What you're granting, exactly.
Three macOS permissions, each asked for once and each broader than the feature it powers. This is what they technically allow, what leaves your Mac when you use them, and how to keep the app useful while granting less.
What each permission actually grants
The gap between what a permission technically allows and what the app uses it for is where most of the discomfort lives. Both columns below are worth reading.
| Permission | What macOS grants | What the app uses it for | Without it | Revoke |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screen Recording | The ability to capture screen contents. There is no per-window variant to grant. | Taking a snapshot of the one window you attach, when you attach it. How sharing works. | Sharing off Empty picker or blank previews; everything else fine. | Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording |
| Accessibility | Reading the text macOS exposes to assistive tools, and sending keystrokes to other apps. | Typing dictated text into any app, and giving shared windows a readable text layer. | Partly off Dictation fills only the chat box; sharing answers stay vague. | Privacy & Security → Accessibility |
| Microphone | Access to the selected audio input while the app is running. | Hearing you when dictation is active. Dictation guide. | Dictation off Flat waveform, nothing transcribed anywhere. | Privacy & Security → Microphone |
| Nothing at all | Chat, drafting, image generation, file uploads, history. | Still works This is the app most people actually use. |
All three are off until you grant them, each is asked for at the moment you first use the feature that needs it, and each can be revoked at any time without uninstalling. Revoking never breaks chat.
Permissions are read at launch, not while running
macOS decides what a process may do when that process starts, and hands it an answer that holds for the life of the process. Tick a box in System Settings while Meta AI is open and the running copy carries on with the answer it was given at launch. Settings looks right; nothing works.
Grant, then quit with ⌘Q, then reopen. Closing the window is not quitting this is a menu-bar app and the process survives the red dot.
The same rule works in reverse, which is the useful part for privacy. Revoking a permission from a running app does not instantly strip the capability from that process either, so if you want to be certain something is off, revoke it and then quit and reopen the app.
It also explains the most common regression on this site: an app update replaces the binary, the grants are tied to the binary, and a feature that worked yesterday stops. That is not the release breaking something it is macOS being careful. The symptoms show up on the window sharing and dictation pages, and the cure in both cases is this paragraph.
What actually leaves your Mac
None of this is processed on your machine. The assistant runs on Meta's servers, which is why it needs a connection and it means each feature sends something when you use it.
Two distinctions are worth holding onto. The first is snapshot versus stream: attaching a window captures it once, at that moment, and the app has no continuing view of it. That is also why sharing appears to “stop” when you switch apps there was never a feed to interrupt.
The second is capability versus use. Everything above describes how the app behaves. The permission underneath is broader, and no user-facing setting narrows it. If the gap between the two bothers you which is a reasonable place to land the remedy is not a setting but revocation: turn Screen Recording off and the capability is gone, while chat carries on unaffected.
We can describe what the app does and what Meta says. We cannot verify what happens after the request leaves your Mac, and nobody writing a page like this one can.
Training, and what it draws on
Meta's stated position is that public posts, photos and captions, along with your interactions with its AI features, can be used to improve its models. It says it also draws on information from outside Meta, including accounts you choose to connect Google Workspace being the example that gives most people pause. And it says private messages with friends and family are not used unless you share them with Meta AI.
That last clause is worth reading twice, because sharing a message with Meta AI is exactly what you are doing when you paste a conversation in and ask for a summary. The protection describes messages you keep between people, not messages you hand to the assistant.
Everything in this section is Meta's description of its own practice. It is the right starting point and it is not independent verification, so weigh it as you would any company's account of itself.
The practical upshot is about deliberateness rather than fear. An assistant that runs on someone else's servers sees what you send it, and sending it a spreadsheet of salaries or a client's contract is a decision, not an accident of using the app. The same request typed into the browser version travels the same way this is not a Mac-app-specific exposure, and switching to the web changes nothing about it.
Connected accounts, and why uninstalling misses them
Instagram, Facebook and Google Workspace connections are authorised against your Meta account, not against the app on this machine. That has two consequences people get wrong in opposite directions.
Each one is its own decision
They are authorised separately, at the moment you first need them, and revoked separately. Connecting one says nothing about the others.
