Foreman and your privacy: what it reads and what it never sends

Foreman reads the processes running on your Mac so it can show them to you, and everything it reads stays on your Mac. It has no analytics. Exactly two things go online: a license check, and an update check that runs at most once a day. No list of your apps or processes is part of either one.

A tool that can see everything running on your computer should explain itself plainly, so this post covers what Foreman reads, why, and what it sends.

What Foreman reads

To be a Task Manager for the Mac, Foreman has to look at what is running. That means:

• The list of processes and which app each belongs to.
• Their CPU, Memory, Disk, Network, GPU and Power usage, and the Mac’s totals.
• Your startup items: login items, launch agents and daemons, and background items apps register.
• macOS’s background services.
• For App History, how long each app has been open and what it has used since it opened.

This is the same information macOS keeps about running software, and it is what lets Foreman show the Processes page, the graphs and Startup Apps. It reads it in order to display it to you, in the window and in the menu bar.

With the window closed, Foreman reads a few machine-wide counters for the menu bar. And when the 24-hour trial ends without a license, Foreman stops reading figures, and anything it had in Efficiency Mode runs at full speed again.

What stays on the Mac

All of it. The processes, the figures, the startup items and the totals are used on the Mac to draw the screen and are not sent anywhere. Foreman has no analytics, so there is no usage tracking, and nothing about which apps you run or how hard they work is reported to anyone.

App History is a good example of how much is not kept. It shows what each app has used since it opened, and the totals last only as long as the app stays open. They are not kept after the app quits. Foreman does not hold a long record of what you ran.

The two things that go online

1. License checks. After the free trial, Foreman needs a license key, and license checks go to Dodo Payments, the merchant of record that handles the sale. What is sent is the key and a name for your Mac. That name is made from the Mac’s model and four random characters. It is not your name, and it does not contain a list of what you run.

2. Update checks. Foreman has built-in updates, and to know whether there is a new version it asks everydaymactools.com. It does this at most once a day.

That is the complete list.

What this means for permissions

Foreman can ask for two macOS permissions, and sometimes for an administrator password:

• Why Foreman asks to control System Events covers the permission used to read your login items.
• Full Disk Access is optional. It lets Foreman read the “Allow in the Background” switches in System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions (Login Items on macOS 14). Without it Foreman shows a note you can skip.
• Why Foreman sometimes asks for your password covers when it needs an administrator password.

None of these changes what leaves the Mac, which is still just the two items above.

How to check for yourself

You do not have to take any of this on trust. Two things you can look at:

• System Settings > Privacy & Security lists which apps have been granted permissions such as Automation and Full Disk Access, and you can switch them off at any time.
• The 24-hour trial gives you a day to watch how it behaves before you pay anything.

Why it reads what it reads

Each thing Foreman reads has a job on screen. Process and usage figures feed the Processes, Performance and All Processes pages and the menu bar readout. Startup items and services feed the Startup Apps and Services pages. Foreman does not show temperatures, fan speeds or battery health at all.

Four questions to ask of any app like this

Whether or not you use Foreman, these are worth asking of any app that can see what runs on your Mac:

1. What goes online, and when? A clear answer names each connection and how often it happens.
2. Is there analytics? If there is, find out what it collects and whether you can turn it off.
3. Which permissions does it want, and are they optional? An app that still works when you say no is asking for what it needs, not everything it can get.
4. Does it keep a history? A record of what you ran, kept for weeks, is more sensitive than a live view.

For Foreman, the answers are above: two connections, no analytics, two optional permissions, and no history after an app quits.

What Foreman does not do

A few things people sometimes worry about, plainly answered:

• It does not send the names of your apps or processes anywhere.
• It does not include analytics of any kind.
• It does not block or filter your network traffic, and it is not a firewall.
• It does not keep per-process history after an app quits.

Summary

Foreman reads your processes, startup items and services to show them to you. That stays on your Mac. The only things that go online are the license check, which sends the key and a model-and-random-characters name for the Mac, and an update check to everydaymactools.com at most once a day. You can try Foreman free for 24 hours, and it is $12 once if you keep it.