Privacy Policy

The app

Mirage Capture (“Mirage”) is one app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, made by Mihir Belose. On iPhone and iPad it runs Camera, Capture Card (a UVC capture card on an iPad with USB‑C), Screen Share, Microphone, and Director, which watches broadcasts on your network and runs a Mac’s studio. Mirage for Mac watches your iPhones and iPads, combines them with the Mac’s cameras and screen, offers the result as a virtual camera, records, streams to a service you choose, writes captions, and searches inside your recordings. Apple Watch is a remote for the app on your iPhone.

Mirage has no Mirage accounts, advertising, analytics SDKs, or cloud relay run by us. We don’t receive your video, sound, or recordings through any feature of the app.

Video and sound you choose to send

When you start a broadcast, Mirage sends video and sound over your local network to the devices or software that receive it. Mirage Broadcast between Mirage devices is encrypted and paired with a six-digit code. Device names, source names, and network addresses are used to find and connect devices on the network.

Camera sends its picture and, when allowed and not muted, its microphone. Microphone sends its microphone with a small picture of the device’s name and level. Capture Card sends the card’s picture and sound. Screen Share sends the screen, including other apps you show, and their sound, in every output; it never opens the microphone. Protected content may be left out by the system or the app that shows it.

NDI and Browser outputs don’t use Mirage’s pairing code: turn them on only on a network you trust. Software that receives them may record or forward what you send, under its own practices. Stop each output from its controls when you’re done; Screen Share stops from the system’s broadcast controls.

Streaming to a service happens only from Mirage for Mac, only when you start it: the studio’s picture and sound go to the RTMP or RTMPS address you entered, with your stream key, which is kept in the Mac’s Keychain. The service handles your stream under its own policies.

Permissions on iPhone and iPad

• Camera: the device’s cameras, and UVC capture cards, which iPadOS treats as cameras.
• Microphone: sound in Camera and Microphone, and a capture card’s sound. Mute it in Mirage, or deny access in Settings.
• Speech Recognition: the teleprompter’s Voice Follow, which recognizes speech on the device; nothing leaves it.
• Local Network: finding and connecting Mirage devices, NDI software, and browsers on your network.
• Photos: add-only, to save a Capture Card screenshot or, when you choose, a copy of a recording. Mirage doesn’t read your library.
• Screen Share: the system asks you to start its broadcast before anything on screen is shared.

Change permissions in Settings at any time. A feature that needs a permission you denied is unavailable; the rest keep working.

What stays on your iPhone and iPad

Mirage keeps its settings on the device: the device name, pairing choices and the devices you remembered, controller mappings, monitoring and camera settings, and output settings. The app and its Screen Share extension share settings through an App Group on the same device.

Recordings from Camera (.mov) and Microphone (.m4a) are saved in Files › Mirage, or a folder you choose, and Camera’s in Photos only when you ask; Capture Card’s (.mov) are saved in Files › Mirage. Files may be included in your device’s backups or iCloud according to your own settings.

Reset All Settings resets Mirage’s settings; it doesn’t delete recordings. Delete recordings in Files and copies in Photos. Removing Mirage removes its app container, subject to the system’s backups and offloading; copies you exported remain until you delete them.

Mirage for Mac

Mirage for Mac connects to your iPhones and iPads over your local network with the same encrypted, code-paired connection. With Remember this device, each side keeps the other’s public key so later connections need no code; the Mac’s own key stays in its Keychain. Forget a device in Settings › Devices on the Mac, or remove the Mac in Settings › Pairing on the iPhone or iPad.

• Camera: your Mac’s cameras, only while a group, the virtual camera, or a recording shows them.
• Microphone: a microphone you choose, while recording, or while captions listen to it.
• Speech Recognition: captions, written on the Mac. Nothing you say leaves the Mac; the first use of a language downloads its speech model.
• Screen: you pick a screen, window, or app in the macOS sharing picker, and only that is captured.
• Local Network: finding and watching your iPhones and iPads, and letting Director on them connect.
• Mirage Camera: a camera extension you approve once in System Settings. It has no network access; it receives the picture from Mirage and passes it to the apps where you choose Mirage Camera, which handle it under their own practices.

When an iPhone or iPad allows it in Settings › Mac Access, the Mac can control its Camera, start recordings on it, lock its screen, and download its recordings, all over the encrypted connection. The device checks every request against its own settings.

Takes are saved in Movies › Mirage, or a folder you choose. Search inside recordings looks through what was said, seen, and heard in them on the Mac itself, with a model that runs on the Mac; turn it off in Settings › General. Preferences, device names, groups, and when each device last connected are kept in Mirage’s preferences on the Mac. Delete recordings in Finder; forgetting a device removes its history.

Third-party components

Mirage for iPhone and iPad includes NDI and WebRTC for local streaming. Their presence doesn’t mean your media goes to a cloud service. Both apps use libsodium for pairing. The browser connection uses local signaling and no external STUN or TURN relay. Settings › About Mirage and our acknowledgements page list these components and their licenses. NDI® (another site) is a registered trademark of Vizrt NDI AB.

This website and support

This website is hosted by Vercel and uses Vercel Web Analytics to count visits in aggregate: pages visited, device and browser categories, and approximate location. It is separate from the app and can’t see your streams or recordings. Vercel also processes the connection information needed to serve and secure the site. See Vercel’s Web Analytics privacy information (another site) and Vercel’s privacy policy (another site).

We also keep our own count of how the website is used: which pages are opened, which website or tagged link a visit came from, the kind of device, the country, and when an App Store link or a video is opened. It sets no cookie and stores no IP address, browser details, or anything else that identifies you, so one count can’t be tied to another. The App Store links on this website carry a tag telling Apple that a visit came from this website, or from an AI assistant by way of it, and Apple reports to us only the totals of what was bought after such a visit. The counter runs at Cloudflare, which processes the connection information needed to receive each count. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy (another site).

If you email support, we receive your address, your message, and any attachments you send. We use them to answer and investigate, and keep them as long as support and our obligations need. Please don’t send private recordings or other sensitive information unless it’s needed. You can ask us to delete your support correspondence, subject to retention requirements.

External links, including the App Store and the NDI website, are run by their providers under their own privacy practices.

Changes and contact

We update this policy when Mirage’s features or data practices change, and change the date above. For privacy questions or requests, email support@getmirage.dev.