21-licensing-privacy

Licensing and privacy

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How Iris is sold

Iris is available two ways:

Channel How licensing works
Direct from retina.studio Free time‑limited trial → paid license
Mac App Store Standard App Store purchase

The direct and App Store versions are the same app; only the licensing handling differs.

The trial (direct build)

When you first launch the direct build, you get a full‑featured trial. There's no limit on the number of photos, sources, or features during the trial — just a time limit.

When the trial expires, Iris shows a window asking you to register before you can keep using it. Your library data is untouched; once you register, everything is exactly as you left it.

Registering

  1. Choose Iris → Register Iris….
  2. Enter the email address and serial number from your purchase confirmation.
  3. Click Register.

Iris validates the license against our licensing server. Once validated, your license is stored locally and the registration window closes. You can keep using Iris offline from then on.

If the validation fails, you'll see a specific message — typically a mismatched email or a typo in the serial number. Double‑check both, and reach out to support if you're stuck.

Mac App Store build

If you bought Iris through the Mac App Store, there's no registration step. Apple handles licensing through the App Store.

Privacy at a glance

Iris is designed so that your photos and the things Iris learns about them stay on your Mac.

What stays local

  • All photos and videos — Iris reads them where they are. They are never copied, uploaded, or shared.
  • All metadata — EXIF, ML‑generated tags, OCR text, face embeddings, transcripts. Everything lives on-disk. Nothing is sent to a cloud server, API, or third-party.
  • All processing — Face recognition, content tagging, OCR, transcription all happen using on‑device frameworks. Nothing is sent to a cloud model or API.

What data leaves your Mac

Feature What's sent Where
License validation Your email and serial number retina.studio (direct build only, on registration)
App updates Iris version check retina.studio (direct build only)
Crash reporting Anonymous crash stack traces BugSnag (only if enabled in Privacy settings)
Telemetry Anonymous usage events TelemetryDeck (only if enabled in Privacy settings)

Network access from companion apps

When you enable the API server, Iris speaks HTTP on port 8490 to devices on your local network. It does not open any ports to the public internet. A device on your LAN can only talk to it if you approve a pairing request.

How to Uninstall Iris

To remove every trace of Iris from your Mac:

  1. Quit Iris.
  2. Drag the Iris app from Applications to the Trash.

Then...

For Direct download copies of Iris:

  1. Remove ~/Library/Application Support/Iris/.
  2. Remove ~/Library/Preferences/studio.retina.Iris.plist.

For Mac App Store copies of Iris:

  1. Remove ~/Library/Containers/Iris/.

Your original library files are untouched.

Next: Troubleshooting and FAQ →