Configuring screen context permissions

Last updated: September 4, 2026

Highlight is designed so that it only captures relevant information - actively blocking sensitive data like banking, health records, government sites, and authentication pages from ever being recorded.

Privacy settings

Access your Data & Privacy Settings here: Settings —> Account —> Data & Privacy

Here are the default settings in the Highlight app:

  • Automatic filtering: Financial institutions, medical portals, tax sites, and login pages are excluded from capture.

  • OS-level encryption: What is captured is encrypted using your device's keychain and stored locally. Only Highlight can access it, and only on the device where it was captured.

  • No Al Training Access: We prohibit third-party Al providers from using your data to train their Al models. Your data is never shared for training purposes and remains strictly private to your use within Highlight.

Under Settings > Data & Privacy:

  • Screen Context has three levels: Most Useful (captures most screen content, default recommendation), Work Only (limits to work-related apps), Off (no screen capture).

  • Advanced Options — default blocked categories (passwords, health/finance, tax/gov). You can add custom block rules to allow or block specific apps and websites.

  • Captured Data — shows what you've captured/used with Highlight; you can erase specific items.

  • Capture is per-app window on multi-monitor setups (not full-display) since the May 2026 code rewrite. Better for privacy.

  • Blocking/allowing is based on the app name, domain name, window title, url, and keywords in website metadata. If it passes all these filters then it goes to an LLM which also is instructed to ignore sensitive info in summarization

Telemetry

You choose to turn on telemetry, which allows Highlight to log context from your interactions with AI for quality evaluation and improvements. This applies to screen data, actions, chats, and meeting notes. You can toggle this on or off at any time.

Screen Context

You’re in control to choose how much screen content Highlight can use. You can inspect every default rule and add additional restrictions in Advanced Options

Highlight has three pre-configured settings for capturing Screen Context

  1. Most Useful - Captures broadly, while blocking sensitive apps, domains, URLs and titles by default

    1. More context: Most apps and sites are used for context

    2. 67 sensitive defaults blocked

  2. Work Only - Capture only known work apps and websites, plus what you explicitly allow in advanced settings

    1. Less context: Only known work apps and sites are used

    2. 29 work defaults are allowed

  3. Off - Does not capture screen context

    1. No context - Highlight will not use your screen for context

    2. No screen context allowed

Allowing Screen Context is useful because Highlight is able to view and utilize your screen context, which is especially helpful when you’re using an app that does not integrate with Highlight. For example, Highlight can be configured to receive context from sites/apps like Figma or Visual Studio Code, which provides valuable context for your daily work.

Remember: Highlight will never save screenshots of your screen.

Advance Screen Context Settings

This setting allows you to add custom allow or block rules. Here are the settings to Allow or Block access to any:

  • App on your computer

    • Choose the app from a list of any app you have installed

  • Website - this will match any URL within a browser or app that reports a URL

  • A window title - match partial text in a window title

    • You can also specify which app(s) this applies to

  • Part of a URL - matches to text anywhere in the page URL

If you create a conflicting custom rule, such as both allowing and blocking the same app, you’ll be notified of the conflict and can choose to revert the existing rule.

At present, it is not possible to edit the advanced settings, and if you wish to change them, you may either create an additional rule, or delete the current rule and create it again.

Local History

Within this section, you may Erase both Clipboard and Screenshot History that has been captured by screen context.

Incognito Mode

If you wish to temporarily, and not permanently, pause Highlight’s capture, regardless of your other settings, we recommend using Incognito Mode.

Learn more here 📄 Incognito Mode: pausing capture