A search tool you do not have to trust
because it cannot get anything
The best way to talk about privacy is not a promise but an architecture: Locseek has no network, no account and no telemetry. Your file names and your queries have no physical route off this Mac.
Don't trust us — check
① What it indexes
The index contains names, paths, sizes, and modification and creation times. That is all. File contents never enter the index — which is also why it cannot do full-text search, and that "limitation" is exactly where the privacy comes from.
② What permissions it asks for
Exactly three sandbox entitlements: App Sandbox, read-write access to user-selected files, and app-scoped security bookmarks. No Full Disk Access entitlement, no Accessibility, no Apple Events automation.
And to be precise about "other apps' data": it is excluded by default, only enters the index if you explicitly allow it in Settings (Pro + Full Disk Access), and even then only the file names. Grants can be revoked in System Settings at any time.
③ What the network shows
Indexing and searching make no network requests. Watch it in Activity Monitor's Network tab, or with an outbound firewall — it is as quiet as if it were not there.
These parts were thought through too
| Design | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Cloud directories excluded by default | The local directories of iCloud Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive are one of the four default exclusions. Allowing them takes deliberate action (Pro + Full Disk Access). |
| Names only, even once allowed | Cloud-only placeholder files contribute name and path only, and are never read and never downloaded — no surprise bandwidth, no filled-up disk. |
| "Report an Issue" prefills version data only | The drafted email contains the version, build number, macOS version and chip architecture — no file names, no paths. You can inspect it fully before sending. |
| Learned ranking can be switched off and wiped | Pro's personalized ranking data stays on this machine and never goes online. Settings → General can switch off "Rank by usage habits" or "Clear Usage History…" in one click; "Reset All Local Data…" erases everything. |
| The index directory is invisible to Spotlight | The index lives inside the sandbox container in a directory named Locseek.noindex; the .noindex suffix makes the system skip it, avoiding re-indexing of index files. The app deliberately does not display the full path, so your account name is not exposed. |
| This site is equally tracker-free | No cookies, no analytics. The same standard, from product to website. |
Fast, and not one byte uploaded
The free tier is free forever. Once it is installed, all of this is something you can verify yourself.