Privacy.
Without the guesswork.

Your editing and source files

Editing and video export run on your Mac. Your original media files are not modified. If you explicitly request transcription with ElevenLabs or use an external AI service, the data required for that task is sent to that provider. Its terms and costs apply.

Your CutZal account

You can import and edit without an account. CutZal asks you to sign in with Google before you export a video, and when you want to use CutZal credits for transcription or sound effects, or claim an available feedback reward. Signing up is free, and the first sign-in creates your account. If our sign-in service can't be reached, that export continues without an account. We need an account so that benefits such as free transcription credits go to one person, and so that paid features can be tied to you later.

When you sign in, we receive and store your Google account ID, name, email address, whether Google has verified that email, and your profile picture link. We only request the basic sign-in permissions (openid, email, profile). We do not read your Gmail, Drive, contacts, or any other Google data. Tokens Google returns during sign-in are stored encrypted and are not used to access your Google account afterwards.

Each sign-in also creates a session record with an expiry date, the IP address, and the app's user agent. Sessions last up to 60 days and are extended while you use the app. Signing out ends the session on our server when you are online.

Account data is stored with Cloudflare (Workers and D1), which runs our sign-in service. It is used only to sign you in and to operate CutZal features for your account. It is not sold, not used for advertising, and not linked to analytics identifiers.

On your Mac, the app keeps your session and a short sign-in record (account ID, name, email, last check time) encrypted with the macOS Keychain. This lets you keep editing when you are offline or our service is unavailable. Signing out removes them from the app. It does not delete your projects, transcripts, or settings on your Mac.

To delete your account and its server records, choose “A privacy question” in our Tally form and include the email you signed in with. You can also remove CutZal's access at any time from your Google Account's third-party connections page.

Transcription with CutZal credits

Signed-in accounts receive monthly transcription credits. Transcription only starts when you choose it. When you use credits, the app extracts only the audio track from your media, compresses it, and sends it to our transcription service on Cloudflare Workers. That service forwards the audio to ElevenLabs for speech-to-text and returns the result to your Mac. The video track and your original files are never sent.

Our service handles the audio in memory only and does not store it. Once ElevenLabs returns the transcript, we ask ElevenLabs to delete its copy of the transcript. ElevenLabs' handling of the audio is subject to its own privacy policy. The transcript is saved only on your Mac, next to your project.

For each credit transcription we keep a usage record: your account ID, the audio length and the seconds charged, the result, the time, and a fingerprint (a one-way hash) of the audio. We use the fingerprint to recognize a retry of the same audio so that it is not charged twice. The record does not contain audio or transcript text. We use it to count your monthly credits and to keep total service costs within a limit.

If you add your own ElevenLabs API key, the app sends audio directly to ElevenLabs under your account and does not use CutZal credits. In that case CutZal does not ask ElevenLabs to delete the transcript, and the terms of your ElevenLabs account apply.

Free local transcription

Free local transcription runs on your Mac. Your audio and the transcript do not leave your Mac. The first time you use it, the app downloads the speech recognition model files from Hugging Face, which hosts them. That download request contains no audio, transcript, or account information, although Hugging Face can see your IP address as part of handling the connection. Once the model is downloaded, transcription works without the internet.

Sound effects with CutZal credits

Signed-in accounts receive monthly sound effect time, counted separately from transcription credits. Generation starts only after you accept the sound effect terms and choose Create. Credit-based generation is for users aged 18 or older. The app sends your description and requested length to our service on Cloudflare Workers, which forwards them to fal and the ElevenLabs sound effects model. The resulting audio is downloaded to your Mac. No source video, audio, or project files are sent.

Our service processes the description and generated audio to complete the request and does not retain them in our storage or logs. We ask fal not to store request and response JSON and request a five-minute expiry for generated files. fal may temporarily host the audio at a publicly accessible media URL while it is being returned. These settings do not promise zero retention or deletion of every provider or partner copy within five minutes. Provider processing and exceptions remain subject to their policies, including fal's API terms and ElevenLabs' privacy policy. The file saved to your local sound effect library remains there until you remove it.

For credit generation we keep a usage record with your account ID, seconds charged, result and time, to manage credits and service costs. Operational logs also record the account ID, accepted terms version and acceptance time to record your agreement. These records do not contain your description or audio.

If you connect your own ElevenLabs API key, the app sends the description directly to ElevenLabs under your account without using CutZal credits or the fal retention settings above. Your provider account's terms and settings apply. In either route, do not include personal, sensitive or confidential information in descriptions.

Usage statistics in the app

The CutZal app sends usage statistics by default. The first time you open the editor, a notice tells you so. Nothing is sent before that notice is shown, and the first transmission waits one minute after it. You can turn this off at any time by switching off “Send usage statistics” in Settings › Storage · Privacy. The notice's “Details” button opens that setting. Every feature keeps working when it is off.

