Hearth — Home Hub

Hearth keeps your family’s photos and files at home. One Mac in your house becomes your household’s hub, and everyone’s iPhone, iPad and Mac send to it over your home Wi-Fi. There’s no cloud, no account to create, and nothing to pay. Your files never leave your home network.

Support

What you need

  • A Mac with Apple silicon, running macOS 27 or later, to be the hub. It stays on and connected to your home network.
  • Somewhere to keep the files. The usual choice is an external drive plugged into the hub; a folder on the Mac itself also works. A second drive can hold a verified backup.
  • iPhone or iPad with iOS or iPadOS 27 or later. Other Macs need macOS 27 or later.
  • Every device on the same home network.

Getting started

  1. Set up the hub. On the Mac that will be the hub, open Hearth and choose Keep the household’s files on this Mac. Let Hearth find devices on your local network, then choose the drive or folder for your files. Name your household, and name the person who looks after it. If you have a second drive, choose it for the backup. Turn on Run Hearth Hub in the background, so the hub keeps working with its window closed and comes back by itself after a restart.
  2. Pair each device. The hub shows a six-digit pairing code, and the person who looks after Hearth can make a new code at any time. A code lasts 10 minutes. On each iPhone, iPad or Mac, open Hearth, let it find devices on your local network, and enter the code.
  3. Send. On iPhone or iPad, use Share › Hearth. On a Mac, drop files on Hearth in the menu bar. Hearth tells you when each file is Saved on the hub.

If something isn’t working

  • Hearth can’t find the hub.
    • Make sure the device is on your home Wi-Fi, not cellular or a guest network.
    • Make sure the hub Mac is turned on.
    • Make sure Hearth may use the local network. On iPhone or iPad, that’s Settings › Privacy & Security › Local Network › Hearth. On a Mac, it’s System Settings › Privacy & Security › Local Network.
  • A pairing code doesn’t work. Codes expire after 10 minutes, and a code stops working after a few wrong tries. Make a new code on the hub and try again.
  • The hub’s drive was unplugged. Files you send still land safely on the hub Mac. They move to the drive as soon as it’s back.
  • Something was deleted by mistake. Deleted files stay in Hearth’s Trash for 30 days. Until then, the person who looks after Hearth can bring them back.

Contact

For questions or problems, write to Bearcatonbeer@gmail.com. Please say which device you’re using and what you were trying to do.

Privacy Policy

Effective October 1, 2026

The short version: Hearth collects nothing. Your files, your names and your activity stay on the devices in your home and on the hub Mac you choose. We never receive any of it, and nobody else does either.

Who we are. Hearth — Home Hub is a Bearcat On Beer app. “We” in this policy means Bearcat On Beer.

What Hearth keeps, and where. Everything Hearth stores stays on your own devices.

  • On the hub Mac and its drives:
    • the files your household sends;
    • a list of those files: names, sizes, dates, who added each one, and a checksum used to check every copy;
    • your household’s name;
    • the people in the household (name, color and symbol) and the devices paired to it;
    • a record of recent activity;
    • a log the hub keeps for troubleshooting;
    • if you set up a backup drive, a copy of the files and of that list on it.
  • On each paired device:
    • the credential that proves the device belongs to your household, kept in the device’s secure keychain;
    • your household’s name and the hub’s address on your network;
    • any files still waiting to be sent.

What travels, and where. Your devices talk only to your hub, over your home network. The connection is encrypted with TLS 1.3, and the hub and each device prove who they are with their own certificates. Hearth doesn’t connect to the internet, to us, or to any other service. The hub announces your household’s name on your home network so your devices can find it, which means other devices on the same network can see that name.

What we collect. Nothing. Hearth has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising, no tracking and no third-party services.

Apple’s crash reports. If you’ve chosen to share analytics with app developers in your device’s settings, Apple may send us reports when Hearth crashes. Apple controls this, and you can turn it off at any time in Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements. If you test Hearth through TestFlight, Apple also passes on any feedback you choose to send.

Permissions Hearth asks for.

  • Local Network: to find your hub and talk to it on your home network.
  • Removable volumes (the hub Mac only): to keep your household’s files on the external drive you choose.
  • Add to Photos (iPhone and iPad): only when you save a photo from the hub into Photos. Hearth can’t see your photo library.
  • Notifications (iPhone and iPad): to tell you when a file couldn’t be sent.

Children. Hearth collects no information from anyone, including children. The person who looks after your household’s hub decides who is in the household.

Keeping and deleting your information. Your household decides how long anything is kept.

  • A deleted file goes to Hearth’s Trash for 30 days, then it is removed for good.
  • The person who looks after Hearth can remove people and turn off devices.
  • Deleting Hearth from a device removes what it stored there.
  • Removing the Hearth folder from the hub’s drive removes the household’s files.

Changes. If this policy changes, we’ll update this page and the date at the top.

Contact. Bearcatonbeer@gmail.com