Plain Air
Privacy policy
Plain Air does not collect, store or share any personal data. It measures your Wi-Fi on your Mac, and it talks only to your router, your Mac’s DNS server and Apple.
What Plain Air reads
- Your Wi-Fi, from macOS. The signal, the noise, the channel and band, the link rate and the security your network uses.
- The networks nearby. Their channel, width and strength, from a scan during a check. Never their names: other people’s network names are never shown.
- Your network’s name, only if you allow Location. macOS shows Wi-Fi names only to apps you allow to use Location. Plain Air never asks for or uses where you are, and it asks only when you press Allow Location. Without it, everything else works.
- Your router’s hardware address, as a hash. It’s turned straight into a salted hash, so Plain Air can tell your networks apart. The address itself is never stored, shown or sent.
- Never the list of networks your Mac remembers, and never the other devices on your network: Plain Air doesn’t look for them.
What Plain Air sends
To time your connection, Plain Air has to use it:
- Your router: small pings, or a connection if it ignores pings, to time your Wi-Fi.
- Your Mac’s DNS server: a few name lookups, to time how fast names are found.
- Apple’s check page (
captive.apple.com): the same page macOS loads when you join a network, to time your internet and see whether a sign-in page is in the way. - Apple’s speed test: macOS’s own
networkQualitytest, only when you press Test Speed. On a fast line it moves 0.5–1 GB, so it never runs on its own, on a hotspot or in Low Data Mode. - Keep watching when closed, if you turn it on: about 13 small packets every 30 seconds to your router and Apple. It never scans.
None of it comes to us. Plain Air has no account, no analytics, no advertising and no crash reporting service, and no server of ours. We never see your readings, your network or its name.
What Plain Air changes
Nothing. It never changes a setting on your Mac or your router, and never logs in to your router. Its buttons only open a place: your router’s own page in your browser, a pane of System Settings, or the network’s sign-in page.
Stored on your Mac
Your settings, the names you give your networks, your earlier checks (for 90 days) and the watch log (for 30 days) stay in Plain Air’s own storage on your Mac. A report is saved only where you choose, as a PDF, or copied as text when you press Copy as Text.
Watching
Keep watching when closed, Show in the menu bar and Open at login are off until you turn them on in Settings.
Purchases
The optional unlock is handled by Apple through the App Store. We don’t receive your payment details. Apple’s privacy policy applies to purchases.
Contact
Questions about privacy: use the support form.