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Desktop for YT Product Support Privacy

Privacy Policy

Last updated 26 August 2026 · Yiling Labs

Desktop for YT (“the app”) is a native macOS application published by Yiling Labs. It shows youtube.com inside a Mac window, and adds a desk window and system Picture in Picture around that same video. This policy describes what the app stores on your Mac, what it sends over the network, and what it does not collect.

This app is not affiliated with Google or YouTube. Watching and signing in still happen on YouTube’s site, under Google’s Privacy Policy.

1. Who we are

Yiling Labs publishes Desktop for YT. Bundle ID: com.yilinglabs.enhancerforyoutube. Contact: zyhang@gmail.com.

2. YouTube is YouTube

The main window is a WebKit view of youtube.com. Search, Home, subscriptions, comments, and your YouTube account all belong to YouTube.

  • Sign-in uses the avatar on the YouTube page. We do not run our own accounts, and we do not see your Google password.
  • If you are signed in, YouTube may apply your Premium status, history, and recommendations as it normally would in a browser.
  • We do not proxy, scrape, or re-host YouTube video files.

3. What stays on your Mac

The app writes a small set of preferences to on-device storage (macOS UserDefaults). It does not sync them to Yiling Labs. Today that includes:

  • The last YouTube URL, so the window can restore where you left off
  • Title-bar Ads and Shorts on/off (both default off)
  • Playback speed, and whether quality may go above 1080p
  • Skip sponsors on/off (default on)
  • Desk-window frame, opacity, and snapped corner

Deleting the app, or clearing the app’s defaults, removes this data. We do not have a copy.

4. Network requests the app makes

Besides youtube.com (and related YouTube/Google hosts the page itself loads), the app may contact:

  • Sponsor skip data. When Skip sponsors is on, the app asks the public SponsorBlock API (sponsor.ajay.app) for skippable segments. It sends a k-anonymity hash prefix of the video ID, not your YouTube account. The app only reads community segments. It does not submit, vote on, or upload new ones. You can turn this off in Settings.
  • Optional Chromium companion. If you install the companion extension, a watch, playlist, or Shorts URL you choose to open can be handed to the Mac app. Auto-forward is off unless you turn it on. The extension does not read your browsing history for other sites, and it does not filter ads.

We do not operate an analytics, advertising, crash, or account backend for this app. There is no Yiling Labs login.

5. What we do not do

  • We do not sell personal information.
  • We do not build an advertising profile from the app.
  • We do not intercept YouTube ad networks as a third-party blocker. When Ads is off, the app hides in-page ad cards and skips in-player ad pods on the official watch page.
  • We do not download videos for offline files.

6. Children

The app is not directed at children under 13. YouTube’s own age and parental-control rules still apply to the site inside the window.

7. Your choices

  • Turn Ads or Shorts back on from the title bar at any time.
  • Turn Skip sponsors off in Settings.
  • Do not install the companion extension if you do not want browser handoff.
  • Sign out of YouTube from the page avatar to end that site session.

8. This website

The product site is a static Cloudflare Pages site. It does not set cookies or run analytics. It loads the Inter typeface from rsms.me so the page can match the product’s marketing type.

9. Changes

If this policy changes, we will update the date on this page. Material changes to what we collect will be described here before they ship.

10. Contact

Questions about privacy: zyhang@gmail.com. For product help, see Support.