Privacy in practice

Encryption protects your diary very well from someone who gets hold of the file. It can’t hide everything, and it can’t protect a computer that is already compromised. This page is the plain-language version of where the protection stops, and the habits that close most of the gaps.

For the full, numbered list of promises and limits, see the security page. This page is about what they mean day to day.

What the vault hides#

Someone who copies your vault file, steals your laptop or finds your USB drive gets an encrypted file. Without your passphrase or security key they can’t read:

• your messages and the AI’s replies, or the titles of your conversations;
• anything the AI remembers about you, including pinned facts, notes and summaries;
• your personas, settings and which model you use.

A wrong passphrase gives nothing away, and every entry is authenticated, so nobody can quietly change what your diary says without the change being detected.

Nothing leaves your computer while you use it. The app contains no networking code at all: no account, no telemetry, no update checks. The AI runs on your own hardware.

Apart from a possible crash log (see below), the app keeps nothing outside the vault: no settings file, no list of recently opened vaults, no cache and no temporary copies.

What someone holding the file can still see#

Encryption hides the words, not the fact that the file exists. From the file itself, someone can tell:

• That it is a database. File tools identify a vault as SQLite, and anyone can list its table names, such as conversations and memories. There is no hidden volume or decoy.
• How much is in it. The file’s size, how many entries each table holds and roughly how long each one is. Short entries are padded to the same size, but a very long entry still looks long.
• When it last changed, from the file’s timestamps.
• How it is locked. The start of the file says which encryption is used and whether a passphrase or a security key opens it. None of that helps anyone open it.

What exists outside the vault#

Anything you copy out of the app goes onto the system clipboard like any other text. Windows clipboard history (Win+V) and clipboard managers can keep it.

While the vault is open#

To show you your diary, the app has to decrypt it, and decrypted text lives in the computer’s memory:

• It can outlast locking. Locking destroys the key immediately, but text already decrypted stays in memory until it happens to be reused.
• The operating system can copy memory to disk, in the page file, the hibernation image or a crash dump. Full-disk encryption covers those files.
• A compromised computer defeats all of it. A keylogger sees your passphrase as you type it, screen-capture software sees what you read, and malicious software running as you can read the app’s memory. No application can protect against the system it runs on.
• Anyone looking at your screen sees what you see.

What deleting really does#

Deleting removes an entry from everything the app shows and uses. Two things are worth knowing:

• Facts already learned can remain. A note the AI distilled from a conversation records which conversation it came from, but not which message. Deleting a single entry can’t find those notes, so check the Memory screen and delete them there. Deleting a whole conversation does remove its notes.
• Copies elsewhere aren’t reached. The app overwrites a deleted entry inside the vault file. It can’t reach copies of the file you made earlier, backups made before the deletion, or encrypted leftovers of its write journal in your disk’s free space. Someone without your factors gains nothing from any of those; someone who later learns your passphrase could recover the entry from them. A backup made after the deletion doesn’t contain it: backups are rebuilt from live data, which also clears out space freed by older versions of the app. Full-disk encryption covers the journal’s leftovers.

Scope decides what the AI is told, not who can read it#

By default a memory is used only in the conversation it belongs to. That governs what the AI is shown, not a wall inside the vault. The Memory screen lists every memory from every conversation, and anyone who can open the vault can read all of it. If you need parts of your life kept truly apart, use separate vaults with different passphrases.

If someone can make you unlock it#

There is no duress passphrase and no way to open a vault into a harmless-looking fake. Someone who can make you unlock it will see what is inside. If that is a real risk for you, weigh it before you write, and consider where the vault and its backups are kept.

Good habits#

Next step#

If something isn’t working, see troubleshooting.