Mote

Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 2, 2026

Mote is a free, open-source remote desktop client that runs on your own device. This policy explains what information Mote handles, how it is used, and the choices you have. It applies to the Mote desktop application and to this website, mote.hyprlab.co. Mote is developed by Hyprlab ("we," "us").

The short version

  • Mote runs locally on your device and connects directly to the computers you add.
  • We operate no servers that receive, relay, or store your sessions, connections, or passwords.
  • We collect zero telemetry: no analytics, tracking, or usage reporting from the app.
  • Our repository keeps anonymous counts of update checks and downloads, from ordinary server traffic, without storing IP addresses. See Update checks and install counts.
  • Your passwords are stored on your device in your operating system's keyring.
  • We do not sell, rent, or share your data with anyone.

Information Mote handles

To connect you to a remote desktop, Mote handles:

  • Your connections: the name, address, port, user name, domain, group, picture, and session settings of each computer you add.
  • Passwords, if you choose to save them, for the computers, SSH tunnels, and RD Gateways you connect through.
  • The certificates and SSH host keys of the servers you trust, so it can warn you if one changes.
  • What a session carries, at your direction: the remote picture, your keyboard and pointer, the clipboard, sound, the microphone, and a folder you choose to share.
  • What the remote computer runs. When a server sends no H.264 video, Mote reads its kind from its certificate and, when the session runs through an SSH tunnel that ends on that computer, reads its distribution and graphics card over the same connection, to show the right advice. What it finds is saved with that connection.

How this information is stored

  • Passwords are stored in your operating system's secret service or keyring, not in plaintext on disk.
  • Connections, settings, and trusted certificates are stored in files in your user configuration folder on your device.
  • Screenshots you take are saved to the Screenshots folder in your Pictures folder.
  • None of this is transmitted to us or to any third party. A session's data travels only between your device and the computer you connect to, and through any SSH server or RD Gateway you choose.

Requests the app makes

Mote connects only to the computers, SSH servers, and RD Gateways you add, and sends Wake-on-LAN packets when you ask it to. The one other request it makes is on your instruction: choosing Download for Cisco's OpenH264 under Settings > Video fetches that library from Cisco's server, ciscobinary.openh264.org, under Cisco's terms.

Telemetry

Mote collects no analytics, no usage statistics, and no crash telemetry. The app does not phone home. The only contact an installed copy has with us is the update check that your package manager or app store makes against our repository, described next.

Update checks and install counts

Mote is distributed from repositories on this website: a Flatpak repository, a dnf repository for Fedora and its relatives, an apt repository for Debian and Ubuntu, and AppImages that update from here. Your app store, flatpak, dnf, apt, or an AppImage updater contacts them when it checks for updates and when it downloads a release. These are ordinary web requests that any software repository receives; they are made by those tools, not by Mote, and they carry no information about you, your connections, or your sessions.

We use that traffic to keep aggregate counts: how many installed copies checked for updates on a given day, and how many downloaded each release. To count a device once per day rather than once per request, the server combines its IP address with a secret key held only on the server and the current date, hashes the result, and keeps only that hash. The raw IP address is never stored, and because the date is part of the hash, the same device cannot be recognized from one day to the next. The per-day hashes are deleted after 60 days. What remains are daily totals, with no record of any user or device. These totals are visible only to the maintainer and are not shared.

Requests to this website pass through Cloudflare, our network provider, whose handling of connection data is governed by Cloudflare's privacy policy. Downloads from GitHub Releases are counted by GitHub under GitHub's privacy statement; we see only a total download number per file.

If you would rather not be counted, download a release from GitHub instead of adding our repository, or turn off automatic updates for it.

Data retention and deletion

Because your data lives on your device, you are in control of it:

  • Delete a connection in Mote to remove it and its saved password.
  • Uninstalling Mote leaves its configuration files in your user folders, where you can delete them.

Children's privacy

Mote is not directed to children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected here with a revised "Last updated" date.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your privacy? Email [email protected].