Data & permissions
Effective 30 August 2026
What Diurnal asks for
| Access | When | Why it exists | What it does not mean |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diurnal account | Required | So your day exists on more than one Mac. Google, or email and password. | Not a profile. Nothing you do in the app is tracked. |
| Calendar (Google) | On request | Draws your day beside your tasks. /cal adds an event. | Never the scope that can delete calendars. |
| Notifications | Optional | A task with a time becomes a reminder. | Reminders only. No marketing, no nudges. |
| Network | Required | Sign-in, sync, and Google Calendar if you connect it. | Sign-in and sync. Not tracking. |
| Launch at login | Optional | An app that is not running cannot answer its shortcut. | Off by default. |
Google Calendar scopes
Signing in touches no calendar
Signing in requests openid · email · profile and nothing else. Calendar scopes are requested only when you connect a calendar, and you can use all of Diurnal without ever doing so.
| Scope | Why it is requested | What was chosen instead |
|---|---|---|
openid · email · profile | Identifies the connected account and labels it in the app. | The sign-in scopes. No calendar access. |
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.calendarlist.readonly | Lists your calendars so you can choose which appear. | Not calendar.readonly, which can read every calendar you can access. |
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.events | Reads the day you are looking at; creates an event from /cal. | Not auth/calendar, whose consent screen says “permanently delete all the calendars”. |
Never requested
- Camera
- Microphone
- Screen recording
- Full disk access
- Accessibility
- Contacts
- Location
- Photos
What connects where
| Service | Purpose | When |
|---|---|---|
| Diurnal sync service | Sign-in, and your tasks between your Macs. | After you sign in. |
| accounts.google.com | Google sign-in and calendar consent. | While connecting an account. |
| www.googleapis.com | The calendars you chose, and events from /cal. | While a Google account is connected. |
About this demo
The desktop on the home page is a replica running in your browser. Every task in it is invented, it reads nothing of yours, and closing the tab discards all of it.