Effective: September 15, 2026
This policy covers the Terse website (terseai.org), the Terse web app (terseai.org/m), the Terse desktop apps for macOS and Windows, the Terse apps and keyboards for Android and iOS, and the Terse API. Together we call these "Terse". "We" and "us" means the Terse team.
Some parts of Terse run only on your device. Others need our servers. In brief:
This table lists every type of data that leaves your device and reaches us or a company that processes it for us. Everything is sent over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection. Some features need an account; the others are optional and only run when you use them.
| Data type | What exactly | Why we use it | Who receives it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal info: email, name, user IDs | Email address; first and last name if you provide them or they come from Google, Apple or WeChat sign-in (for WeChat, your nickname); account ID; your display name in rooms and on the plaza | Creating and signing in to your account, restoring purchases, showing your name to people you interact with, replying to you | Clerk (sign-in); Stripe (email, if you buy on the web or desktop); people you interact with see your display name |
| Financial info: purchase history | Plan, subscription or one-time purchase status, expiry date; Stripe customer and subscription IDs; Google Play purchase tokens; Apple transaction IDs. We never see or store card numbers. | Checking payments and unlocking paid features | Stripe, Google Play or Apple, depending on where you pay |
| Messages | Room chat messages, direct messages, team chat messages. In private rooms with end-to-end encryption on, we store only encrypted text we cannot read. | Delivering messages and keeping chat history | The people you message, and members of the room or team |
| Photos and videos | Cover images, animations and video frames on plaza posts; wallpaper images and videos you upload (PNG, JPEG, MP4); images you share in rooms | Showing your posts; delivering your wallpaper to your phone | Plaza posts are public. Wallpapers are available only through your account and your private wallpaper link. Room images go to room members. |
| Files and documents | Files you attach in private rooms (deleted after 7 days); documents, sheets and slides you create in Terse Docs | Letting you share and edit them with others | Room members; people you share a document with |
| Other user content | Plaza post titles, text and links (including GitHub repository links); comments; likes and favorites; reports; friend requests and friend links | Running the plaza and friend features, and moderating content | Public plaza content is visible to everyone. When you link a GitHub repository, we fetch its public information from GitHub. |
| App activity: AI agent usage | Only if you link a phone or join a team: token counts, estimated costs, agent names, project (folder) names, model names and, for linked phones and teams, short excerpts of recent agent activity | Showing your agents' activity on your phone, and on your team's dashboard if you join a team | Your own linked phone; members of a team you join |
| Device or other IDs | A hash of the random identity key the app creates on each install; records linking your phone and computer; web push subscriptions if you turn on notifications | Knowing who you are in rooms, on the plaza and in messages without requiring an account; sending notifications you asked for | Web push services (Apple, Google, Mozilla), for notifications only |
| Diagnostics | Anonymous error reports from the web app: browser type, screen size, graphics (GPU) info, error text. They contain no account or identity. | Fixing bugs | No one else. We keep only the last 50 reports, in memory. |
| Website analytics | Pages viewed, referrer, device and browser type, approximate location worked out from your IP address, and Google Analytics cookies. Only on our marketing website. | Seeing which pages are useful | Google (Google Analytics) |
| Support and newsletter | Your question, and your email address if you leave one; your email address if you subscribe to the newsletter | Answering you; sending the newsletter | Slack (where our team reads support messages); Buttondown (newsletter) |
Not collected: text typed in the Terse keyboards, keystrokes or typing patterns, contacts, precise location, advertising IDs, health or fitness data, call logs, SMS, or your photo library (only images you choose to upload are sent). We do not sell personal data. We do not use it for advertising and we do not share it with data brokers.
Prompt compression runs entirely on your device. Text you type in the keyboard is never sent to us or anyone else. Keyboard settings (theme, language, optimization mode) and your weekly optimization count are stored on your device.
iOS "Full Access". The iOS keyboard asks for Full Access. It needs it so it can read and write storage it shares with the main Terse app: your theme, keyboard language, optimization settings and weekly optimization count. The keyboard does not contain any code that connects to the internet. With or without Full Access, your keystrokes stay on your device.