What is sent. Which features you used and how often, whether they succeeded, how long they took, the app version and release channel, the operating system and its major version, the display language, a rough range of how long you have used the app (for example “7 to 13 days”, never a date), and a random identifier created by the app. The identifier is not linked to your CutZal account or email address.

Cut corrections. When you export a final video from a project that has an AI cut, the app sends one summary of how much of the AI cut you changed: how many places the AI cut, how many of those you restored, how many places you cut that the AI had kept, those counts by kind (for example, whether a place was restored fully or partly), those lengths rounded to 10 seconds, the length range of the original recording (for example “20 to 40 minutes”), whether the edits came from you or from an AI agent you instructed, which AI service made the cut (Claude, Codex, or other), how much of the final video you played in CutZal (in the editor or the phone preview) after the AI cut, as a range (under half, half to 90%, or 90% or more), and how the summary was counted. Which parts you changed or played, when, the reasons, the transcript, and any project or file name are not sent. The parts you played are kept only on your Mac, next to your project.

What is never sent. Video, audio, subtitles, transcript text, project names, file names, file paths, chat messages, model responses, raw error messages, and account email addresses. For personal review calibration, only the action (collect, apply, or restore), its result, and how long it took are counted. Review samples, fingerprints, and calibration statistics stay on your device. Cut corrections are sent only as the summary above. For the chat send list, only the number of marked spots and how many were done, declined, or unanswered are counted. Notes and positions are not sent. For AI agent work in a project (chat or automatic cut), only the kind of work, how it ended, the mode you chose for chat (Plan mode, Always ask, or Accept edits), how many of your edits were blocked while it ran, and whether you took over or returned it to the agent are counted. Your instructions and the parts of the video it worked on are not sent. For video captions, only which of the four looks you chose, which setting you changed (look, text color, outline or box color, or box opacity), whether you saved, cleared, or used a default look for new projects, and whether the video is landscape or portrait are counted. Color values and caption text are not sent. For canvas size changes, only the shape before and after (original, landscape, or portrait), where the change came from (the app, chat, or a command), and how many clips were adjusted are counted. For speed changes, only the speed, whether the sound was kept or muted, whether it applies to parts or the whole video, where the change came from (the app, chat, or a command), and how many parts were changed are counted, not where those parts are. Resolution values and file names are not sent. For inserted videos, only how you inserted them (drag, playhead, or command), the inserted length rounded to 10 seconds, and whether it was transcribed are counted. File names and positions are not sent. For video exports, only whether Match target loudness was on is counted. Measured loudness values are not sent. When an export fails, only the step where it stopped (for example, joining segments) and the kind of cause (for example, a full disk) are counted. Error messages are not sent. For sign-up, only where the sign-up step appeared (export) and which screen started, finished, or cancelled a sign-in (export, transcription, chapter transcription, settings, or feedback) are counted. These events are not linked to your account or email address. We do not use session replay or automatic click capture.

Turning it off. Turning usage statistics off stops further collection, deletes the identifier from your Mac, and discards events that have not been sent yet. If you turn it on again, the app creates a new identifier. Data already received by a server is not deleted automatically.

Website events

This website sends a few PostHog events by default, so we can see how visitors find CutZal and which buttons they use: one when you open the homepage or the editing tools comparison page, one when you open the documentation (moving between documentation pages does not send another), one when you open the blog (moving between blog posts does not send another), one when you open the release notes (moving between release notes pages does not send another), one when you choose the download button, and one when you choose a launch notification button, with the language of its form (English or Korean). Each event carries fixed values such as the product name and which part of the site sent it, and an allowlist of campaign values from the link you followed. It does not include the page address, anything you type, or your email address. These events are sent only from cutzal.ai itself. Development and preview copies of this website, including addresses on a different port, send none. The events use a random identifier that is kept in memory only while the page is open, so a reload creates a new one. No cookie or identifier is stored in your browser. Website and app identifiers are not linked.

Turning them off. Choose “Turn off in this browser” below. This browser then keeps a single off marker, which is not an identifier, and pages on this website stop sending these events, including pages already open in other tabs. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, this website sends no events at all. Reading the site, downloading, and signing up for launch notifications work the same either way. Turning events off does not stop the Cloudflare visit counts described in the next section.

Turn on JavaScript to change this setting.

Visit counts on this website

Separately from the events above, cutzal.ai, its documentation pages, its editing tools comparison page, its blog, and its release notes count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics. Cloudflare, which also serves this website, adds a small script to each page. It shows us totals such as visits per page, referring sites, countries, browser and device types, and page load speed. Cloudflare states that Web Analytics does not use cookies or localStorage and does not fingerprint visitors. Turning off website events in this browser, Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track in your browser, and the setting in the app do not apply to these visit counts.

