Permissions
What Tinycast asks for, why, and the moment it asks.
Tinycast asks for a permission only when you use a feature that needs it, never at launch. The launcher, the calculator, the emoji picker and search all work with no permission at all.
Settings → Permissions shows where Accessibility and Calendars stand, and opens the right System Settings pane for you.
Accessibility
macOS calls this "control your computer". In Tinycast it lets the app read from, and write to, the window you were using before the palette opened.
Grant it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, or from Settings → Permissions.
What needs it
| Feature | Why |
|---|---|
| Clipboard and emoji paste | Puts the item into the app you came from |
| Snippets | Notices the keyword you type, then inserts the text |
| Quick Actions | Reads your selected text and replaces it |
| Window management and layouts | Reads and sets other apps' window frames |
| Navigation | Lists open windows and presses menu bar items |
| Hyper key | Turns one physical key into a modifier chord |
| Double-tap modifier shortcuts | Notices the tap pattern |
| ⌘esc back to the root search | macOS keeps this chord for itself unless we catch it |
getSelectedText in extensions | Reads the selection from the front app |
Snippets and keystroke matching
Snippet keyword expansion is the one feature that watches what you type, so here are the exact rules.
- Snippets ship off. Turning them on shows an explanation first, and that switch is your consent. There is no separate one.
- Matching happens only on your Mac. Keystrokes are never stored and never sent anywhere.
- The typing buffer holds at most 256 characters. It resets when you switch apps, press a shortcut with a modifier, when Secure Event Input is on, and after 15 seconds of no typing.
- Tinycast uses a listen-only event tap under the Accessibility grant. It does not use Input Monitoring.
- A settings backup can never turn it on. Importing a file someone sent you cannot switch on keystroke listening.
Calendars
The Calendar feature reads your events to find meeting links.
Turning it on shows Tinycast's own explanation first, then the macOS prompt. The feature only counts as on once macOS says yes. If you said no earlier, Settings → Permissions sends you to the right System Settings pane to change it.
Events are read on your Mac and nothing leaves it.
Camera
Open Camera and the optional camera preview before a meeting ask for the camera the first time you use them. Nothing touches the camera until then, and the camera turns off as soon as the preview closes.
Automation and Bluetooth
A few actions trigger their own macOS prompt the first time you run them:
- Show Info in Finder in the uninstaller, and some system actions, drive other apps through Apple Events. That raises the standard Automation prompt.
- Toggle Bluetooth raises the Bluetooth prompt.
If you say no, Tinycast tells you and links to the right System Settings pane instead of silently doing nothing.
Full Disk Access
Tinycast checks for Full Disk Access but never asks for it.
The uninstaller checks quietly to work out which files it can move.
Without the grant, protected places like ~/Library/Containers, ~/Library/Group Containers and
~/Library/Cookies show as locked rows instead. The worst case is a row you clear by hand.
What Tinycast never needs
- File access for File Search. File Search reads the Spotlight index macOS already keeps. If Spotlight has not indexed something, you get fewer results, not a prompt.
- Screen Recording. The window switcher reads window titles through Accessibility.
- Location. The calculator picks your currency from your Mac's region setting.
- Input Monitoring. Snippets listen under Accessibility, as described above.