Peak reads an iPhone backup you already have and flags messages that may signal a safety concern — bullying, predatory contact, self-harm, drugs. All processing happens on your Mac. Nothing is ever uploaded.
Plug in the phone, pick a thread, get a report.
Auto-detects iPhone backups on your Mac, including encrypted ones (you provide the password). Works on every iOS version from 10 onward.
Flags messages across nine categories: profanity, slurs, sexual content, drugs, alcohol, threats, self-harm, predatory language, and personal info sharing.
PDFs include UTC timestamps, message GUIDs, source database hashes, embedded attachments, and chain-of-custody. Defensible if you ever need them to be.
On macOS 26+, Peak uses Apple Foundation Models to rate flagged messages in context — runs entirely on your Mac, no data sent to any cloud.
Handles iOS 16+ message format correctly: reactions render attached to parent messages, reply chains show quoted context, unsent and edited messages are marked.
Click any flagged message in the review report to jump straight to its location in the full conversation PDF. No more scrolling through thousands of messages.
A forensic transcript, a chain-of-custody manifest, and optional on-device AI judgment — all generated on your Mac.
Every other parental control product uploads your kid's messages to a cloud somewhere. Peak doesn't. Reports are generated on your Mac, stay on your Mac, and never touch a server.
Peak makes no network calls at all — not even to check for updates (the Mac App Store handles those). You can verify this in Little Snitch or by reading the open-source code.
Peak is built for parents reviewing their own minor child's device — not for covert surveillance of partners, employees, or any other adult.
Compare against $10–20/month subscription competitors. Peak pays for itself in about two months.
No. iOS sandboxes those apps' data so third-party tools can't read it. Peak supports iMessage and SMS only — but those are where most kid-to-friend conversations happen on iPhone. If you specifically need other apps, each platform has its own Family Center; Bark and Aura integrate with several of them via partnership.
Not yet. Peak v1 is Mac-only. Windows support is on the longer-term roadmap. Android is hard because Google has cracked down on apps with elevated message access — most legit Android parental tools rely on device-level MDM, which is a different product.
No. Peak is built for parents reviewing the backup of a minor child in their care, and we encourage you to be open with your kid about it. Peak installs nothing on the phone, sends no notifications, and changes no settings — it only reads a backup that's already on your Mac. Peak is not designed for, and must not be used for, covertly monitoring another adult. See our Terms.
Many will be — the wordlist scanner can't always tell joke from concern. The job of the report is to put a small list of candidates in front of you. Use the full message text and surrounding context (one click away in the forensic PDF) to dismiss false positives in seconds.
On macOS 26 (Tahoe) and later, Peak uses Apple's on-device Foundation Models framework to read each flagged message in the context of surrounding messages and rate concern level. The model runs entirely on your Mac's Neural Engine — message text never leaves the machine. Apple guarantees this at the OS level.
They're real products with real customers and real features Peak doesn't have (mobile companion app, cloud sync, customer support, app integrations). They also cost $10–20/month, require an account, and process your kid's messages on their servers. Peak is the indie one-time alternative — fewer features, much stronger privacy story, no recurring cost.
Refunds are handled by Apple through the Mac App Store under Apple's standard refund policy — request one from your Apple purchase history. (There's no separate support team, just one person.)