Deleting the app changes nothing
The authorisation lives with the account and survives the Mac app entirely. Uninstalling has to be paired with revoking, or it is half a job.
Connect late, not on day one
Nothing about first-run setup requires them. Wait until a task actually needs an account connected, and you may find none ever does.
Revoking is done in your Meta account settings rather than on the Mac, and it is the only action here that reaches beyond this machine. What each integration is for.
Granting less while keeping most of the app
None of these is all-or-nothing. In descending order of how much they buy you for how little they cost.
Grant nothing until something needs it
Install, sign in, use it. The permission prompts arrive when you first try window sharing or dictation, and you can decline then and change your mind later.
Skip Accessibility if you do not dictate
It is the broadest of the three. Without it you lose system-wide dictation and some sharpness in shared-window answers, and nothing else.
Revoke Screen Recording between uses
If you share a window rarely, leaving it off is a real reduction rather than a gesture. Remember the relaunch rule applies to revoking too. Why.
Keep sensitive work in the browser version
Not because it is more private in transit it is not but because it cannot see a window or type into an app at all. The comparison.
Think before sharing a window with other people in it
A shared inbox or a group chat is not only your data. This is the judgement call the permission cannot make for you.
Leave connected accounts disconnected
The feature set you lose is narrower than it looks, and this is the only setting here that reaches beyond your Mac. More.
Clear history in account settings, not the app
Conversations belong to the account, so deleting the app leaves them. Managing them is done where the account is.
Uninstall properly if you are done
The app, the support files and the permission rows and separately, the account connections. The clean removal.
Permissions and privacy questions
What does Screen Recording actually let Meta AI do?
At the macOS level it permits capturing screen contents, and the app uses it to snapshot the one window you attach. The permission is broader than the use, which is the honest reason it feels uncomfortable macOS has no narrower version to offer. The full table.
Is Meta AI watching my screen in the background?
Window sharing is a snapshot taken when you attach a window, not a live feed, and the app has no view of your desktop otherwise. If you would rather have certainty than assurance, revoking Screen Recording removes the capability and leaves chat untouched.
What does Accessibility grant?
Reading the text macOS exposes for assistive tools, and sending keystrokes to other applications. That is what lets dictation type into Mail and gives shared windows a readable text layer rather than just pixels. It is the most powerful of the three.
Why does granting a permission seem to do nothing?
macOS reads these when a process launches and keeps that answer for the life of the process, so granting one to a running app changes nothing until you quit with ⌘Q and reopen. Closing the window does not quit it. The rule in full.
What does Meta say it trains on?
Meta says public posts, photos and captions, plus your interactions with its AI features, can be used to improve its models, and that it also draws on information from outside Meta including accounts you connect. It says private messages with friends and family are not used unless you share them with Meta AI. Context.
Does uninstalling revoke my connected accounts?
No. Those connections are held against your Meta account rather than the app, so deleting the app leaves them authorised. They have to be revoked separately in account settings. Why that catches people.
Can I use the app without granting anything?
Yes, and most people effectively do. Chat, drafting, image generation and file uploads all work with all three permissions off. You only need them for window sharing and system-wide dictation.
Is the browser version more private?
In one specific sense. What you type travels the same way either place, so nothing about transmission changes. What changes is capability: a web page cannot request Screen Recording or Accessibility, so it cannot see a window or type into another app at all. The comparison.
Can I limit Screen Recording to certain apps?
Not on the macOS side the permission is per-app-that-captures, not per-app-captured, so there is no way to allow one window and forbid another. Your control is which window you choose to attach, and whether the permission is granted at all.
Does Muse have the same permissions?
No, and it is worth not conflating them. Muse acts inside your apps rather than reading a window, so it asks for per-area access with confirmation before anything sensitive, and Meta says its work happens in a sandbox it calls the Muse Secure VM. Muse privacy covers it separately.
Grant what you use. Revoke the rest.
All three permissions are optional, each buys exactly one feature, and chat works without any of them.
Independent guide not affiliated with Meta. We describe what the permissions grant and what Meta states publicly; we cannot audit Meta's servers. Removing it entirely.