Your writing is private by design. This policy explains how we protect your privacy with a local‑first design and minimal data collection, and how we handle optional Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) connections to third‑party AI providers.
Refine is designed from the ground up to respect your privacy. By default, we process your documents locally using advanced AI models that run entirely on your Mac. If you choose to use a non‑local model via BYOK, your prompts and context are sent directly from your device to your selected provider over an encrypted connection, never through our servers.
This privacy-first approach means you can write confidently knowing that your sensitive documents, creative works, and personal thoughts remain private and secure. With local models, everything stays on your device; with BYOK, requests go directly to your chosen provider without passing through our infrastructure.
We want to be crystal clear about our data practices. Refine does not gather any personal information or content from your writing sessions. We don't track which documents you edit, what corrections you make, or how you use the application. With local models, your text and documents never leave your device. If you use BYOK with a non‑local provider, your data is sent directly to that provider from your device and never through our servers.
The only data we collect is limited to: anonymous crash reports when errors occur, and a minimal launch ping to understand our user base size. This technical data helps us improve the app while maintaining your privacy.
Refine supports Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) so you can connect to non‑local AI providers of your choice. When enabled, your prompts, context, and model responses are transmitted directly between your device and the provider over an encrypted connection. These requests do not pass through, or get stored on, our servers.
Your API keys are stored securely in your system keychain and are only used locally to authenticate requests from your device to the provider. We do not collect, proxy, or retain your keys, prompts, completions, or provider responses.
When using a third‑party provider, that provider’s privacy policy and data retention practices apply. Please review the provider’s terms to understand how they handle your data. If you prefer to keep all content fully on‑device, you can always use Refine with local models only.
To improve the stability and performance of Refine, we use Sentry to collect crash reports when the application encounters unexpected errors. These reports contain technical information about the error that occurred, including stack traces and system information, but do not include any of your personal content or documents.
Crash reports help us identify and fix bugs to provide you with a better experience. The information collected is limited to technical data necessary for debugging and does not compromise the privacy of your writing.
To understand how many users are actively using Refine and help us make informed decisions about development priorities, we collect a minimal launch ping when the application starts. This ping contains only basic, non-personal information such as the app version and a randomly generated anonymous identifier.
This usage data helps us understand our user base size and app adoption, but does not include any information about your documents, writing, or how you use the application. The data collected is aggregated and anonymous, ensuring your privacy remains protected.
When you activate your license, we do not include the randomly generated anonymous identifier used by our launch analytics. License activation is separate from analytics and does not carry any analytics identifiers.
To verify your license and manage device activations, our license service receives only what is necessary: your license key, your email address, and your device identifier. Your device identifier is not the randomly generated anonymous identifier used for launch analytics, and it is used only to verify your activation count. We do not attach behavioral tracking, and we do not route this through any third‑party analytics.
This information is used solely to validate your license and enforce device limits. It is not linked to the anonymous launch analytics identifier and is not used to profile or track you across the app.
If we make any changes to this privacy policy, we will update it here and notify users through the application. We are committed to maintaining our privacy-first approach and will never introduce data collection without explicit user consent.
This policy was last updated on August 15, 2025. If you have any questions about our privacy practices, please contact us through our support channels.