a17lab
Effective 26 August 2026 · Last updated 26 August 2026
This policy explains what Restore Old Photos for macOS (the “app”, listed in your Applications folder as Photo Restoration) does with your data. It is written to describe the app as it actually behaves, not as a generic template.
The short version. Your photos are restored entirely on your Mac and are never uploaded to us or to anyone else. There is no account and no login.
The app connects to the internet for exactly three things: downloading the AI models on first use, sending an anonymous “a photo was restored” counter, and — only if you choose to write to us — sending the feedback form.
All restoration work — cleaning up noise and damage, sharpening and enlarging, and colorizing black and white photos — runs locally on your Mac using Apple’s Core ML framework and your Mac’s own CPU, GPU and Neural Engine.
No image you open, restore or export is ever transmitted off your device, to us or to any third party. No image is uploaded, copied to a server, stored in a cloud, used to train any model, or reviewed by a human.
The app reads and writes only the files you pick yourself in the macOS Open and Save dialogs, or drop onto the window. It runs inside the macOS App Sandbox and has no access to your Photos library or to the rest of your disk.
The AI models are not bundled inside the app. The first time you use a feature that needs
one, the app downloads it from a public GitHub release
(github.com/nguyen-tam/aiimageupscale) — roughly 420 MB for colorize and about 30 MB
each for the clean-up and upscale models. The download is an ordinary file request: it carries
no photo, no personal data, and no identifier we assign. GitHub, as the host, may log the
request under its own
privacy statement.
Once a model is downloaded it is stored on your Mac and reused offline.
After a restoration finishes successfully, the app sends a single small event to our server
at a17lab.com so we can see how often each feature is used. It is sent in the
background, contains no photo and no personal information, and is discarded silently if it
fails. The complete contents are:
| Field | What it contains |
|---|---|
device_id | A random identifier generated by the app on your Mac on first launch. It is not your Apple ID, your device serial number, your Mac’s name, an advertising identifier, or anything supplied by Apple, and it is not linked to your identity. |
event | Which action ran: colorize, denoise, upscale or restore. |
client_version | The app version, e.g. 1.0.0. |
platform | The fixed text mac. |
daily_count | How many restorations this install has completed in total. |
timestamp | The date and time of the event, in UTC. |
We use this only to understand aggregate feature usage and to guide development. It is not used for advertising, is not sold, and is not shared with third parties. It is not used to track you across other apps or websites — the app does no advertising tracking and contains no third-party analytics or advertising SDK.
If you open the feedback form in the app and submit it, we receive the email address, the
message and the suggestions you typed, plus the fixed text mac. We use them only to
read your feedback and reply to you. Sending feedback is entirely optional; the app never sends
this form on its own.
Purchases and subscriptions are handled by Apple through the App Store. Payment happens inside Apple’s system: we never see or receive your name, email address, payment card or billing details. The app asks StoreKit only whether this Apple Account holds a valid purchase, and stores the yes/no answer locally on your Mac. Apple’s handling of your purchase is governed by the Apple Privacy Policy.
The app keeps a small amount of information locally, in its own sandboxed storage. None of it is sent to us except where section 2 says so, and all of it is removed when you delete the app.
Usage events are kept in aggregate for as long as they are useful for product analysis. Feedback messages are kept for as long as needed to handle your request and to keep a record of support history. Everything else lives only on your Mac, under your control.
Depending on where you live — for example under the GDPR in the EEA and the UK, or the CCPA in California — you may have the right to access, correct, delete or obtain a copy of personal data we hold about you, and to object to certain processing. We do not sell or share personal information, and we do not use your data for targeted advertising.
In practice the only data we hold that can be connected to you as a person is what you type into the feedback form. Write to us at the address below and we will delete it on request. Usage events are not linked to your identity and, on their own, cannot be traced back to an individual.
You can stop all outbound data from the app at any time by removing its network access in macOS or by deleting the app; the app will then continue to restore photos offline with the models already downloaded.
The app is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted on this page with a new “Last updated” date. Material changes will be reflected in the app’s release notes.
Questions about this policy, or a request about your data: [email protected]. You can also use Help ▸ Send Feedback inside the app.