What Accessibility permission is for (and what it is not)
Any Mac app that arranges windows or quits other apps needs Accessibility. That sounds like screen reading. It is not. Here is what Amhara uses it for, and what it never sees.
The name is scarier than the API
macOS groups a lot of “act on other apps” power under Accessibility. Window managers, automation tools, and anything that can click, move, or quit another process will ask for it. The permission prompt does not mean the app is an assistive reader for your documents, and it does not mean it can see your display the way a screen recorder can.
What Amhara does with it
Amhara uses Accessibility to tile windows into a layout, close idle or unwanted apps, and check for unsaved documents in known editors before it closes anything. Those are the features that cannot exist without it. Notifications are a separate prompt, used for idle alerts, resource warnings, and sessions.
It does not read the contents of your files. It does not capture your screen. App usage, Session configuration, and window layouts stay on the Mac. The only network path is optional account sign-in for beta access, which sends your email and a login token — not a list of what you had open.
Grant it for the features you turned on
Both prompts happen during setup. You approve them in System Settings. If you never turn on auto-close or layouts, you are not asking Amhara to drive other apps on a timer — but the permission is still what makes those features possible when you do. You can revoke it the same way as any other Accessibility client, and Amhara is a regular app: quit it and move it to the Trash.