Privacy and your data

better-vault keeps everything on your device, and nothing is stored on a server.

In the web app, notebooks, sources, chats, Studio outputs and API keys live in your browser's IndexedDB. In the desktop app they live in one SQLite file in the app's data folder on your computer. Either way there is no account and no server database.

If you use your ChatGPT plan, OpenAI's sign-in tokens are the one thing the server keeps: a file only you can read, in ~/.better-vault for the web app or in the desktop app's data folder, so the tokens never sit in the browser. Signing out ends the session at OpenAI and deletes them.

What leaves your device?Copy Anchor Link

Only what a request needs. When you chat or create in the Studio, better-vault sends the relevant passages from your selected sources, your question and your key to its API route. The route forwards them to the provider you picked and streams the answer back, without storing or logging them.

When you add a PDF or a web page, the file or address goes to the parse route, which returns plain text and keeps nothing. When the model list loads, your key is used to ask the provider which models you can use.

With Ollama or LM Studio, all of these requests stay on your own machine. In the desktop app, the API routes also run on your computer.

BackupsCopy Anchor Link

Open Settings → Data to export all your notebooks as a JSON file, or to import one. Backups never contain your API keys. Older backups stay importable when the storage format changes, and a backup from the web app imports into the desktop app.

Clearing your browser's site data deletes the web app's notebooks, so export a backup first.

Hosting for othersCopy Anchor Link

If you host better-vault for other people, their notebooks and keys stay in their own browsers and never reach you. Self-hosting lists the settings that harden a public deployment.