Hintglass
Guides · Last updated
Your Hintglass account and licence
At launch, Hintglass, a macOS menu-bar app, is free to try for one session of 20 minutes; after that it needs a licence, which you buy, activate and manage in Settings → Licence.
Hintglass is launching soon, and everything on this page starts at launch: join the waitlist to hear the day it does. A licence is a subscription: USD 50 per month, plus tax where it applies.
The free session
At launch, without a licence you get a free trial: one session of 20 minutes, the first that runs, with nothing to pay.
- Before it, Settings → Licence says “No licence. Your free session (n minutes) is available.”
- While it runs, the Hintglass menu shows its length, and the session stops when the time is up: the panel says “Your free session has ended.”
- A start that fails before the session runs, for a missing permission say, doesn’t use it.
- Activating a licence during it lifts the limit, and the session runs on.
- Once used, it doesn’t come back: Settings → Licence says “No licence. Your free session has been used.”
- A free session contacts nothing: no licence check goes out.
Subscribe
At launch, you subscribe like this.
- Click Buy a licence in Settings → Licence. Checkout runs on Stripe, which adds any tax that applies before you pay.
- Pay. The page after payment shows your licence key.
- Activate the key, as below.
Activate your licence
At launch, you activate your key in one of two ways.
- On the page after payment, click Open in Hintglass. Hintglass opens its Licence window and activates the key. On a Mac that already holds another licence, it asks first: “Replace the licence on this Mac with HG1-•••••-…?”, with Replace and Cancel.
- Or paste the key into Licence key in Settings → Licence and click Activate. It says “Licence activated.”, and Status reads “Active on this Mac.”
Use it on another Mac
At launch, you move your licence to another Mac like this.
- Install Hintglass on the other Mac.
- Activate the same key there, in Settings → Licence.
- If it says the licence is already active on as many Macs as it allows, click Deactivate this Mac… in Settings → Licence on a Mac you no longer use, confirm with Deactivate, then activate again.
Deactivating frees that Mac’s place, and you can activate it again at any time. If the server can’t be reached, the Mac is deactivated anyway, and its place frees itself after 45 days.
Manage or cancel your subscription
At launch, you manage your subscription in Stripe’s customer portal.
- In Hintglass, click Manage subscription in Settings → Licence. It opens Stripe’s customer portal for your licence.
- You can cancel at any time, without giving a reason. You are not charged again, and Hintglass keeps working until the end of the month you have paid for.
- If a payment fails, Stripe retries it, and Settings → Licence says “Active, but the last payment failed. Update it with Manage subscription.”
Refunds
At launch, these refunds apply.
- In the EU and the UK, you get a full refund if you ask within 14 days of your first payment, and your licence then stops working. Email support@hintglass.app.
- Everywhere else, payments and part periods aren’t refunded, except where the law requires a refund.
The Terms have the full wording.
If you lose your key
At launch, if you lose your key, you email support@hintglass.app from the address you paid with. We send the link to your purchase page to that address only, and the page shows your key again while your subscription is active.
Settings → Licence shows an active key only in part, as HG1-•••••-…, so keep the key or the page somewhere safe.
Updates
At launch, Hintglass keeps itself up to date like this.
- Hintglass checks for updates once a day. When it finds one, the menu offers “Install Hintglass x.y.z…”; nothing installs on its own.
- Check for Updates… in the menu checks at once.
- Neither runs while a session is starting, running or stopping. A daily check skipped during a session runs when it ends.
Licence checks
At launch, this is what the licence check sends.
Hintglass checks your licence when a session starts, and works offline for 7 days after the last check. Each check sends the key and its activation ID to our licence server; activating also sends a random install ID. The server sees your IP address for rate limiting and does not store it. Nothing about your sessions is sent. The Privacy policy has the rest.