Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 10, 2026

This policy explains what the Lectern app for macOS ("Lectern", "the app") reads, what it stores, what goes over the network, and what it never does. It covers both the version you download from this website and the Mac App Store version; the two differences are described at the end of section 3. Lectern is made by Victor Shammas, an independent developer ("I", "me").

1. What Lectern reads

Lectern opens the HTML slide decks you choose: through File › Open, by dropping a deck on its window or Dock icon, or with "Open With" in the Finder. It shows the deck's slides, and reads the speaker notes in it. Files the deck itself refers to, such as images next to it, load as they would in a web browser. Lectern doesn't look at anything else on your Mac.

2. What Lectern changes on your Mac

• Your deck, only when you edit it. When you type in the speaker notes, Lectern saves them into the deck's HTML file and replaces only that slide's notes. When you fix text on a slide, it changes only that piece of text. If you keep a change from Ask Claude, it replaces only the slides that changed.
• Backups. Before a deck's first edit in a session, and before every Ask Claude change, Lectern copies the deck to ~/Library/Application Support/Lectern/Backups. It keeps the 50 newest copies there, on your Mac.
• The Claude skill, only when you ask. Lectern › Claude Skill › Install in Claude Code… copies the Presenter Deck skill to ~/.claude/skills/presenter-deck. Save for Claude.ai… saves a zip file where you choose. Copy as Prompt puts the spec on the clipboard.
• Lectern's own preferences (recent decks, the presenter layout, whether the timer shows, your Ask Claude model and effort) are stored in its preferences on your Mac.

3. Network use

Connection	What is sent	When
Update check (Sparkle)	A request for https://victorshammas.com/lectern/appcast.xml, served by GitHub Pages, and, if you install an update, a download of the new version from GitHub. Like any web request, these show your IP address, and the app's request identifies the Lectern and macOS versions. Lectern does not send Sparkle's optional system profile.	About once a day, and when you choose Lectern › Check for Updates…. Lectern asks before installing an update.
Your deck's own resources	If a deck loads web fonts, scripts or images from the internet, they load as they would in any web browser, from the servers the deck names. Lectern adds nothing to these requests.	While the deck is open. A deck that keeps everything in its own file makes no requests.
Ask Claude (Claude Code)	See section 4. Lectern itself sends nothing; Claude Code does.	Only when you click Ask Claude.

Mac App Store version. The Mac App Store version is updated by the App Store, so it makes no update check of its own, and it doesn't include Ask Claude. It runs in Apple's App Sandbox, so it can only open the decks you choose and read the folders you allow. Everything else in this policy applies to it as written.

4. Ask Claude

Ask Claude runs Claude Code, Anthropic's command-line program, that you installed on your Mac, under your own Claude account. Lectern starts it only when you send a request from Ask Claude. Lectern prepares a temporary folder for it with:

• a copy of the current slide, with its speaker notes taken out, together with a copy of the deck's <head> (its styles and scripts). When you ask for new slides, Claude also gets an empty copy of the deck's <head> to write them into;
• the deck's title and the list of its slide titles;
• the Presenter Deck spec;
• the instruction you typed.

Claude Code sends what it needs from that folder to Anthropic to get Claude's answer, under Anthropic's privacy policy and the terms of your Claude plan. Nothing else from your deck is in the folder: no other slides, and no speaker notes at all. Lectern starts Claude Code without your own Claude Code settings, hooks or plugins, lets it only read and write files in that folder, and deletes the folder when it finishes. Lectern never sends anything to me, and it never uses an Anthropic API key.

5. What Lectern never does

• No accounts or sign-in with Lectern.
• No analytics, telemetry, crash-reporting services, advertising or tracking SDKs.
• No servers run by me. Nothing is uploaded to me or to any third party on my behalf.
• No selling or sharing of data, because I don't have any of your data.
• No tracking across apps or websites.

6. Removing your data

• To remove Lectern, quit it and drag it from Applications to the Trash.
• To also delete its backups and preferences, delete ~/Library/Application Support/Lectern and ~/Library/Preferences/com.victorshammas.Lectern.plist.
• If you installed the Claude skill, delete ~/.claude/skills/presenter-deck too. Your decks stay where they are.

7. Children

Lectern collects no personal information from anyone, including children.

8. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new effective date. If a change ever adds data collection, it will be announced in the app's release notes before it takes effect.

9. Contact

Questions about privacy? Email contact+lectern@victorshammas.com.

Lectern is an independent app and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Anthropic.