Privacy Policy

Summary

Collate is local-first, but not every feature is offline. Local AI processing stays on your Mac. Cloud AI, share links, web browsing, model downloads, update checks, analytics, and website forms contact the services described below. Collate does not sell personal information or use it for cross-app advertising.

Documents and local storage

• Collate does not copy an imported PDF into its database. It stores permission to access the selected file, plus extracted text, summaries, chat history, semantic chunks, embeddings, bookmarks, and other workspace metadata locally on your Mac.
• In Local AI mode, prompts, document text, summaries, answers, translations, and highlights are processed by Collate's bundled local runtime. Collate does not send that content to a cloud model provider for inference.
• Adding highlights can modify the original PDF. Removing an item from Collate removes Collate's local record and cached text, but not the original PDF, exported files, copied content, or an existing share link.
• Cloud provider API keys are stored in the macOS Keychain and sent only to the provider selected for a request.

Optional Cloud AI

If you select OpenAI or Anthropic, Collate may send your prompt, full extracted document text, document or folder titles, retrieved excerpts, generated answers or summaries, and selected language to that provider. Summaries and initial folder chat can include all readable text in the selected document or folder. Follow-up suggestions may include the previous response and additional excerpts. The provider handles this data under its own terms, privacy policy, and account settings.

Browser, downloads, and updates

• Collate includes a web browser. Search terms entered as searches are sent to Google. Visited websites receive normal browser information such as your IP address, user agent, cookies, and local storage. Collate extracts page text on-device; saved page text is stored and processed like document text.
• When you download a local model, your Mac connects to pinned Hugging Face repositories operated by ggml-org, Unsloth, or Mistral AI. These services receive ordinary network information such as IP address, request metadata, and timing. The catalog currently includes Gemma 3 and 4, Qwen 3.5 and 3.6, GPT-OSS, and Ministral models.
• The direct-download build checks collate.one for signed Sparkle updates. The Mac App Store build does not use Sparkle and receives updates through Apple.

Share links

Creating a share link uploads the selected title, summary, question, answer, citations, or highlights to Netlify Blobs. Links are public and unauthenticated: anyone with the URL can view the content and may pass it to others or to social-preview crawlers. Shared pages are marked not to be indexed by search engines, but that is not a guarantee against copying or discovery. Collate does not send unique share identifiers to Google Analytics.

Share records are assigned a 90-day expiry. Expired records stop being returned, are deleted if requested after expiry, and are also removed by a daily cleanup task. There is currently no self-service revoke button. Email us to request earlier deletion.

App analytics

Firebase Analytics is disabled by default and can be enabled or disabled at any time from the Collate menu with Share Usage Analytics. If enabled, Firebase receives an app/device identifier, approximate location derived by the provider, operating-system and app metadata, feature interactions, model and provider selections, size and count ranges, operation durations, and controlled error codes. Collate does not send filenames, document text, prompts, answers, API keys, share identifiers, or email addresses through app analytics. Collate links Firebase without advertising-identifier support, disables ad-personalization signals, does not use analytics for tracking, and does not currently include a crash-reporting SDK.

Website analytics and forms

• If you allow website analytics, collate.one uses Google Analytics to measure page visits and download-form conversions. Google may receive a browser identifier, approximate location, device/browser information, referring page, and a redacted page path. Google Analytics may store cookies or similar browser data. You can decline the analytics choice without losing access to the website, download form, or waitlist.
• The macOS download and Windows waitlist forms use Netlify Forms. Netlify receives your email address, form name, submission source, and ordinary request metadata. We use macOS submissions to provide the download and product updates described beside the form. We use Windows submissions for waitlist availability notices unless you separately consent to other messages.
• Contact and help experiences may use Formless. It receives the content you submit and ordinary request metadata. Optional Formless media features can request camera or microphone access; the browser asks for permission before access is granted.

Retention and service providers

Local data remains on your Mac until you remove it or uninstall and clear Collate's data. Share records follow the 90-day process above. Form and support submissions are retained only as long as needed to provide the requested service, maintain required business records, and handle disputes; they are ordinarily deleted within 24 months. Backups and provider logs may persist for a limited additional period.

Providers include Apple, Firebase and Google Analytics, Google Search, Netlify, Formless, Hugging Face, OpenAI, Anthropic, and the model publishers identified in our Third-Party Notices. They may process data in countries outside yours under their own policies or our service arrangements.

Your choices and requests

• Choose Local AI or a supported cloud provider for AI requests.
• Turn app analytics off from the Collate menu.
• Remove cloud API keys from Collate and the macOS Keychain.
• Delete local records and downloaded models from the app.
• Avoid share links or forms when you do not want the described data uploaded.
• Ask us to access, correct, or delete information we control, subject to applicable law.

Changes and contact

We may update this policy when Collate's data practices change. The date at the top identifies the current version. Privacy questions or requests can be sent to hello@collate.one.

Related

See our Terms of Service and Third-Party Notices.