Privacy and trust
What the desktop app keeps on your computer, what goes to Alexein, and how to keep a chat out of your memory.
Alexein is built so you can see what it does and stop it. It asks before it acts, says what it saves, and lets you take any of it back.
What stays on your computer
- Your chats. They're kept on this computer and never uploaded. Settings › Privacy › Delete all chats on this computer removes them all, and leaves your memory as it is.
- Your key. The app's key is kept in your computer's keychain and never shown.
- Files you attach. They're read on your computer. Only their text goes with your message, or the picture itself for an image.
- Folders you let Alexein read. Alexein reads them on your computer, only when you ask, and only inside the folders you chose. It changes a file only in a folder set to Can edit, asking each time, and never moves or deletes one.
- Activity, Needs you and Playbooks. They're kept on this computer. Activity is kept for a year.
- Pages you give it. Your computer fetches and reads them, and only their text goes with your question.
What goes to Alexein
- Your questions, and what Alexein needs to answer them, such as the text of an attached file, go to the model that answers, through Alexein.
- What Alexein saves to your memory. Your memory is in your Alexein account, and follows you to every app you connect: Claude, ChatGPT and your connectors use the same memory. What you correct or forget in the app changes there too.
- Web searches. A search goes through Alexein to a web search service. Alexein doesn't log the words you searched for.
- Your routines. They run on Alexein's servers, so they come on time when your computer is closed. They read your apps, and send nothing unless you set a routine to Send it for me, to a place you chose.
Alexein sends no usage analytics. Settings › Privacy names every server the app talks to.
Settings › Who can see lists every app and key that can read your memory, with Remove.
Work and personal
You can keep work and personal apart by using a different memory for each: Use another memory… in the account menu. When you have more than one, a small badge at the top of the window shows which memory is in use. Click it to switch. Chats, Activity and Needs you belong to the memory in use.
What your organisation sets
Your organisation can set some rules for the app: an Owner or Admin sets them under My memory › Settings › Desktop. Settings › Apps, in the app, shows them at the top, such as:
- which apps can be connected
- that nothing can be always allowed, so every change asks
- that messages always wait for your OK
- that playbooks and routines can't be shared with the team
When Alexein can't read your organisation's rules, it is careful and asks more, not less.
Keep things out of memory
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| One private chat | New off-the-record chat (⇧⌘N). Nothing is saved, and the chat is deleted when you leave it. |
| Chats you keep, but nothing remembered | Pause memory, from the memory chip: for an hour, or until you resume. Every chat stops saving. |
| To take back one thing it just saved | Undo on the Saved to memory line. |
| To change something it remembers | Edit, in Memory or Memory in this chat. |
| To remove something it remembers | Forget…, in Memory. It's forgotten in every app. |
| To stop a routine for a while | Its on/off switch, I'm away…, or Settings › Routines › Pause all routines. |
In an off-the-record chat, and with memory paused, Alexein still reads your memory, so its answers still know you.
Nothing happens until you allow it
- Actions in your apps wait for your OK on a card that says what will be sent, to whom, and where. See Approvals.
- Actions that can't be undone always ask, even after Always allow.
- Messages wait 30 seconds before they go, with Undo.
- After reading something that isn't yours, such as a web page or an email, sending a message and saving notes ask first, whatever Always allow says.
- File changes show the change and wait for your OK, with Undo after.
- Routines start only when you press Start, change only when you press Save changes, and are deleted only when you press Delete.
- Drafts from routines wait for Review. Only a routine you set to Send it for me sends on its own, and only to the place you chose.
- Text from web pages, emails and files is information to Alexein, never instructions it follows.
Related
- Personal memory: who can read your memory, and how to forget.
- Chat and memory: memory on, paused or off-the-record.