Privacy
Kin is a local app. This page says exactly what it stores and what can leave your Mac.
Usage statistics
Optional usage sharing in Settings › Data sends panel and feature activity and app version to PostHog with a random installation ID. It never sends contacts, notes, search text, or an account identity. Location enrichment and person profiles are disabled. PostHog receives your IP address as part of the network connection.
Sharing is off by default. Turning it off stops new events and removes the local analytics ID; it does not delete events already received. Enabling it again creates a new ID.
This website uses Vercel Web Analytics for visits and PostHog for download-button clicks. Download events contain the file name, button location, and a new random ID per click, with no cookies or stored visitor ID. We disable person profiles and location enrichment and respect Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control for these events. PostHog receives your IP address with the request. A click does not prove a download completed or the app was installed.
What Kin stores
Apple Contacts remain your address book. Kin reads it and writes your edits back; it never keeps a second copy of your contacts.
Kin’s own additions — notes, tags, links, the timeline, and a 30-day list of the changes Kin made — live in a JSON file inside Kin’s app container on your Mac. Photos you set in Kin are stored there too.
Your contact records are not uploaded to Kin. No account is required. Settings › Data can export or reset that file at any time.
What leaves your Mac
Cloud AI and usage sharing are off until you turn them on. Update checks are described below.
With on-device AI, still nothing: Apple Intelligence runs the model on your Mac.
With your own Claude key, Kin sends Anthropic what a feature needs, under your key, when it runs: the person, their message and the chat’s recent messages when you open a reply; and a note you just saved and that person’s details, when Apple Intelligence isn’t on.
People marked “Keep off cloud AI” are never sent. Your key lives in the macOS Keychain, not in Kin’s data file.
Updates
Kin checks www.kincontacts.com/appcast.xml for new versions (older versions check the same feed at kin-fawn.vercel.app). The check sends the app version and your macOS version — no personal data, no identifier.
You can turn it off in Settings › About.
Contact
Questions about any of this, or something Kin got wrong:
Last updated October 21, 2026