Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2026

The Short Version

Onset Engine processes all video and audio locally on your machine. We do not collect, upload, or analyze your media, and the app contains no telemetry. It goes online only to handle your license, to download and check the AI models it needs, and for features you choose to use. Each connection is listed below. Once its models are downloaded, the app works offline.

The only personal information we hold is your email address, if you download the demo, buy a license or subscribe to our emails. Your Email Address explains what we do with it.

What Data We Collect

Your License

Licenses are handled by our payment processor, Lemon Squeezy. The app contacts it in three situations:

  • When you activate a license, it sends your license key and your computer's name, which labels the activation.
  • When you open the app, at most once a day, it sends your license key and the activation's ID to confirm the license is still valid. This applies only to licenses activated online.
  • When you deactivate a license, it sends your license key and the activation's ID so the activation can be used elsewhere.

To tie a license to your computer, the app also derives an identifier from its hardware and stores a hash of it in the license file on your machine. That identifier is not sent anywhere. The Demo, and licenses we issue to you directly, involve no license connections at all.

The Installer

The installer you download from this website is a small program that fetches Onset Engine when you run it. It makes two requests to our download server: one for a small file naming the latest version and its SHA-256 hash, and one for that version's full installer, which it checks against the hash before starting it. Neither request contains anything about you or your computer beyond what every web request carries, such as your IP address. We look at how many of these requests there are, not who made them, to see how many downloads lead to an installation.

The full installer, which you can also download directly from our download pages, makes no connections of its own.

AI Models

The visual analysis model is too large to include in the installer. The first time you add footage (as soon as you choose it in New video or the Add Videos window), the app downloads it once from our own download server and keeps it on your computer: about 300 MB, or about 860 MB if you choose High Quality. The same model is used when you search your library by description, in DJ Mode, and by some renders.

The download request contains nothing about you, your license, or your files beyond what every web request carries, such as your IP address, and it identifies itself only as "OnsetEngine". Once the model is on your computer, the app loads it from there and makes no further connection for it. If an earlier version of Onset Engine already downloaded the model, the app reuses that copy instead of downloading it again.

All other models ship with the app and never go online: depth effects, the person model behind Cutout Pop and Beauty Mode, beat detection, and face detection.

Features You Choose to Use

  • Check for Updates goes online only when you click it. It downloads a small file describing the latest version from our download server, and the request identifies itself only as "OnsetEngine". If you choose to open the download page, it opens in your browser, where the website section below applies.
  • Jamendo music search works only if you add your own Jamendo API key. Searching sends that key and your search words and filters to Jamendo, and previewing or downloading a track fetches it from Jamendo.
  • Stash import connects to the Stash server whose address you enter (by default, one on your own computer) and sends your Stash API key if you have set one. Nothing from the import is sent to us.
  • Links in the app, such as Help, pricing, the changelog and the share buttons, open pages in your browser. The app itself sends nothing when you use them.

Media Files

Your video files, audio files, thumbnails, and all AI analysis results are processed and stored entirely on your local machine. Specifically:

  • AI analysis of your footage runs locally
  • Audio analysis runs locally
  • Your library database (library.db) is stored on your computer
  • All rendered output stays on your local filesystem
  • No files are ever uploaded to any server

Telemetry

None. Onset Engine contains no telemetry, analytics, or tracking code. The connections listed above are the only ones it makes, and none of them report how often you use the app, what files you process, or which features you use.

This Website

Everything above is about the Onset Engine application. This website (onsetengine.com) works differently, and this section describes what happens when you visit it.

Website Analytics

We measure how the website is used with Umami, an open-source analytics tool that we run ourselves on Vercel's infrastructure. Umami does not use cookies and does not store your IP address. For each page you visit it records:

  • The address of the page, and the site that linked you to it
  • Your browser, operating system, device type, screen size and language
  • Your approximate location (country, region and city), worked out from your IP address at the time of the visit
  • Clicks on a few buttons we want to count, such as the download buttons

On the download pages you reach after buying or requesting the demo, on the update page the application opens, and on the page you see after confirming an email subscription, we remove everything after the ? in the page address before it is recorded, so nothing added to that address by the checkout is kept. On those pages we count download button clicks along with the version downloaded and, after a purchase, whether it was Core or Studio.

