Privacy Policy

LAST UPDATED 27 OCTOBER 2026

Who this covers

This policy covers the Mendicant desktop app, the Mendicant iOS app, the mendicantd daemon, this website (mendicant.ai) and the update server (releases.mendicant.ai). "We" and "us" means the people who make Mendicant.

What we collect

Nothing from the apps. Specifically, we do not collect or store:

• Conversations, prompts, model outputs or assistant memory.
• Files, folders, documents or images you give Mendicant access to.
• Audio recordings, dictation or transcripts.
• Email, calendar events, contacts or anything else from accounts you connect.
• API keys, passwords, OAuth tokens or other credentials.
• Names, email addresses, phone numbers or any other personal identifiers. There are no Mendicant accounts.
• Usage analytics, telemetry, crash reports, device fingerprints or advertising identifiers. The apps contain no analytics or tracking code.
• Tracking or analytics cookies. We set no cookies at all. The only cookie on this site is a security cookie set by Cloudflare, described below.

The only thing we keep is the website and update server request logs described below, which contain no app data.

Because we hold no data from the app, we have nothing to sell, share, hand over, lose in a breach or use to train models.

Where your data lives

Everything Mendicant creates is stored on your own device, under your control:

• App data (conversations, settings, workspaces, recordings, assistant memory, downloaded mail) lives in plain files under ~/.config/mendicant/ on your Mac.
• Secrets (API keys, OAuth tokens) live in an encrypted vault under ~/.mendicant-native/, protected by a key held in your operating system's credential store (the macOS Keychain).
• Language, speech and embedding models run locally on your CPU or GPU. Your prompts and audio are processed on your device.

You can delete any of it at any time by deleting those folders. Uninstalling the app and removing them removes everything.

Your own devices

If you turn on Serve to my devices, pair an iPhone, or run mendicantd, your devices talk directly to each other, over your local network or your own Tailscale network. Conversation sync is hosted by your own Mac (or a daemon you run), not by us. None of this traffic passes through a Mendicant server, because there isn't one.

When Mendicant talks to the internet

Mendicant works offline. It only connects to outside services in the cases below. In each case your device talks directly to that service; nothing is relayed through us, and that service's own privacy policy governs what it does with the request.

Update checks

The desktop app periodically downloads a small file (latest.json) from releases.mendicant.ai to see whether a new version exists, and downloads the update if you choose to install it. This request contains no identifiers beyond what every web request carries (your IP address and a user-agent string). Like requests to this website, these update checks are recorded in our server's access logs. See "This website and the update server" below.

Services you choose to connect

These are off until you turn them on, and the data involved goes straight between your device and the provider:

• Remote model providers. If you add a provider such as OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Groq, Ollama, LM Studio or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, the messages you send to that model are sent to that provider using your own API key.
• Google (Gmail and Calendar). If you connect a Google account, Mendicant signs in with Google OAuth and downloads your mail and calendar to your device, where it is indexed and summarised locally. Sending an email or creating an event happens only when you approve it. Your tokens are stored in the local encrypted vault. See Google user data below.
• Model downloads. Downloading a model fetches files from Hugging Face (huggingface.co).
• Web search and web fetch. When the model searches the web, your query is sent from your device to the search engines enabled in Settings (DuckDuckGo, Brave, Bing, Wikipedia, or a SearXNG instance you configure). When it fetches a page, your device requests that page directly.
• Tool servers (MCP). Tool servers you approve run on your machine and may contact whatever services they were built to contact.
• Order and flight tracking. If you add your own FlightAware or AfterShip key, Mendicant queries those services directly about the shipments and flights it is tracking for you.
• Push notifications. If you use the iOS app's notifications, your Mac sends them through Apple Push Notification service to your phone.

Google user data

This section describes exactly how Mendicant accesses, uses, stores, shares, protects, keeps and deletes Google user data. It applies only if you choose to connect a Google account.

Mendicant's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Data Mendicant accesses

When you connect a Google account, Mendicant asks for these permissions, and accesses only the data they cover:

• Basic profile and email address (openid, email, profile): your name and email address, so the app can show which account is connected.
• Read Gmail (gmail.readonly): your email messages, their headers (sender, recipients, subject, date), bodies and labels. Messages in Trash and Spam, and Chat messages, are not downloaded.
• Send Gmail (gmail.send): used only to send an email you have reviewed and approved in the app. Mendicant never sends email on its own.
• Read Calendar (calendar.readonly): your calendars and events (titles, times, locations, attendees, descriptions).
• Calendar events (calendar.events): used only to create an event you have reviewed and approved in the app.

