Privacy

Last updated October 26, 2026

Your iPhone and your Mac

Yado manages an iPhone through the services iOS makes available, over USB and, for supported functions, your local network. Photos, exports and backups stay on the Mac or the connected phone. Yado does not ask for an Apple ID, upload your library or installed app list, or retain backup passwords.

Yado is in development, with no public download or announced price yet. This page describes the current app, including its automatic catalog downloads.

What Yado reads

The features you use read device identifiers and details, battery and storage readings, installed apps, Home Screen layouts and pictures, photos and videos, accessible files, diagnostic logs and configuration profiles. Local backup browsing can read contacts, notes, messages, photos, voice memos, call history and Safari bookmarks when they are present in the backup. Locked notes are not decrypted.

Most Used and app-removal suggestions can use Screen Time records already shared to this Mac. Full Disk Access is needed to read those records in ~/Library/Biome/. Yado counts app opens from the last four weeks on the Mac, discards the source records after reading and keeps the counts in memory for the session. It does not upload them or build a separate Screen Time history.

Taking a screenshot reads the iPhone screen through the QuickTime capture channel and needs Camera access. The captured image is saved to the Desktop and copied to the clipboard. The Home Screen picture shown in Yado is also kept locally so it can appear when the phone is disconnected. Enabling scheduled backups requests Notifications permission for local backup status messages.

Where data is stored

• ~/Library/Application Support/Yado/Backups/ is the default backup folder. You can choose another folder, including an external disk. Kept backup copies live beside the backups.
• ~/Library/Application Support/Yado/ScreenPictures/ holds each phone's last Home Screen picture, identifier, model and finish. HomeScreens/ and HomeScreenLayouts/ in the same Yado folder hold undo snapshots and named layouts. HardwareBaselines.json and BatteryHistory.json hold hardware baselines and battery readings by phone.
• ~/Library/Caches/Yado/ holds App Catalog.json.xz, Software Updates.json, Media Thumbnails/, Duplicate Signatures/, Media Previews/ and Transfer Previews/. Preview caches can contain copies of the files you viewed, not just small thumbnails.
• The com.tw93.YadoApp preferences hold settings, window position and size, folder paths, the selected phone, app sorting, backup schedules and attempts, backup run statistics and four maintenance totals. Those totals are space freed, photos removed, backups completed and bytes transferred.
• Photo exports live in a Yado Media folder under the location you choose, with a numbered name if needed. BackupManifest.json and BackupManifest.journal record the phone, exported files and verification checkpoints. Other file, device-details and backup-record exports stay where you save them. Copying device details writes them to the clipboard.
• The Mac's temporary folder holds yado-backup-<UUID>/ scratch folders, including decrypted backup databases and extracted files. Closing the browser waits for readers and exports before removing scratch files, and startup cleans up older leftovers. AirDrop can stage dropped files in Yado-AirDrop-<UUID>/ until sharing ends.
• yado-backup-engine.log in the temporary folder holds the latest backup-engine output, which can include file paths and device details. It is kept locally for troubleshooting, not sent automatically.

When the app connects to the internet

When a phone connects, Yado can automatically fetch two public catalogs, reusing recent results during the session. These are downloads, with no request body containing your photos, phone identifiers or installed app list. As with any internet request, the receiving server can see connection information such as your IP address.

Yado has no usage analytics or cloud AI, and it does not check for its own updates yet.

Local sharing and DNS profiles

Enabled Wi-Fi connections use Apple's device services on your local network. Sending photos from the Mac uses the system AirDrop sharing panel, which sends the selected files to the recipient you choose.

The optional encrypted DNS profiles point the iPhone to AdGuard DNS, Cloudflare or AliDNS. They do not make Yado send DNS queries to those providers. After you install a profile in iPhone Settings, the phone sends DNS requests to the selected provider under that provider's policy. Fonts and other configuration profiles are also sent to the phone for you to install.

Passwords, backups and deletion

Backup passwords are used for the operation and are not saved in preferences or the Keychain. Browsing an encrypted backup creates temporary decrypted copies on the Mac, and any records you export remain in the destination you choose. Protect the Mac, backup disk and export folders accordingly.

Deleting photos after export rechecks the local file's size and content digest. When iCloud Photos is enabled or its state is unknown, that action also requires evidence that the original was exported. Duplicate cleanup is a separate confirmed selection, always keeps at least one photo per group and does not treat visual similarity as proof of identical originals. Deleting an item in an iCloud Shared Photo Library affects everyone in that library.

Backup checks validate structure, index entries and file sizes, not whether an iPhone has successfully restored the backup. Removing Yado leaves local data in place. Before deleting its Application Support folder, move any backups you want to keep. Backups and exports in other folders remain there, and removing Yado does not remove profiles installed on the phone.

This website and contact

This website runs no analytics and writes no cookies. The website host and catalog servers may keep standard access logs. If you email for help, the email contains whatever information and attachments you choose to send. Contact hi@yado.house.