Last updated: July 18, 2026
Beacon searches your Mac on your Mac. Your files, messages, notes, mail, calendar events, clipboard, and browsing history are read locally and never uploaded anywhere. The app contains no analytics and no tracking.
Beacon makes exactly two kinds of network requests:
Update checks. The app periodically fetches
beaconmac.com/appcast.xml to see if a new version exists,
and downloads updates from GitHub. No personal data is included.
Site icons. When browser-history results are shown, Beacon fetches favicons directly from the sites you've already visited (never via a third-party service). You can avoid this by not using the History filter.
beaconmac.com is a static site served by Cloudflare. It sets no cookies and runs no analytics.
Searching Messages, Notes, Mail, and Safari history requires macOS Full Disk Access, which you grant (and can revoke) in System Settings. Contacts and Calendar access are requested through the standard macOS permission prompts. All of it is optional — file search works with no permissions at all.