When you send text to Terse from another app, or paste it into the app's Optimize screen, it is compressed on your device. The text itself is never uploaded. The apps may contact our server to check your sign-in and subscription status.
To show your AI coding agents' token usage and costs, the desktop app reads the local files of tools such as Claude Code, Cursor and Codex. These stay on your computer unless you turn on one of the features described in Desktop app, phone link and teams. To show your plan limits, the app may contact an AI provider's own usage service (for example Anthropic or Cursor) with the login already stored on your computer. That exchange is only between your computer and the provider; it does not go through our servers.
You need an account for purchases, the phone web app, linking devices, posting to the plaza, wallpapers, direct messages, teams and Terse Docs. Sign-in is handled by Clerk. You can sign in with email and password, a passkey, Google, Apple or WeChat. We do not see or store your password.
We store your Clerk account ID, your email address, your name if you give one, and your plan status. With Apple sign-in you may choose Apple's private relay email. WeChat sign-in gives us your WeChat ID and nickname, but no email address.
We never receive or store full card numbers or bank details.
Content you create in Terse's social and collaboration features is stored on our servers so it can be delivered and shown:
By default, the desktop app does not upload your agent data. It uploads only when you turn on one of these features:
We do not collect advertising IDs, IMEI, serial numbers or MAC addresses.
If something breaks in the Terse web app, it can send an anonymous error report: browser type, screen size, graphics (GPU) info, whether things loaded, and the error text. Reports contain no account, identity or content. We keep only the most recent 50, in memory only, and they are cleared whenever the server restarts.
Like most online services, our servers process your IP address to deliver responses and limit abuse. Our hosting logs may include IP addresses, request paths and account IDs. These logs expire within 30 days.
We use these companies to run Terse. They process data only to provide their service to us:
We share personal data only in these cases:
We keep your data while your account is active, or for as long as you keep the content. Some data expires sooner: room file attachments after 7 days, phone-link snapshots are replaced every few seconds, diagnostic reports are held in memory only, and server logs and backups expire within 30 days.
Deleting your account. You can delete your account in the app (Me → Account → Delete account) or at terseai.org/delete-account. Deleting your account removes your account and profile, posts, comments, messages, room memberships, friend links, wallpapers, device links and push subscriptions. Remaining copies in server logs and backups are removed within 30 days. Payment records held by Stripe, Google or Apple are kept by those companies as the law requires. Deleting the app from a device removes the data stored on that device.
You can also delete individual plaza posts and comments, leave rooms and teams, unlink devices, remove wallpapers and turn off notifications at any time.
All connections between Terse and our servers use HTTPS. Install identity keys, device secrets, room keys and API keys are stored only as one-way hashes. Marketplace provider keys are stored encrypted. Private rooms can use end-to-end encryption. No system is perfectly secure. If you think you have found a security problem, please email us.
Depending on where you live (including under the GDPR in the EU and UK, and the CCPA/CPRA in California), you may have the right to:
To use any of these rights, email [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days and may need to verify your identity first. We will not treat you differently for using your rights. We do not sell or "share" personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, as those terms are defined in the CCPA.
We process your data to provide the service you asked for (contract), to keep Terse secure and improve it (legitimate interests), where you have given consent (for example notifications and analytics cookies), and to meet legal obligations.
Terse is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If we learn that we have, we will delete it. If you believe a child has given us personal data, please contact [email protected].
Our servers are in the United States. If you use Terse from another country, your data will be transferred to and processed in the United States, and possibly in other countries where our service providers operate. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses.
We may update this policy as Terse changes. We will post the new version on this page and change the effective date at the top. If a change is significant, we will also tell you in the app or by email.
Questions or requests about this privacy policy? Email [email protected].