How Mendicant uses it

Google user data is used only to provide features you can see in the app:

• showing, searching and summarising your mail and calendar;
• answering your questions about your mail and schedule;
• spotting orders, deliveries, flights and promises in your email so it can remind you about them;
• drafting replies, and sending email or creating events after you approve each one.

It is not used for advertising, it is not sold, it is not used to build profiles of you for anyone else, and it is not used to train or improve any AI or machine-learning model, ours or anyone else's. No person at Mendicant can read it.

Where it is stored and how it is protected

• Your mail and calendar data are downloaded directly from Google to your Mac and stored there, in files under ~/.config/mendicant/. Summaries and search indexes are made on your Mac by a model running on your Mac.
• Your Google sign-in tokens are stored on your Mac in an encrypted vault, locked with a random 256-bit key held in the macOS Keychain, under ~/.mendicant-native/.
• All communication with Google uses HTTPS (TLS) directly from your device.
• None of this data is ever sent to Mendicant's servers. We do not operate any server that receives Google user data, and we cannot access it.

Sharing

Mendicant does not share Google user data with us or with any third party, with these exceptions, each of which you control:

• Remote AI model, if you choose one. By default the assistant runs on a model on your own Mac. If you instead choose a remote AI provider (for example OpenAI or Anthropic) in Settings, the parts of your mail or calendar that the assistant needs to answer a request are sent directly from your Mac to that provider, using your own account with them. They are not sent to us.
• Your own devices. If you turn on Serve to my devices, your iPhone can ask the assistant on your Mac about your mail and calendar, over your own network.
• If the law requires it. Since we hold no Google user data, we have none to disclose.

Retention and deletion

• Mail and calendar data stay on your Mac for as long as the account is connected, so the app can search and summarise them.
• When you disconnect the account in Settings, Mendicant stops accessing Google, deletes its sign-in tokens, drops the assistant's summaries of that account's mail, and moves the downloaded mail and calendar data to the macOS Trash (so a mistaken disconnect can be undone). Emptying the Trash removes it permanently.
• Uninstalling Mendicant and deleting the ~/.config/mendicant/ and ~/.mendicant-native/ folders removes all of it.
• You can also revoke Mendicant's access at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

This website and the update server

This website is a static page. It has no analytics, no forms and no trackers, and we set no cookies.

Access logs

Our web server keeps standard access logs for this website (mendicant.ai) and the update server (releases.mendicant.ai). Each entry records:

• the IP address the request came from (because traffic reaches our server through Cloudflare, this may be the address of Cloudflare's connection rather than yours);
• the date and time;
• the page or file requested, and the response status and size;
• the referring page, if your browser sends one;
• your browser's or app's user-agent string.

We use these logs only to keep the servers running and secure: diagnosing errors, spotting abuse, and seeing roughly how many people visit or check for updates. We do not use them to identify you, combine them with other data, build profiles, or share or sell them. These logs never contain anything from inside the app: no conversations, files, settings or account details.

Third parties

Two third parties are involved in delivering the site, as they are for most of the web:

• Cloudflare sits in front of our servers and handles the network connection. It processes your IP address and request headers to deliver and protect the site, and its bot-detection script may set a strictly necessary security cookie (cf_clearance) in your browser. That cookie is not used to track you or for advertising. All of this is governed by the Cloudflare Privacy Policy.
• Google Fonts serves this site's typefaces, so your browser requests font files from Google, under the Google Privacy Policy. The apps do not use Google Fonts.

Children

Mendicant is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age where you live). Since we collect no data from anyone, we collect none from children either.

Your rights

Privacy laws such as the GDPR and CCPA give you rights to access, correct, delete or move the personal data a company holds about you. We hold no data from the apps, so there is nothing there for us to give you, correct or delete. All of it is already on your device, and you can read, export or delete it directly.

The only personal data we hold is the IP addresses in our access logs. Under the GDPR, we keep them on the basis of our legitimate interest in running and securing the servers. If you want to exercise your rights over them, contact us with your IP address and the approximate time of your visit, and we will do what we can.

Changes to this policy

If we change how Mendicant handles data, we will update this page and the date at the top before the change ships. If we ever wanted to start collecting any data, we would ask for your consent in the app first. We would not change this policy quietly.

Contact

Questions about this policy, including about Google user data: privacy@mendicant.ai.