The app
OrbTorrent has no account, no ID and no crash reports. Your library, settings and extension passwords stay on your Mac. It connects only to:
- Peers and trackers, for the downloads you add, as every torrent app does. They can see your IP address, unless you download through a VPN.
- raw.githubusercontent.com, for a public list of trackers, while “Find more peers for public torrents” is on.
- Web addresses you add torrents from, to fetch the .torrent file.
- The sites an extension lists, while it's on. Each extension's page shows them, and it can't reach any others.
- updates.orbtorrent.com, once a day, to check for a new version, while “Check for updates automatically” is on. It says which version of OrbTorrent it is, with the anonymous counts below. The address a check comes from isn't kept.
- github.com, to download an update you install.
- download.db-ip.com, once a month, for a database of which country each IP address is in, to show peers' flags. Peers are looked up in it on your Mac, and never sent anywhere.
Report a Problem, in the Help menu, only opens your own mail app with the report filled in, and nothing is sent until you send it.
The same note is in the app, under About OrbTorrent › Privacy.
What the app counts
The daily check for updates says which version of OrbTorrent it is, and adds a few anonymous counts, so we know how many Macs use OrbTorrent, which macOS and Macs to keep supporting, and whether a version has a problem:
- Your version of macOS, and whether your Mac has Apple silicon or Intel.
- The week OrbTorrent was installed, and whether this is its first check ever, this week or this month. That's how we count Macs without giving any of them an ID.
- How many times OrbTorrent or its download engine quit unexpectedly since the last check. A number, not a crash report.
That's all. None of it is an ID, nothing says how you use OrbTorrent, and nothing is about your downloads: no names, files, trackers or sizes. Your IP address isn't kept. Settings › General shows exactly what the next check sends, and turns the counts off. The code that sends the counts and the code that adds them up are both public: AnonymousCounts.swift and the update feed.
This website
- It sets no cookies, shows no ads, and has no trackers.
- It's served by Cloudflare. We count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which uses no cookies and doesn't follow you from site to site: it counts pages, the site that sent you, and your country.
- When you download OrbTorrent, we count it, with the page you clicked Download on, or the site that linked to it, and your country. Not your address.
- The disk image itself comes from GitHub, where OrbTorrent's releases are kept, and GitHub's privacy statement applies there.
If you sign up for emails
"Hear about big releases", at the foot of each page, is the only place we ask for anything. If you sign up:
- We keep your email address, when you signed up and when you confirmed it. Nothing else.
- It joins the list only once you click the link in the email we send it, so no one can sign you up. If no one does, it's deleted after 7 days.
- We email you only when there's a big new version of OrbTorrent. Nothing else, and we never share or sell the list.
- Our emails have no tracking: nothing that tells us you opened one, and no links that count your clicks.
- Every email has a link to unsubscribe, which deletes your address at once.
- The list is kept by Cloudflare, in the European Union, and Cloudflare sends the emails. So the sign-up can't be abused, it limits how often one connection signs up, without keeping your IP address.
Writing to us
If you write to help@orbtorrent.com, we use your address only to reply.
Last updated on 2 October 2026
