Privacy

Android Link runs between your Mac and your Android devices. You sign in with your Google account so your devices can find each other; what you use Android Link for goes only between your devices, end-to-end encrypted. There are no analytics.

The short version. Everything the apps carry (notifications, messages, calls, your clipboard, files, the camera picture, the screen) goes directly between your Mac and your device, encrypted with keys only they hold. Google's Firebase helps them find each other and start the connection; it sees which of your devices are signed in and when they connect, never what they carry.

What the apps handle, and where it goes

Each feature works only after you turn it on, and each one you turn on moves the data below between your linked Mac and device and nowhere else.

Feature	What moves	From	To
Extend	The Mac's extended display as video; your touches	Mac	Device
Mirror	The device's screen as video; clicks and keys when you control it	Device	Mac
Pointer and keyboard	Your Mac's mouse movements, clicks and keys, when you move onto the device	Mac	Device
Notifications and messages	The notifications your phone shows, including message text and sender; your replies	Phone	Mac
Calls	Who is calling and the call's state, your call history and contacts; answer, decline and dial	Phone	Mac
Clipboard	Text and images you copy	Either	The other
Files	The folders and files in the device's shared storage that you open or copy in Finder	Device	Mac
Camera	The phone camera's picture while a Mac app uses it as a webcam	Phone	Mac

A copy that the app you copied from marks as sensitive (a password manager, say) is never sent. Android Link never asks for SMS permission: messages come from the notifications your phone already shows you.

How the connection is protected

Each Mac and device has its own key. A new device joins only when you allow it on a Mac or device you already use; being signed in to your Google account is not enough. From then on, every connection proves both keys and is encrypted with keys made for that connection alone, using the Noise Protocol Framework (X25519 key agreement, AES-256-GCM). A Mac or device you haven't allowed gets nothing, and neither do Google nor anyone relaying the connection.

Your Google account, and what Google sees

Android Link needs you to sign in with the same Google account on your Mac and your devices. It asks Google only for your email address. It uses Google's Firebase to introduce your devices to each other and to wake a phone when you press Connect beside it on the Mac. Firebase keeps, under your account and readable only by your devices:

Each device signed in: its name, kind (Mac, phone or device), its public key and the token Google uses to wake it.
For a moment while two devices start a connection, the details they exchange (network addresses among them), sealed with keys only those two devices have, then deleted.
For each device you removed or signed out, when and from which device, until it signs in again.

Google therefore sees your account, which of your devices are signed in, when they connect and from which network addresses, and the size and timing of what Firebase holds, but none of what Android Link carries. To find a direct way between your devices away from home, the apps also ask Google's STUN servers for their own public address; nothing else goes to them. Signing out on a device removes it from Firebase.

What stays on your Mac and your devices

The keys that identify your Mac and your devices to each other, the list of devices you allowed, and your Google sign-in: in the Mac's Keychain, and on the device encrypted with a key the device's secure key store holds.
Your settings for each device and feature.
Message history, if you turn it on: kept on the phone so the Mac can show whole conversations, with a copy on the Mac of the conversations it shows. Delete it from the phone's settings at any time.
App icons and contact pictures the Mac shows, as a cache.

Uninstalling the Android app deletes everything it kept. On the Mac, "Reset Android Link…" in Settings deletes everything the Mac app kept, and makes the devices that are connected forget the Mac too. "Remove" on the Devices page removes one device, and signing out removes this one from your account.

Permissions, and why

Each one is asked for when you turn on the feature that needs it, never at launch, and the rest of the app keeps working without the ones you decline.

Permission	Where	Used for
Notification access	Android	Showing the phone's notifications and messages on the Mac, and replying from there
Phone, contacts and call log	Android	Naming callers, showing your call history, and dialling from the Mac
Camera	Android	The phone as the Mac's webcam
All files access	Android	Showing the device's shared storage in Finder
Screen sharing	Android	Mirror: showing the device's screen on the Mac
Accessibility	Android	Pointer and keyboard: drawing the Mac's pointer and carrying out its clicks and keys. It reads nothing on screen
Screen recording	Mac	Extend: sending the extended display to the device
Accessibility	Mac	Extend: turning your touches on the device into clicks and drags on the Mac
Local network	Mac	Connecting straight to your devices when they are on the same network as the Mac

This website

androidlink.app sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads nothing from anyone else: even the typeface is served from here. It is hosted on Amazon Web Services, with no access logs turned on. Your light or dark choice is remembered in your browser only.

Who makes it

Android Link is made by Filip Drabik. Questions about this page or your data: email hello@androidlink.app.

Last updated 1 November 2026. Any change to what the apps do with your data will be described here before it ships.