Privacy

Mel is local-first. Your terminal works without the network (only the optional AI command suggestions, below, send what you type), and when you use the agent, only what a model call needs leaves your machine. If you pair a phone, see Mel Remote below. The Privacy page in Settings summarizes this and links to the privacy policy; this page spells out the details.

What stays on your machine

• Drive objects — workflows, prompts, notebooks, and environment sets live under ~/.local/share/mel/drive/.
• Settings — ~/.mel/settings.json, plus tab configs and tab settings under ~/.mel/. See the Settings overview.
• Your sign-in token — stored at ~/.local/share/mel/auth_token with owner-only file permissions.
• Agent tool execution — the agent's reads, edits, searches and commands run on your machine (or over your own ssh connection for remote sessions). The agent's loop runs on Mel's server, which decides the next step; web search, web pages and connector calls are made from Mel's server.

You can open these folders yourself. The avatar menu's View app data reveals the settings folder (~/.mel); the data folder (~/.local/share/mel) holds the rest. On Windows they are %APPDATA%\mel\config and %APPDATA%\mel.

What goes to the backend

The agent talks only to the Mel relay — never directly to a model provider. Per model call, the relay receives your prompt and the conversation context that call needs (including tool results the model has to see), forwards it to the provider, and streams the response back. That's it.

• Hosted-plan provider keys stay server-side. The app ships no keys. If you add your own key (BYOK), it is stored on your device — in the OS keychain where available — and sent only in-flight with your own requests. Signing out removes saved BYOK keys from this device.
• AI command suggestions (Settings ▸ AI, on by default). When local autocomplete has nothing for what you're typing in the terminal, that line, your current folder and your last eight commands are sent to the relay for a next-command suggestion. Turn the setting off and nothing you type in the terminal leaves your machine.
• No analytics. Mel does not track how you use it. From v0.1.48, released builds report crashes to Sentry — the error, the line of Mel's own code it came from, the version and your operating system — and a start/stop signal per session, never your terminal output, prompts, files or keys. Settings ▸ Privacy says whether your build does, and MEL_SENTRY=0 turns it off. Earlier versions send nothing. The privacy policy lists every field.

Conversations

Conversations are saved as JSON on your machine and also synced to your Mel account, so they follow you to another device. Resuming, the recents list, and the conversations picker read from the local copy; the backup lives with the relay under your account.

• Local copy — ~/.local/share/mel/accounts/<account>/conversations/. Each account signed in on a machine gets its own folder, and a signed-out session writes to accounts/local/. Nothing one account saved is visible to, or uploaded under, another.
• Turning sync off — Settings ▸ Privacy has a Sync conversations to my account toggle. With it off, conversations stay on the machine and nothing is uploaded; conversations already in the cloud stay there. The MEL_DISABLE_CONVO_SYNC=1 environment variable does the same thing and wins over the setting, which is useful for a support session or a shared machine.
• Deleting — Delete all my data (below) removes the cloud copy along with everything else. Backups are kept in the United States and in the European Union (Ireland). When you delete your account, it leaves our backups within 5 weeks.

Memory

Cross-session memory is optional and per-conversation: the on/off pill at the top of the Memory panel says whether this conversation recalls and saves notes, and a ◈ N saved to memory chip after a turn opens the panel. Notes that are saved live on Mel's server, and you stay in control:

• The Memory panel lists every stored note; you can edit, pin, or delete any note individually.
• Delete all my data runs a full deletion cascade after a confirmation dialog that says what is and isn't covered. Copies of the deleted data in backups expire on their own, within 5 weeks.

Approvals

File writes, edits, and command executions wait on an approval card before anything happens — unless you've pre-approved an action type on the Agent mode settings page or switched a conversation to autonomous mode yourself. A command that only reads (ls, git status) runs without a card. See Tools & approvals.

Mel Remote (your phone or iPad)

If you pair a phone or iPad with Mel on your computer, the phone can show your open conversations and recent messages, let you allow or deny some of Mel's requests, stop a run and send Mel a message. What passes between your computer and your phone is encrypted on one and decrypted on the other, with a key your computer makes and passes to your phone in the QR code. That key never reaches Mel's servers, so our servers only carry messages they cannot read. Mel does see that a phone is paired to your account, its type (iPhone, iPad or Android), and roughly when it connects. The encrypted messages are deleted after 24 hours (queued commands after 10 minutes, a pairing code after 10 minutes). Removal from storage can take up to two more days. Unpairing a phone, or deleting your data, removes all of it from our systems. Backups hold the same unreadable messages, and the record of which phone is paired to your account. They expire within 5 weeks. While a phone is paired, Mel on your computer contacts our servers about every 2 seconds while the phone is open and about every 15 seconds otherwise. If you do not pair a phone, it sends nothing for this feature, except one check, when you open the Phone page in Settings, of whether a phone is paired (no content).

Related

• Security & privacy — what Mel protects, and how
• Account — sign-in and where the token lives
• Billing and usage