Privacy & Data

Atlas Local is private by design, not by policy. Your notes and conversations stay private for an architectural reason: the AI runs on your own computer, so there’s nowhere else for your content to go.

There is no Atlas server processing your content

When you chat, dictate, or hear a reply, the work is done by a model on your machine — not on a server we run. The language model, the Whisper Base speech-to-text, and the Kokoro text-to-speech all execute locally.

Because of that:

• Your message text and the note snippets Atlas uses as context never leave your device.
• Voice recordings are transcribed on-device and discarded once transcribed; the audio is never uploaded.
• Search runs against a local index — your queries and their results stay on your machine.

There’s no account to log into to use the app, and no content is sent to us or to any third-party AI provider. The one-time license check and the first-run model download are the only connections Atlas needs — see Offline Operation for the full picture.

Your vault is plain files on your disk

Everything Atlas stores is a plain-text file in the vault folder you chose:

• Your notes are Markdown — the same format Obsidian, Logseq, and VS Code use.
• Atlas keeps its own working files (memory, identity, rules, and session history) in an atlas/ subfolder inside the vault, also as plain text.
• Nothing is locked away in a proprietary database or a cloud you can’t reach.

This is what “your data belongs to you” means in practice:

• Read it — open any note in any text editor.
• Back it up — copy the folder, put it in git, or point Dropbox, iCloud, or Syncthing at it. See the backup steps in the FAQ.
• Leave with it — if you ever stop using Atlas, your notes are still just files you own. There’s nothing to export and no lock-in.

Telemetry is opt-in, off by default — and you can see exactly what it sends

Atlas collects no analytics unless you choose to help. Performance telemetry is off by default. If you turn it on, it reports only how fast a model ran — timing and hardware performance — never your notes, messages, or voice.

You’ll find the control in Settings → Privacy:

• A single checkbox turns telemetry on or off. It starts off.
• A “view telemetry payload” button shows you the exact data that would be sent, so you can read it before deciding.

Nothing is sent while telemetry is off, and even when it’s on, the payload is limited to performance numbers you can inspect at any time.

Related

• Offline Operation — what works with no connection.
• FAQ — data storage, backups, and the Google integration privacy policy.
• License & Activation — the one-time purchase and the account that only delivers your key.