Effective date: March 26, 2026
PaperClip is a two-app system: an iPad app for handwriting with Apple Pencil, and PaperClip Receiver, a free companion Mac app that receives your drawings. Your privacy is simple: neither app collects any data.
Your drawings are saved as files in the app's private, sandboxed storage on your iPad. They are not uploaded anywhere and are not accessible to other apps.
When you tap Send on iPad, PaperClip transmits your drawing directly to PaperClip Receiver on your Mac over peer-to-peer Wi-Fi (Apple Wireless Direct Link). The companion app places the image on your Mac clipboard so you can paste it anywhere.
The transfer happens entirely over your local network — no data passes through Apple's servers, iCloud, or any external server. Your drawings never leave the direct connection between your iPad and your Mac.
Both apps use Apple's Network framework to discover each other via Bonjour on your local network. The iPad app will request Local Network permission the first time you use the Send feature. This permission is used solely for the peer-to-peer connection with your Mac — no other network communication occurs.
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted at this URL with a new effective date.
Questions about this policy? Open an issue at github.com/andallen/paperclip/issues.