Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated · 23 October 2026

Overview

Breather is a wellbeing programme for teams: live Team Breathers sessions and a desktop app that suggests short breathing breaks between meetings. We designed it with privacy at the core. The desktop app has no accounts and runs on your device, it never records or listens to audio, and your calendar content never leaves your computer.

This policy covers the breather.work website, the Breather desktop app and Team Breathers sessions. For a technical breakdown of the desktop app written for IT and security teams, see Security.

The desktop app

No accounts. The app has no sign-in and we don't hold any account, profile or database record for the people who use it. We can't see who uses the app, what's in their calendar or when they take a break.

Calendar access. If you connect a calendar, the app reads today's events, on your device, to time its suggestions. It reads only start and end times, the title, free/busy status, your own response, whether you're the organiser, the number of other attendees, whether the meeting recurs, and the video-call link. It never reads descriptions, locations, attachments, or attendee names or email addresses, and it never looks at other days or other people's calendars. Calendar data is processed in memory; it is never written to disk and never sent to us or anyone else.

  • Google Calendar access is read-only, granted through Google's own sign-in in your browser. The resulting tokens are stored on your device, encrypted with a key held in the macOS Keychain, and are exchanged directly between your device and Google. You can disconnect in the app's Settings, which deletes the tokens, and revoke access in your Google account at any time.
  • Apple Calendar access uses the standard macOS Calendars permission, which you can revoke in System Settings at any time. It includes any work accounts (such as Microsoft Exchange) that you've added to the macOS Calendar app.

Microphone. To avoid interrupting calls, the app checks whether any microphone on your computer is in use: the same on/off state macOS shows as the orange indicator in the menu bar. It never opens the microphone, never receives, records or transmits audio, and doesn't store when your microphone was in use. Reading this on/off state doesn't need microphone permission, so the app never asks for it, and macOS wouldn't let it record even if it tried.

Stored on your device. The app keeps the following in your user Library folder, and never sends it to us:

  • Your settings (working hours, sound, how often to suggest breaks).
  • Your session history (when, how long, which breathing pattern), kept for one year, to show your weekly stats.
  • A history of suggestions and your responses, with the length and attendee count of the meeting before each one (never titles or names), kept for 30 days.
  • Today's running score and the IDs of calendar events already counted, reset daily.
  • Google Calendar tokens, if connected, encrypted as described above.

Deleting the app and its folder in ~/Library/Application Support/Breather/ removes all of it.

Usage analytics

Desktop app. If "Share usage data" is switched on in Settings (it's on by default), the app sends anonymous usage events: a random identifier created when the app is installed, the app version, platform and chip type, and events such as "suggestion shown", "session completed" and "setting changed", some with a numeric score for how demanding the day has been. These never include names, email addresses, calendar content, audio or location, and they can't be linked to you. Switch "Share usage data" off at any time to stop them.

Website. On breather.work we collect page views and clicks. The site doesn't use cookies or persistent local storage for analytics: PostHog runs in a cookieless mode that uses only the browser's sessionStorage, which is cleared when you close the tab. No data persists on your device between visits and no cross-session tracking occurs.

Who processes it. Analytics data is processed by PostHog and hosted in the EU. PostHog privacy policy.

Retention. Analytics event data is retained in PostHog for 12 months, after which it is automatically deleted.

Why. To understand how Breather is used so we can improve it, find bugs, and see which features are valuable.

Crash reports

If the desktop app hits an error and "Share usage data" is on, it sends a crash report to Sentry: the error's technical details (stack trace), the app version and operating system. Crash reports contain no user identifier, no calendar data and no record of what you were doing. Sentry processes and stores this data in the EU (Germany). Sentry privacy policy.

Contacting us and Team Breathers

Enquiries. When you email us or book a call, we receive the details you send (such as your name, work email, company, role and message) and use them only to respond and to discuss Breather with your organisation.

Team Breathers reporting. For Team Breathers, we collect aggregate attendance data and anonymised post-session pulse responses (a mood word, a number, or a short check-in). Individual attendance and responses are never shared with the purchasing organisation. Reports shown to purchasers are aggregate and anonymous.

Third-party services

We do not use any advertising or ad-tracking services.

Data security

Processing on your device. The desktop app does its work on your computer. There is no Breather server that receives calendar or user data.

Encryption in transit. Everything the app and website send is encrypted using TLS (HTTPS).

Secure token storage. Calendar tokens are encrypted on your device with a key held in the macOS Keychain.

Signed software. The desktop app and its updates are signed with our Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so macOS can verify they come from us and haven't been altered.

Minimal collection. We collect only what's needed to run and improve the service. Calendar content and audio are never collected at all.

Your rights

You can:

  • Disconnect Google Calendar in the app's Settings, which deletes the stored tokens, and revoke access in your Google account.
  • Revoke Apple Calendar access at any time in macOS System Settings.
  • Switch off usage analytics and crash reports with "Share usage data" in the app's Settings.
  • Delete everything the app stores by removing the app and its folder in ~/Library/Application Support/Breather/.
  • Ask us to access, correct or delete anything you've sent us (such as an enquiry) by contacting hello@breather.work.

Because the desktop app has no accounts and its analytics use a random identifier, we hold nothing that identifies individual app users. If you're in the EU or UK, you have additional rights under GDPR, including the right to access, rectify and erase your personal data. Contact us to exercise them.

Children

Breather is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make significant changes, we'll highlight them on this page. The date at the top of this page always reflects the latest version.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Reach us at hello@breather.work.