Film Buddy

Legal, privacy, and trust

Film Buddy Support

Support contacts, diagnostics guidance, local-data locations, and safe removal steps.

Version
App 0.7.0 (build 1)
Date
On this page
  1. Current beta candidate
  2. Support records and local libraries
  3. Product support
  4. Report a vulnerability
  5. Security scope and limitations
  6. What stays on your Mac
  7. Default locations
  8. Originals are referenced
  9. Delete and clear controls
  10. Logs and diagnostics
  11. Export metadata and sidecars
  12. Local security

Current beta candidate

Film Buddy 0.7.0 (build 1) requires macOS 13 or later. The invitation-only Developer ID beta is available to approved United States testers through the account portal after acceptance of the current App EULA. The app download is delivered from private storage through a short-lived signed link. The Corresponding Source, camera-SDK open-source packages, and final release SBOM remain publicly available from the Licenses page.

Support records and local libraries

Support and privacy requests go to hello@filmbuddyapp.com. Support messages are retained for 30 days after receipt. Diagnostics and technical attachments that a user deliberately emails are retained for 90 days after receipt.

Film Buddy cannot retrieve, correct, or erase a local Film Buddy library that it never received. Local libraries, photographs, recipes, previews, and exports remain under the user's control unless the user deliberately sends material through a separate support channel.

Updated July 9, 2026

Product support

Film Buddy, not Apple or a camera manufacturer, provides support for the App.

Include the Film Buddy version, macOS version, steps to reproduce, expected result, and actual result. You may attach a screenshot or a diagnostics archive only if you are authorized to share it and have reviewed it for sensitive filenames, paths, photographs, and project information.

Film Buddy has no automatic support uploader. Creating a diagnostics ZIP keeps it on your Mac until you send or delete it.

Report a vulnerability

Send security reports privately to hello@filmbuddyapp.com. A minimal private proof of concept is welcome when needed to reproduce the issue, but do not deploy it against third parties or include unnecessary destructive payloads, personal data, photographs, credentials, or test results. Do not send secrets or unnecessary personal data by ordinary email.

Please include:

  • the affected Film Buddy version and macOS version;
  • the affected component and whether camera tethering is involved;
  • clear reproduction steps and impact;
  • any proof of concept in the least destructive form practical; and
  • how we may contact you and whether you want public credit.

The current beta version is supported throughout beta testing, with security updates provided for 12 months after the final beta release. We aim to acknowledge a vulnerability report within five business days. Unless immediate disclosure is necessary to protect people, coordinate public disclosure with us for up to 90 days while a fix and user notice are prepared.

Do not access another person's data, degrade a system, persist after confirming the issue, conduct denial-of-service or social-engineering tests, or violate law or third-party terms. This page does not authorize testing that would otherwise be unlawful, and it is not a bug-bounty promise.

Security scope and limitations

Film Buddy is a local desktop application. Its catalogs, logs, working files, exports, and sidecars are ordinary files protected by macOS and the user's security choices; Film Buddy does not encrypt them itself. Optional tethering uses camera-vendor components and may communicate over USB or local IP.

If you believe photographs or diagnostics were accidentally sent to Film Buddy, contact hello@filmbuddyapp.com and identify the message so we can apply the published retention and deletion process.

Applies to Film Buddy 0.7 and later — Updated July 9, 2026

Film Buddy is designed around a local library. This guide explains what lives where, what deletion controls actually do, and what to review before sharing an export or diagnostics file.

What stays on your Mac

Core image processing is performed by the Film Buddy app and its local helper processes. There is no Film Buddy image server, account, cloud library, advertising SDK, or automatic support uploader.

Optional direct camera tethering can communicate with a supported camera over USB or your local IP network. That traffic is between your Mac and camera through the camera SDK; it is not a Film Buddy cloud-processing path.

Default locations

Film Buddy's default data root is:

~/Library/Application Support/Film Buddy/FilmBuddyLibrary

It can contain the SQLite catalog and WAL files, per-image JSON records, recipes, analysis, previews, decoded or normalized working images, render caches, approvals, export records, and logs/events.jsonl.

Preferences are stored by macOS for bundle identifier com.filmbuddy.app. macOS may also retain local unified-log entries according to its own policies.

