Net-DNS-Monitor privacy policy

What the Net-DNS-Monitor Mac app stores on your Mac, what leaves it and when, and how to stop each of those. The publisher receives none of your data.

Publisher: Mitchell Hudson
Contact: mitchphudson@gmail.com
Effective date: 2026-09-27
Support: llms-explorer.com/net-dns-monitor/

Summary

Net-DNS-Monitor checks your Mac's network and DNS connectivity and helps you work out what is wrong when it breaks. The publisher does not receive, collect, sell or track any of your data. The app has no analytics, no advertising and no account.

Data leaves your Mac only in the cases below. The connectivity checks happen with the default settings. The announcement to nearby copies of the app is on by default in the direct download and off by default in the Mac App Store edition. The rest happen only after you configure them.

What stays on your Mac

The app stores these files in its own container on your Mac:

• Settings you choose.
• Incident reports, a forensic journal and connection history. They can contain IP addresses, network interface names, domain names and log text.
• The permission choice described under "Claude diagnosis".

Credentials you enter (an Anthropic API key, a Slack webhook URL, an SMTP password) are stored in your macOS Keychain.

You can delete all of this at any time by deleting the app and its container, or by removing items from Keychain Access. The forensic journal rotates at 50 MB and keeps one older copy.

Connectivity checks

To test your connection, the app contacts the network addresses in its settings. By default these are Cloudflare (1.1.1.1 and 2606:4700:4700::1111) and Google (8.8.8.8 and 2001:4860:4860::8888). If none of those answers a ping, it pings the namedns.google over IPv6, which also works on IPv6-only networks. It also resolves api.anthropic.com as a DNS control check and resolves any domains you add. These checks send ordinary connection attempts and DNS queries. They carry no personal information beyond what any network connection reveals, such as your public IP address.

Claude diagnosis (optional, off until you allow it)

If you add an Anthropic API key and explicitly allow it in the app, an incident that the built-in checks cannot resolve is sent to Claude, an AI model run by Anthropic, for a diagnosis. Each such request contains:

• the incident classification, for example "dns" or "network";
• the connectivity check results, including the domain names that were checked;
• the outcome of each troubleshooting step. That text is the output of the checks the app runs, so it includes your network interface names, this Mac's IP addresses (IPv4 and IPv6), the IP addresses of your router and DNS servers, and the DNS search domains your network assigns.

Text you list under "sensitive strings" in Settings is replaced with[REDACTED] before sending.

Nothing is sent while your network is healthy. Nothing is sent before you grant permission. You can withdraw permission at any time from the app menu, and withdrawal applies to the next incident. The request goes directly from your Mac to Anthropic under your own API key. Anthropic's privacy policy governs how Anthropic handles it:anthropic.com/legal/privacy.

Slack and email alerts (optional, off unless you configure them)

If you enter a Slack webhook URL or email settings, the app sends a short alert when an incident starts. The alert goes to the Slack workspace or email recipients you chose. It contains the incident classification, start time, duration, whether the connection was healthy on recheck, a one-line summary, the outcome of any repair step, the Claude diagnosis if one was made, and the file path of the local report. The report path includes your macOS account name. Slack's or your email provider's privacy terms govern that delivery.

Nearby copies of the app

Peer discovery is on by default in the direct download and off by default in the Mac App Store edition, where you turn it on in Settings. When it is on, the app announces itself on your local network so other copies of Net-DNS-Monitor on the same network can compare results. The announcement stays on your local network and is not sent to the internet. It contains:

• this Mac's name;
• the app's status;
• whether this Mac can currently reach the internet and resolve DNS.

The app accepts these announcements only from addresses on the same local subnet, and it does not authenticate them. To start or stop announcing, change peer discovery in Settings and restart the app.

On macOS 15 and later, macOS asks for your permission before the app can reach your local network. If you decline, the app cannot announce itself or hear other copies, and the peer comparison reports no peers.

Children

The app is a network utility and is not directed at children.

Changes

If what the app sends changes, this policy will be updated and the app will ask for permission again before sending anything new to Anthropic. The app already did this once: version 2 of the permission (2026-10-17) names the network details above, so permission given under version 1 no longer counts.

Contact

Questions about this policy:mitchphudson@gmail.com.