Grabster

Privacy

Last updated 4 October 2026

What Grabster reads stays on your Mac. The words you save leave it, one at a time, to be looked up. There are no accounts, no analytics and no tracking.

Who we are

Daria Cheremina, trading as Grabster (eenmanszaak), Leliestraat 5, 3551 AR Utrecht, the Netherlands — [email protected]. We are the controller under the GDPR for the data described here.

What stays on your Mac

Screenshots, the text read from them, the name of the app you grabbed from, and everything you save — words, examples, cards and review history — are processed and stored only on your Mac. We have no copy. If you subscribe, your license key is stored on your Mac, encrypted with a key held in your Keychain.

Looking up a word

For each new word, Grabster sends our lookup service:

• the word, in dictionary form and as it appeared;
• its part of speech, if known;
• its language;
• the language you read definitions in;
• nearby captured text, including subtitle fragments, trimmed and length-capped.

With it go a random install identifier and the app's version number. Never the screenshot, the app you grabbed from, your other words, or anything about who you are.

The service runs on Google Cloud in the EU (Belgium) and passes the request to Anthropic in the United States, whose AI model writes the definition. Anthropic does not use it to train models, and keeps the request for up to 30 days to detect abuse before deleting it. The transfer relies on the EU standard contractual clauses. We do not store the word, and we keep no request logs with IP addresses. Like any server you connect to, Google Cloud sees your IP address to answer the request; we do not record it.

Reporting a problem with a word

Only when you press Send report, Grabster sends our lookup service the word, its language and translation, the problems you ticked, what you wrote, and your email if you give one, with the app's version number. It carries no install identifier and is not passed to Anthropic. Never the screenshot, the app you grabbed from, or the captured sentence. We keep each report for 180 days, then it is deleted.

The install identifier

A random ID created on first launch. It lets us rate-limit the lookup service and block a copy that abuses it. It is in no log; the daily request count is kept under a one-way hash of it and deleted after 48 hours. It is never sent to the license service or to Stripe.

Subscribing

Subscriptions are sold by Link, LLC (Stripe), as the seller. You give your payment details, email and billing address to them in your browser, not to the app; their privacy policy covers that. Stripe shows us the name, email and country of each subscriber, so we can answer billing questions and handle refunds; we do not copy them out of Stripe, and Stripe keeps them under its own policy.

Our license service — separate from the lookup service, with its own account and database — stores for each subscription: the Stripe customer and subscription IDs, plan, status, period end, a hash of your license key, and a random one-time checkout reference. It never receives an install identifier, an email address or a word, and its logs hold only status, timing and event type. The app contacts it to start a checkout, activate, check your status about once a day and fetch prices, sending only your license key or the checkout reference. If you enter a promo code, the app sends the code with a separate random ID used only for promo codes; we store that ID only as a one-way hash, and briefly count failed tries to stop guessing. So we cannot connect a payment or a promo code to the words you look up.

Updates, the website and donations

The app checks updates.grabster.app (hosted on Cloudflare) for new versions with a plain request carrying no identifier; Cloudflare sees your IP address to answer it, as any server does. The website sets no cookies, runs no analytics and embeds nothing from others. If you donate, Stripe processes it; we see the amount and the name and email you give, keep them as long as tax law requires, and cannot link a donation to an installation.

Legal bases

• Contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR): looking up the words you save; providing your subscription.
• Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)): rate-limiting, security, updates and keeping the service working; fixing the problems you report about a word, and replying if you leave an email.
• Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)): tax records.

How long

• Your words and study data: on your Mac, until you delete them.
• Looked-up words: not stored by us.
• Word reports you send: 180 days.
• Daily request counts: 48 hours.
• License records: while your subscription exists, and deleted within 12 months after it ends (sooner if you ask).
• Promo code redemptions: until the promotion is removed.
• Donation records: as long as tax law requires.

Your rights

You may access, correct, erase, restrict, port or object to your personal data, and complain to a data protection authority (in the Netherlands, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens; in the UK, the ICO). Apart from an email you put in a word report, we hold nothing that identifies you from your use of the app. Send us your license key to act on your license record, or your install identifier to delete its counter.

What you must provide

Nothing is required by law. Looking up a word needs the word to be sent; if you are offline or the lookup fails, you can still save and study words on your Mac, without definitions.

Automated decisions

We make no automated decisions about you and build no profile of you.

Children

Grabster is not directed at children under 16.

Changes

If what Grabster sends changes, this page changes with it and the date above moves.

Contact

[email protected] — Daria Cheremina, trading as Grabster, Leliestraat 5, 3551 AR Utrecht, the Netherlands.