You can move regenerable cache data from Preferences. The selected cache path then contains Film Buddy preview and decode artifacts. Referenced originals remain at their existing locations; catalog data and recipes remain in the library.

Originals are referenced

Film Buddy currently records the path to an original instead of treating its library as the only copy. Moving, renaming, or disconnecting an original can make it unavailable until relinked. Removing a frame from Film Buddy preserves that referenced original.

Keep an independent backup of originals and important exports. The Film Buddy library and cache are not a substitute for a backup.

Delete and clear controls

  • Move to Trash changes a Film Buddy catalog flag. It is reversible and is not erasure.
  • Remove from Library permanently removes Film Buddy's catalog records, recipes, approvals, analysis, previews, and cache for that frame. It preserves the referenced original file.
  • Clean Old Renders removes regenerable preview artifacts under the stated policy.
  • Clear Cache removes regenerable previews and decoded masters. For film negatives it also deletes every saved develop-recipe row and recipe sidecar, negative analysis, film-base and manual-base defaults, and resets every film-negative frame to Import. You must redo white balance, crop, Convert, and saved edits for those negatives. It preserves referenced originals and external exports.
  • Delete the library folder in Finder removes the remaining Film Buddy catalog and library artifacts after the app is quit. Verify the path and make a backup first. Inspect the folder before deletion: if you deliberately chose a tether or capture destination inside it, captured originals may also be there.
  • Uninstalling the app does not guarantee removal of Application Support, custom cache, preferences, external exports, sidecars, diagnostics ZIPs, backups, or macOS unified logs.

To identify a custom cache before resetting it, open Preferences > Cache Storage and choose Show in Finder. Record that location, quit Film Buddy, and remove the Film Buddy Cache folder there if you intend to erase it.

There is not yet one in-app button that erases all Film Buddy data and preferences. To perform a full local reset, quit Film Buddy, back up anything you need, remove the default library and any custom cache in Finder, remove external exports/sidecars/diagnostics separately, and remove Film Buddy's macOS preferences using normal macOS administration tools.

To remove the production app's stored preferences after quitting Film Buddy, run this command in Terminal:

defaults delete com.filmbuddy.app

macOS may report that the domain does not exist when no preferences remain. Managed Macs may require an administrator. This command does not delete the library, a custom cache, exports, sidecars, diagnostics, or backups.

Logs and diagnostics

Local logs may include image IDs, filenames, absolute paths, project or roll names, export activity, settings hashes, timing, and errors. The event log does not currently have an automatic expiration period.

Export Diagnostics creates a ZIP where you choose. It contains the local logs folder and an info.txt with the generation time, Film Buddy version, macOS version, and Mac chip model. It does not transmit the ZIP.

Before sending diagnostics:

  1. Make a copy if you want to preserve the original archive.
  2. Open the ZIP and review info.txt and the files under logs/.
  3. Remove entries or files you do not want to disclose.
  4. Send it only through the support channel at hello@filmbuddyapp.com.
  5. Ask support to delete it when the issue is resolved if that is your preference.

Film Buddy receives a diagnostics archive only if you choose to send it.

Export metadata and sidecars

Film Buddy does not intentionally copy source EXIF, IPTC, or GPS fields into TIFF or JPEG outputs. It does add necessary output properties such as an ICC profile. Inspect a file with a metadata tool if metadata absence is critical.

The optional sidecar is enabled by default and is written as:

<full-export-filename>.filmbuddy.json

For example: frame-01.tif.filmbuddy.json.

A sidecar may contain:

  • absolute source and export paths;
  • a persistent cryptographic hash of the source;
  • the Film Buddy image ID;
  • recipe, render graph, crop, analysis, and edit values; and
  • output details, timestamps, and export history.

An absolute path can reveal your Mac username and folder structure. A source hash can show that two sidecars refer to the same source even if the filename changes. Disable sidecars before export, or review and redact the JSON, when you do not intend to share this information.

Local security

Film Buddy does not add application-level encryption to its catalog, logs, previews, decoded files, exports, or sidecars. Use a strong macOS login, appropriate file permissions, trusted backup media, and disk encryption where appropriate. Limit access to any folder used for tether capture or a custom cache.

For privacy questions, contact hello@filmbuddyapp.com. For security issues, use hello@filmbuddyapp.com and follow the Security & Support page.

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