Set Up Your Mac — Privacy

Set Up Your Mac is a family of free macOS apps distributed from Mac Install Guide that diagnose and set up common developer-environment essentials.

This page explains what data Set Up Your Mac apps collect, what they share, and with whom.

What Set Up Your Mac collects

Set Up Your Mac apps collect anonymous usage data to understand how they're being used. Specifically:

• A per-install random session ID (UUID, not tied to your Apple ID, email, or any personal identifier).
• App name and version (e.g., Set Up Your Mac for Java 0.1.0).
• Event names at each step of the diagnose-and-set-up flow (e.g., diagnosis_reached, setup_completed).
• Event data: small contextual details about each event — the diagnosis category, the install method (Homebrew, Adoptium PKG, etc.), a short excerpt of java -version output to verify Java works, and similar non-identifying technical details.

Set Up Your Mac does not collect:

• Your name, email, IP address, or any personally identifying information
• The contents of your shell configuration files (we show you the diff and let you approve every modification, but we don't transmit the file contents)
• Your installed software inventory beyond the specific categories the audit needs to know about (e.g., Java install method, terminal app, AI coding tool, package manager)

How Set Up Your Mac uses this data

The app is measuring three questions:

1. Do Mac Install Guide visitors download and run one of these apps from the article page?
2. Does the diagnose → set up → verify loop work reliably?
3. Do users who get the optional system audit engage with its recommendations?

Anonyomous aggregate counts and per-event details support these measurements. They are also used to identify bugs and prioritize fixes.

Download counting

When you download Set Up Your Mac for Java from downloads.install.guide, we count the download to understand which pages and offers lead people to the app. This is the same no-personal-data posture as the app's usage analytics described above.

Each download is recorded with:

• The product and the page it was downloaded from (e.g., suym-java).
• An offer/campaign label and link placement, so we can tell which call-to-action drove the download.
• Your browser's user-agent string, used to filter out bots.
• A coarse country (such as "US"), derived by our CDN.

Download counting does not record:

• Your IP address, name, email, or any personal identifier
• Any link between a download and an individual — the data is aggregate counts only

What's shared with whom

Warp (terminal app vendor)

Some Set Up Your Mac apps include an optional system audit that recommends Warp as an AI-aware terminal. Though Warp may pay Mac Install Guide a commission for click-throughs and direct installs driven from our content, our recommendation of Warp predates any compensation agreement.

We may share monthly aggregate counts of audit-driven click-throughs and installs — for example, "247 click-throughs and 32 direct installs in June 2026." We do not share per-user data, per-session data, IP addresses, or any other detail beyond the monthly totals.

These audit recommendations are editorial. The recommendation is based on whether Warp is the right tool for our audience. We disclose the commercial relationship inline on the recommendation itself ("We may earn a commission if you install Warp through our app. Our recommendation is editorial.") and in this article.

Mac Install Guide infrastructure

Set Up Your Mac telemetry is hosted on InsForge. Data is retained for 12 months and then deleted.

No third-party analytics

Set Up Your Mac does not use Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Segment, or any other third-party analytics service. The telemetry endpoint is our own server only.

Your choices

• Opt out before installing: simply don't install the app. Mac Install Guide's articles remain free to read; the apps are optional.
• Decline at first launch: each Set Up Your Mac app's first-run consent screen shows you what data will be collected before the app does anything. If you quit the app, no data is sent and the app exits.
• Remove local data: removing the app and clearing its preferences (each app stores state under its own guide.install.mac.* preferences domain) clears all locally stored state. The anonymous session ID gets a new value on next install.

Contact

If you have questions about this policy or the data Set Up Your Mac has collected, email [email protected]. We respond within 5 business days.

Last updated: 2026-06-16.