FAQ

Backstory is a Mac app that organizes supported personal history, starting with Apple Messages, and retrieves source-linked context for supported AI clients.

No. Backstory provides relevant, source-grounded context to supported AI clients. Your chosen AI still reasons about the information and generates the answer.

Backstory begins with supported Apple Messages history on Mac. Other sources will be named only when they become supported.

Backstory is built for Mac and begins with supported Apple Messages history.

MCP, or Model Context Protocol, is the connection that lets supported AI tools request relevant context from Backstory. Instead of manually searching and pasting messages, your AI can request source-linked evidence when it needs it.

Backstory can help retrieve context around earlier decisions, repeated patterns, changed plans, timelines, relationships, and source-backed details from your connected history.

Backstory evaluates the question alongside signals such as people, topics, dates, conversations, and sources. It uses those signals to retrieve a focused result set for the AI to use.

Your connected history is prepared and stored locally on your Mac. Your full history is not sent to an AI tool. When you use Backstory with a supported AI tool, relevant retrieved context can be made available for that question.

No. Backstory maintains the broader corpus and retrieves the context relevant to the question being asked.

Backstory makes retrieved context relevant to the question available to the AI tool—not your entire history. That context may include message excerpts, dates, people, source references, and related evidence needed to answer.

Backstory is designed local-first. Your connected personal history is prepared and stored on your Mac, not routinely accessible to Backstory employees. If you contact support, only share the information you want support to review.

No. Backstory does not use your personal history to train AI models.

Yes. Backstory preserves source evidence so you can inspect the messages and other records supporting important details or conclusions.

Yes. You can remove Backstory’s locally prepared history from your Mac. This does not delete your original source data.

Free provides a rolling 90-day supported Apple Messages history for manual, local use on your Mac.

The seven-day Paid trial includes full available supported history, maintenance while Backstory is active, supported connected retrieval through MCP, and email support.

Yes. A payment method is required to begin the 7-day free trial.

A payment method lets your subscription continue without interruption if you decide to keep using Backstory after the trial. You will not be charged during the seven days, and we will remind you before your first payment.

Your subscription begins automatically at $19.99 per month unless you cancel before the trial ends. We will remind you the day before your first charge.

Yes. Cancel before the trial ends to avoid the first charge. After that, cancellation stops future renewal.

For subscriptions purchased directly from Backstory, you may request a full refund of your first successfully processed paid monthly charge within seven calendar days of its recorded UTC processing time. Failed attempts do not begin the window, later renewals are not automatically eligible, and cancellation alone does not request a refund. A full refund ends paid access immediately. Third-party purchases follow that platform’s process, and statutory rights remain unaffected.