This data tells us how many people visit and download, and which pages help them. We do not use it to identify you, and we do not share it.

Checkout and Affiliate Links

Our pages load scripts from Lemon Squeezy so that the checkout can open on our site. If you arrive through an affiliate's link, Lemon Squeezy's affiliate script stores a click identifier in a cookie and collects technical details about your browser, so that a later purchase can be credited to that affiliate. If you did not arrive through an affiliate link, it does nothing.

Fonts and Hosting

Our pages load their typefaces from Google Fonts, so your browser connects to Google's servers, which receive your IP address. The website is hosted by Cloudflare, which processes the technical information every web request carries, such as your IP address, in order to deliver the page.

Your Email Address

When You Download the Demo or Buy a License

The demo and licenses are ordered through Lemon Squeezy, which collects your name and email address and shares them with us. We use them to deliver what you ordered and, through our email provider Brevo, to send a few emails about using it: getting started, fixing common problems, and asking how it's going. These emails don't advertise our paid versions. We send them because you're using the software (our legitimate interest), and each has a link to stop them.

When You Subscribe to Tips and Offers

Emails about paid versions, discounts and offers go only to people who ask for them, through the signup form linked from our emails. That form is hosted by Brevo and protected by Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that you're a person. After you sign up, Brevo emails you a link to confirm, and nothing is sent until you click it. Your consent is the basis for these emails, and you can withdraw it at any time with the unsubscribe link in any of them.

For subscribers, Brevo stores your email address, the date and time you confirmed, and the technical details it records as proof of that confirmation. We don't add information about you from other sources.

When You Join the Mac Waitlist

If you leave your email on our Mac page, we use it for one thing: to email you when the Mac version of Onset Engine is available. That form works like the tips form: it's hosted by Brevo, checked by Cloudflare Turnstile, and nothing is sent until you confirm your address. Your consent is the basis, and you can withdraw it at any time. Joining the waitlist doesn't subscribe you to tips and offers.

Our emails don't track whether you open them. Brevo counts clicks on the links in them, so we can tell which emails are useful.

How Long We Keep It

We keep your email address while you're subscribed, and otherwise for up to three years after your last contact with us, such as a download, a purchase or a reply. If you unsubscribe, we keep only your email address on a do-not-contact list, so that you're never emailed again by mistake. The Mac waitlist is deleted once we've sent the email announcing the Mac version. Lemon Squeezy keeps order records separately, as its privacy policy describes.

Your Rights

You can ask to see, correct or delete the information we hold about you, or object to our emails, by writing to privacy@onsetengine.com. If you're not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the CNIL, France's data protection authority, at cnil.fr.

Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services:

  • Lemon Squeezy - Handles payment processing, license key generation, tax compliance (as Merchant of Record) and our affiliate program. Their privacy policy is available at lemonsqueezy.com/privacy.
  • Brevo - Sends our emails and hosts the signup forms for tips and offers and for the Mac waitlist. Their privacy policy is available at brevo.com/legal/privacypolicy.
  • Vercel - Hosts our Umami analytics instance. Their privacy policy is available at vercel.com/legal/privacy-policy.
  • Google Fonts - Serves the website's typefaces. Google's privacy policy is available at policies.google.com/privacy.
  • Jamendo - Provides the optional music search, if you add your own API key. Their privacy policy is available at jamendo.com/legal/privacy.
  • Cloudflare - Hosts this website, the walkthrough video on our download pages, the application's installer and AI model downloads, and the update check. Their privacy policy is available at cloudflare.com/privacypolicy.

Data Storage

All application data is stored on your computer: your library and settings in the Onset Engine folder inside %APPDATA%, your license in a .onset folder in your user folder, and the downloaded AI model in Onset Engine\models inside %LOCALAPPDATA%. Uninstalling removes the downloaded model and offers to delete your library and settings, and you can delete any of these folders yourself at any time. Versions before 1.0.19 kept downloaded models in the .cache and .u2net folders in your user folder; this version no longer needs them, so you can delete them. We retain no copies of your data.

Children's Privacy

Onset Engine is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated revision date. Since the Onset Engine application doesn't collect data, changes are likely to concern this website or our emails.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy, contact us at privacy@onsetengine.com.