Does Weather-Aware Dark Mode Track Your Location? A Privacy Guide

What location permission does Solace request?

macOS offers three levels of location permission for apps: Always, When Sharing (sometimes described as "while the app is active"), and Never. Each level determines when an app is allowed to request your coordinates from the system's location services.

Always permits an app to access your location at any time, including when the app is not in active use and running entirely in the background. This is typically used by apps like navigation or fitness tracking, where background location awareness is the core purpose.

When Sharing allows location access only when the app is actively performing a task that involves your location. In practice, this means the app can request coordinates during a specific operation - such as checking the weather - but is not continuously listening for your position in the background between those checks.

Never disables location access entirely. The app cannot retrieve any location information from the system.

Solace requests the When Sharing permission for weather-aware dark mode. This is the same permission level requested by the Apple Weather app. When Solace polls for current weather conditions - which it does on a fixed interval, not continuously - it requests your coordinates, sends them to Apple's WeatherKit API, receives a weather condition code in return, and then stops. Between polling intervals, no location data is being accessed.

What happens with your location data?

Understanding the exact data flow helps clarify why Solace's weather-aware feature is designed the way it is. Here is a step-by-step account of what happens when Solace checks the weather:

1. Solace requests your current coordinates from macOS's Core Location framework. This is a system-level request - macOS manages location data and controls which apps can access it based on the permissions you have granted.
2. Your device sends those coordinates to Apple's WeatherKit service. WeatherKit is Apple's weather data platform, introduced in 2022 to replace the Dark Sky API. The request goes from your device directly to Apple's servers. No third party is involved.
3. Apple's WeatherKit service returns current conditions for your location - things like clear, overcast, drizzle, rain, or storm - as a structured data response. The conditions are returned as codes or descriptors, not as raw weather station data.
4. Solace reads the condition code from the response and uses it to determine whether to switch macOS to dark mode (overcast, cloudy, rainy, or stormy conditions) or light mode (clear or partly cloudy conditions).
5. No data is transmitted to Solace's servers. Solace does not operate a weather backend, a data collection endpoint, or any server infrastructure that processes your location. The entire weather data exchange happens between your device and Apple.

Apple's WeatherKit is governed by Apple's privacy policy and its developer usage restrictions. Apple explicitly prohibits using WeatherKit data to identify or track individual users. The coordinates you send are used to retrieve weather data for that location - not to build a profile of your movements or habits.

For the authoritative reference, Apple's WeatherKit documentation describes the service as providing on-device privacy protections consistent with Apple's broader privacy framework. Apple does not use WeatherKit requests to target advertising or to associate location data with your Apple ID in a way that persists beyond the immediate request.

How this compares to other weather-based apps

Not all weather-aware features are built the same way. The privacy implications depend heavily on which weather data source an app uses.

Many third-party apps - including some macOS apps that offer appearance switching based on conditions - rely on third-party weather APIs rather than Apple's WeatherKit. Common examples include OpenWeatherMap, Tomorrow.io, Weather.com (operated by The Weather Company), and AccuWeather. When an app uses one of these APIs, your coordinates are sent to that company's servers, processed under that company's privacy policy, and potentially retained for periods defined by that company's data practices.

This is not necessarily a problem - those services are legitimate and widely used. But there is a meaningful difference between sending your location to Apple (an entity whose privacy practices you likely already accept through macOS and iOS) and sending it to a third-party data company.

Solace uses WeatherKit specifically because it keeps your location data inside the Apple ecosystem - a framework you already trust when you use the Weather app, Maps, or any other Apple service that requests location access.

Can you use weather-aware dark mode without always sharing your location?

Yes. The "When Sharing" permission Solace requests is not equivalent to continuous location tracking. Here is the distinction:

Solace checks weather conditions on a polling interval - typically every 15 to 30 minutes - rather than monitoring your location in real time. When a poll occurs, Solace requests your current coordinates, sends them to WeatherKit, receives the current conditions, and the location request ends. Between polls, Solace is not accessing your location.

This is functionally identical to opening the Apple Weather app to check conditions: your location is requested at that moment, used to fetch data, and then the request is complete. The difference is that Solace automates this check on an interval so you do not need to do it manually.

The "When Sharing" permission label in macOS's privacy settings reflects this accurately. It does not mean Solace is always reading your location - it means Solace is permitted to read your location when it is actively performing a weather check. Outside of those intervals, your location is not being accessed.

What if you are concerned about any location sharing?

Solace is designed so that weather-aware dark mode is entirely optional. If you prefer not to grant any location access, you have fully functional alternatives within the same app:

Time-based dark mode scheduling. Solace lets you define a custom schedule for when dark mode activates and deactivates - for example, 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM. This requires no location permission. You define the hours, Solace handles the switching automatically. For the step-by-step setup, see How to Make Dark Mode Follow the Weather on Mac for the weather approach, or configure the schedule option directly in the app.

Sunrise/sunset scheduling. macOS has its own sunset-to-sunrise appearance option, and Solace integrates with this. Dark mode activates at local sunset and deactivates at sunrise, based on your device's system time zone - not a real-time location check. This uses the device's system clock and pre-calculated solar data, with no active location polling.

Disable weather mode entirely. In Solace's settings, you can toggle weather-aware switching off and use any other scheduling approach. The weather feature does not activate unless you explicitly enable it and grant the location permission when prompted.

You can also revoke Solace's location permission at any time in System Settings > Privacy and Security > Location Services. Disabling location access simply deactivates the weather feature - all other Solace features continue working normally.

Solace's privacy approach

Beyond the specific question of location data, it is worth understanding Solace's broader stance on privacy - because it is unusual among Mac apps.

No analytics. Solace contains no analytics SDK, no crash reporting service, and no usage tracking. When you use Solace, no telemetry leaves your device to report what features you used or how often.

No account required. There is no Solace account, no sign-up, and no email address collected. Your settings are stored on your device in macOS's standard preferences system.

One-time purchase. Solace is a $4.99 one-time purchase with no subscription. Subscription models require tracking whether you are a current subscriber, which in turn requires infrastructure to verify user identity. A one-time purchase has no such requirement - once purchased, the app simply works.

Zero server infrastructure for user data. Solace does not operate servers that receive, process, or store user data. The only external service the app contacts is Apple's WeatherKit - and only if you enable the weather feature.

The full privacy policy is available at the Solace website for reference. The short version: Solace collects nothing, stores nothing server-side, and transmits nothing to Solace's infrastructure. The weather feature routes location data through Apple - not through Solace.

For a deeper explanation of how WeatherKit itself works technically, see How Apple WeatherKit Works on Mac. For the full guide to enabling weather-aware switching, see How to Make Dark Mode Follow the Weather on Mac. To understand why macOS's built-in appearance system ignores weather entirely, see Why macOS Auto Appearance Ignores Weather.

You can also browse all weather mode guides on the Weather Mode topic index.