A personal application is an application used exclusively by its owner and not shared with others. It supports API key authentication, user authentication, or app authentication to authenticate requests.
The access tokens used in a personal application can contain any privileges associated with the owner's ArcGIS account. It can even impersonate the owner's ArcGIS account, allowing the app to act on the owner's behalf and perform any action they would be able to when logged in to ArcGIS.
Personal apps are not published or shared, and are often implemented as scripts or interactive applications local to your computer. For example, a script or application that performs administrative operations against the portal associated with your account.
Related terms
- public application
A public application is an application that allows anonymous access without requiring users to sign in with an ArcGIS account. It supports API key or app authentication. - private application
A private application is an application that requires users to sign in with an ArcGIS account. It supports user authentication. - API key authentication
API key authentication is a type of authentication that uses an API key to authenticate requests to ArcGIS services and secure portal items. - user authentication
User authentication is a type of authentication that allows users with an ArcGIS account to sign into an application and allow it to access ArcGIS content, services, and resources on their behalf. The typical authorization protocol used is OAuth2.0. - app authentication
App authentication is a type of authentication that grants a short-lived access token based on an OAuth 2.0 client ID and client secret, authorizing an application to access ArcGIS services and items.