Scratch

License and trial

Scratch is paid software with a 14-day local trial. There’s no sign-in, no account, and no online activation server.

Trial

The first time you launch Scratch, a 14-day countdown begins. Until it expires, every feature is fully unlocked. The remaining days are shown in Settings → Activation.

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Settings — Activation showing days remaining in the trial and the license key field.

Trial state is stored locally. Scratch protects against clock rollback by tracking the latest time it has seen — moving your system clock backward will not extend the trial.

When the trial expires

After day 14, Scratch enters a read-only mode. The activation panel says:

Your trial has ended. Editing is paused until you activate Scratch. You can still read your buffers.

  • Your existing buffers stay readable.
  • Search, navigation, and export all keep working.
  • New edits and new buffers are blocked until you activate.

A persistent banner at the top of the window points to the activation panel.

Activate

Buy a license on the Scratch product page. Lemon Squeezy, our merchant of record, processes the payment and emails you a license key.

To activate:

  1. Open Settings → Activation.
  2. Paste the license key into the field. The key is verified locally against an embedded public key — no network request is made.
  3. Once verified, the panel switches to the licensed view, showing the email associated with the license and a Deactivate button.

Activation persists across launches. If verification fails, Scratch tells you why (malformed key, wrong product, signature mismatch).

Deactivate

Use Deactivate in Settings → Activation to remove the license from this Mac so you can use it on another one. After deactivation, Scratch returns to whatever trial time remained when you originally activated; if the trial was already exhausted, you’re back in read-only mode.

Each license permits installation on machines you personally own. If you need to move to a new machine, deactivate on the old one and paste the same key on the new one.

Replace a key

To swap one license for another (for example, after upgrading), deactivate the existing key first, then paste the new one.

Refunds

Within 14 days of purchase, email [email protected] from the address you bought with and include the order ID. Refunds are processed by Lemon Squeezy back to the original payment method. See Terms of service for the full policy.