Privacy

Your folios stay on your computer. Grindstone sends Epiforge a small daily count of which versions are in use, which you can turn off, and sends a crash report or a message only when you choose to. This topic says exactly what goes out and what never does.

Your workspaces

A folio is a file on your own computer. Grindstone doesn’t upload it, and nothing from it goes to Epiforge: not its name, its work items, its time, its people or its notes. What’s in a folio leaves your computer only when you take it out yourself: by exporting the folio, exporting or copying a view, creating a preset from it, or copying the file. See Workspaces and folios and Exporting.

Usage tracking

So Epiforge can count how many installations there are, which versions and operating systems they run, and how quickly people move to each new release, Grindstone sends a short message, called a ping, at most once a day and once more when it’s updated to a new version. A ping holds only:

• A random number Grindstone made for this installation. It isn’t made from your computer, your name, your account or anything in your workspaces.
• That it’s Grindstone, whether it’s the beta, and its version.
• Which operating system it’s running on and that system’s version, and whether the app and the operating system are x64 or Arm64.
• The language your computer is set to show apps in, even if Grindstone isn’t available in that language.

The first time Grindstone shows Your Workspaces, it shows the switch for usage tracking there, already on, so you can turn it off before anything is sent. Grindstone doesn’t send a ping until you’ve left that screen, and it never interrupts you or slows down to send one.

Turning it off

In Settings, under General, Send Epiforge anonymous usage counts turns usage tracking off. While it’s off, Grindstone sends no pings at all, not even one saying you turned it off. Turning it off also deletes the installation’s random number, so if you turn usage tracking back on later, Grindstone makes a new one, and the pings from before and after can’t be connected.

Reports and messages

Grindstone sends Epiforge a report or a message only when you choose to, every time:

• When something unexpected goes wrong, its notice offers Send a Report….
• After Grindstone crashes, it offers to send a report the next time it starts.
• From Help in Grindstone, you can send a bug report, a feature request or a question.

Before anything goes, Grindstone shows you all of it, and you can change any of it: your message, your name and email address, and the technical details. Without an email address, Epiforge can’t reply to you.

Along with what you write, a report or message from Grindstone includes Grindstone’s version and whether it’s the beta, the operating system and its version, whether Grindstone and the operating system are x64 or Arm64, and the language your computer is set to show apps in. A report about something that went wrong also includes the technical details of the problem, with your app data folder, your home folder, your user name, your computer’s name and the names of your workspace files taken out first.

What Grindstone never sends

• Anything from your workspaces, or the names or locations of your files.
• Your computer’s name, your user account’s name, or identifiers from your computer’s hardware.
• The installation’s random number in a report or message, so they can’t be connected to its pings.
• Your log files. A report carries the technical details of the problem, not the log; to share part of the log, you paste it yourself. See Troubleshooting.

Epiforge doesn’t store your IP address with any of it.

Epiforge’s Privacy Policy covers everything Epiforge collects, including this.

Other connections

On Windows, Windows’ App Installer checks Epiforge’s download site for Grindstone updates. On a Mac, Grindstone checks Epiforge’s download site for updates itself, once a day and whenever you choose Check for Updates. When you open a link in Grindstone, it opens in your web browser.