Runs on your Mac
Your connected history is compiled, organized, and maintained on your Mac. Backstory is designed so your broader corpus stays local.
Privacy by Design
Your history stays yours.
Backstory is local-first. Your connected history is prepared and stored on your Mac, and supported AI tools receive only the retrieved context needed for the question being asked.
A local-first privacy model.
You control what is shared
Backstory retrieves relevant context for a question instead of sending your entire history into every conversation.
Evidence remains attached
Important details remain traceable to the messages and sources they came from, so you can verify what your AI is relying on.
Why local-first?
Your personal history deserves a different standard than ordinary application data. Keeping your broader history on your own Mac lets Backstory retrieve the context your AI needs while leaving you in control of the information that supports each conversation.
What stays local. What moves.
What Backstory stores
Backstory prepares your connected history so it can retrieve relevant conversations, people, dates, decisions, and supporting source links when you ask a question.
That prepared history stays on your Mac.
What your AI receives
Backstory does not send your entire history to your AI.
When you ask a question through a supported workflow, Backstory retrieves a focused set of relevant, source-linked context for that question.
Your broader history remains organized on your Mac.
The context path.
The broader prepared history stays on your Mac. Only the focused context retrieved for a question moves through a supported workflow.
- Your Mac
- Backstory
- Retrieved context only
- Supported AI tool
- Answer with source links
Privacy questions.
Does my history leave my Mac?
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.
Does Backstory send my entire history to the AI?
No. Backstory maintains the broader corpus and retrieves the context relevant to the question being asked.
What information does Backstory send to AI tools?
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.
Can Backstory employees read my messages?
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.
Does Backstory train AI models on my history?
No. Backstory does not use your personal history to train AI models.
Can I see where an answer came from?
Yes. Backstory preserves source evidence so you can inspect the messages and other records supporting important details or conclusions.
Can I delete my Backstory data?
Yes. You can remove Backstory’s locally prepared history from your Mac. This does not delete your original source data.