How your license works
Selv is a single-seat, pay-once license. You activate a Mac once, online — and then it runs forever, offline. We never make your Mac check in again, because "yours forever" should mean yours even after our servers are gone.
Switching to a new Mac
Sign in on the web to release the seat, then activate Selv on the new Mac. You don't need the old machine in hand, and it only takes a few minutes. (Approving a move from your iPhone with a tap is planned for a later release.)
Lost or stolen Mac
Two things are true, and we want to be straight about both.
Your license is recoverable. Release the seat from the web and activate a replacement Mac. The stolen machine no longer holds your only seat.
The honest part about the stolen machine itself. If a thief keeps it permanently offline, the app keeps running — no pay-once app can remotely switch off a Mac that never connects to the internet, and the products that tried to were forced to back down. But it buys the thief nothing: your data is encrypted at rest, with keys that live only on that Mac and unlock only with your password. They get a blank app, not your life.
We guard the data with encryption, and the seat with a one-time activation you can reclaim whenever you need to.