How this data is handled

Purpose. We use app usage statistics and website events to see which features are used, to find imports and exports that fail or run slowly, to see whether new users reach their first export, and to decide what to improve first. They are not used for advertising and are not sold.

Transfer abroad. App usage statistics and website events are sent to PostHog, our analytics provider, over an encrypted connection (HTTPS) in small batches while you use the app or website. They are stored in the PostHog region shown below, outside Korea. The transferred items are the ones described in the sections above.

Retention. PostHog keeps this data for the period shown below.

Provider: PostHog · Region: US · Retention: 1 year

IP addresses. Service providers can see an IP address as part of handling a network connection. Our PostHog project is set to discard the IP address of incoming events, and events are sent with location lookup turned off.

Changing your mind

In the app, switch off “Send usage statistics” in Settings › Storage · Privacy. The app stops further collection and deletes queued events and its identifier. On this website, choose “Turn off in this browser” in the section above. Pages stop sending events and drop their in-memory identifier. Neither one deletes data already received by a server.

Because these identifiers are random and are not linked to your account, an email address alone may not identify the corresponding records. Choose “A privacy question” in our Tally form to contact us.

Diagnostics stay on your device

Limited records of task success, failure, cancellation, and processing time, with the app version and whether an export was a final export or a preview, are stored locally for up to seven days and approximately 3 MiB. For a failed export they also note the step where it stopped and the kind of cause (for example, a full disk), a short error description, the exit code and last error lines of the processing tool, and the free disk space at that moment. When target loudness or peak limiting falls back to the original level, the record notes why and the measured loudness of the edited audio. Error descriptions and error lines are stored with file paths, file names, and tokens removed. Old records are cleaned up while the app is running. They are not uploaded automatically. Use the app's diagnostics export to save a file, inspect it, and choose whether to share it.

Launch notifications

Signing up for launch notifications is optional. The Tally form, in English or Korean, asks for your email address, how you plan to use CutZal (optional), and whether you want CutZal updates. We use your email only to tell you when CutZal launches. If you opt in to updates, we also send CutZal updates and event news, and each of those emails explains how to unsubscribe.

We delete sign-ups promptly after the launch email is sent. If you opt in to updates, we keep your email until you withdraw consent. Tally BV (Belgium) runs the form and stores responses on servers in Europe. Opening the form is subject to Tally's policies. Sign-ups are not linked to PostHog analytics. This website counts only that a sign-up button was clicked and in which language, as described in Website events, and nothing you enter in the form. To withdraw or ask for earlier deletion, use the unsubscribe link in our emails or choose “A privacy question” in our feedback form.

Finishing preferences

Finishing rules are an experimental feature that is off by default. When you turn it on in Settings › Labs, confirmed finishing rules, candidate quotes, source references, and version history are stored only on your Mac. Candidates are returned as part of an editing request you already sent, and CutZal does not call your connected AI separately to make them. While the feature is off, no candidates are collected and saved rules are kept but not used. Usage analytics includes only the rule action (collect, confirm, edit, discard, delete, restore, inspect) and its count. Rule values, quotes, project and conversation IDs, file paths, and timeline positions are never included in analytics. You can turn analytics off in Settings.

Optional export feedback rewards

This program remains disabled until the account service deployment. When offered after a final video export, an explicit submission earns 30 transcription minutes once per project, up to twice per account each month. The minutes can be used in the month received. Submission is optional and the reward does not depend on a positive rating.

Only when you press the submit button, we send your rating from 1 to 5, optional comment, and a random project token to the CutZal account service (Cloudflare Workers and D1). They are linked to your signed-in account for product improvement and reward administration. We do not send your project path, file name, media, or transcript. Neither ratings nor comments are sent to PostHog or diagnostics. Please do not include personal information or video content in a comment.

Comments are cleared after 90 days and ratings after 12 calendar months by the daily retention task. A missing anniversary date is clamped to the last day of the month in UTC. The minimal receipt (account, random project token, grant amount, grant month and time) remains until account deletion to prevent duplicate rewards. The transcription time expires at the start of the next calendar month in Korea. Account deletion removes both the feedback and its receipt. For earlier deletion, use the privacy question form below.

Feedback and questions

Tally is our feedback channel. The form asks for an inquiry type and message. An email address for a reply and an attachment to explain a problem are optional. Please do not submit original video, audio, transcripts, API keys, or passwords. Opening the form is subject to Tally's policies. Feedback is not linked to PostHog analytics.

Reinable uses submissions to respond to requests and improve CutZal. We delete submissions and attachments from our workspace within 90 days of receipt. Your optional email is used only to reply and is not added to a marketing list. To request earlier deletion, choose “A privacy question” and identify your submission without sharing sensitive content.