (opt-out)

If the app crashes, we send a crash dump to Sentry (sentry.io). Stack traces and breadcrumbs are included. URLs visited inside the YouTube webview are not included. You can disable crash reporting in Settings → Privacy.

Product analytics (opt-out)

Optional anonymous events (e.g. "update_downloaded", "app_started") are sent to PostHog when telemetry is enabled. No video titles, channel IDs, or user identifiers are included.

What we do NOT collect

• YouTube cookies, session tokens, or any account data
• The URLs or video IDs you watch
• Search queries, comments, or any input you type into youtube.com

Cookies

Your YouTube login cookies are stored locally by Electron in the standard Chromium profile directory. They never leave your machine. Removing the app via Windows uninstaller removes these cookies along with it.

Third-party services

• YouTube / Google — content delivery and your account
• Sentry — crash reporting (opt-out)
• PostHog — anonymous product analytics (opt-out)

Contact

Questions? Email privacy@ytdesktop.app.