Your conversations stay yours.

Tera Chat is a Mac app that connects to your messaging accounts from your own computer. This page explains, in plain language, what it stores, where, and what leaves your Mac. Last updated 29 October 2026.

The short version

• Your inbox lives on your Mac. Messages, contacts and relationship stats are stored locally and are never uploaded to a Tera Chat server.
• Keys stay in the macOS Keychain, sign-ins stay on your Mac. Any AI API keys you add and your Tera Chat account are kept in the Keychain. Your sign-ins to WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram and Tinder are kept in Tera Chat's own storage on your Mac.
• AI only sees the conversations it works on, for the features you use or turn on. When you use an AI feature, the conversation it works on goes to the AI provider you picked. With Tera Chat AI that's Claude, through our server, which passes it on and doesn't keep it.
• Counts, never content. From version 1.1.3, Tera Chat tells our server a few numbers a day: how often each feature was used and which networks are connected, never what's in your chats. You can turn that off in Settings → General (details). This website sets no tracking cookies and counts its own visits, without storing IP addresses.

What stays on your Mac

Your messages, contacts, conversation history, health scores and other relationship metrics are kept in a local database on your Mac. They don't sync anywhere.

To show your iMessage history, Tera Chat reads the Messages database macOS keeps on your Mac, which is why it asks for Full Disk Access. That access is only needed for iMessage, and you can revoke it any time in System Settings → Privacy & Security.

Tera Chat adds your messages to Spotlight so you can search them from anywhere on your Mac. The Spotlight index stays on your Mac too.

What syncs through your iCloud

Your settings, AI-generated insights, drafts, dating personas and AI cost log sync between your Macs through your own iCloud account, using Apple's CloudKit private database. Tera Chat can't read that data; it belongs to your Apple ID.

What leaves your Mac

• Messaging services. Tera Chat talks directly to each service you connect (WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Tinder and others) from your Mac, the same way their own apps and websites do.
• Your AI provider. AI features use the account you choose: ChatGPT through the Codex app, or your own Anthropic (Claude) or xAI (Grok) API key, or Tera Chat AI if you subscribe to a plan (see below). The text of the conversation being summarized, analyzed or replied to is sent to that provider and handled under their privacy terms. You can set a daily AI spending cap.
• Usage counts. From version 1.1.3, unless you turn it off, Tera Chat sends our server a short report with the day's feature counts (see Usage counts).
• Updates. Tera Chat checks updates.terachat.co for new versions. The request includes the app and macOS versions, as all update checks do, and nothing about your messages.
• Optional components. Some optional connections, like the Hinge beta, download extra tools, only when you start that setup in Settings.

Tera Chat AI (paid plans)

If you subscribe to a plan with AI built in:

• What passes through our server. When you use an AI feature, the text it works on goes from your Mac to our server at terachat.co and on to Anthropic (Claude), which writes the answer. Our server doesn't store or log that text. It only counts how much AI you've used.
• What we keep. Your email address, your Stripe customer and subscription IDs, your plan and its status, a fingerprint (a one-way hash) of your Tera Chat AI key, and usage totals for each allowance period (normally one month of your plan). The key itself is kept for up to 24 hours, so the welcome page can show it, and is then deleted. No messages, contacts or AI text.
• Payments. Stripe processes payments, sold through Link. We never see your card details.
• Anthropic processes AI requests under its commercial API terms.
• Deleting it. Cancel your plan, then email hello@terachat.co and we'll delete your account record. A deleted record also disappears from our backups within 14 days.

Your Tera Chat account

An account is optional: the app works without one. If you sign in, in the app or at terachat.co/account, it keeps your plan and your app settings for when you reinstall Tera Chat or move to a new Mac. There's no password: you sign in with a 6-digit code we email you, or with your Google or Apple account, which confirms your email address to us and shares your name if that account does.

• What we keep. Your email address, your name if you add one, how you signed up (email code, Google or Apple), when the account was created and when it was last used, and which Tera Chat AI plan is on it. A plan bought with the same email joins your account when you sign in. If you use the free AI replies and openers, it also keeps how many you've used and, for each match an opener was written for, a fingerprint (a one-way hash) of that match, so a match counts once however many times you try. Never the match's name or messages.
• Sign-in codes. Each code is sent by our email provider, Resend, which receives your email address and the message so it can deliver it. We keep only a fingerprint (a one-way hash) of the code, for at most 10 minutes or until it's used, never the code itself. Sign-in emails contain the code and nothing else: no tracking.
• Your app settings. When you're signed in on your Mac, Tera Chat saves a copy of some settings to the account: on/off switches, list sorting, and which AI provider and model to use. You can turn this off in Settings → Account. Never your messages, contacts, handles or chat accounts, anything read from your chats, your API keys or passwords, or the text of your personas.
• Staying signed in. Each sign-in gets a random token, kept in the macOS Keychain on your Mac or, on this website, in a cookie named __Host-tc_session that only exists while you're signed in. It isn't used for tracking. Continuing with Google or Apple on this website also sets a cookie named __Host-tc_signin for at most 10 minutes, so that only the browser that started the sign-in can finish it. We store only a fingerprint of each token and when it was last used, and a sign-in ends after 90 days without use or when you sign out.
• No IP addresses. To stop code guessing and email abuse, the server counts recent code requests and tries from each network address and each email address (as a fingerprint), in memory only, for up to a day. Those counts are never written down, and no IP address is stored with your account.
• Deleting it. Delete your account in the app (Settings → Account) or at terachat.co/account; we email you a code to confirm. That removes the account, its saved settings and its sign-ins straight away, and from our backups within 14 days. A Tera Chat AI plan on the account is set to end at the end of the period you've paid for, so you won't be charged again, and the screen tells you when it ends. The plan's billing record (see Tera Chat AI above) is kept until you ask us to delete it. Nothing on your Mac is deleted.

Usage counts

From version 1.1.3, so we can see which features people use and fix what they don't, Tera Chat sends our server a short report a few times in the first minutes after it opens, then every few hours while it runs, while "Share usage counts" is on in Settings → General. It's on when you install Tera Chat, and turning it off stops the reports straight away. The demo mode used for screenshots never sends one.

• What a report holds. A random number Tera Chat makes for itself when it first runs, so a day's reports from one Mac count once; the date; the app, build and macOS versions; your Mac's region and language settings (like India and English); which AI writes your drafts (like Tera Chat AI or Codex, never your key); which messaging networks are connected (like iMessage and WhatsApp); and how many times that day each feature was used, like the app opening, signing in or going on without an account on the welcome screen, the setup screen showing or being finished, starting to connect a messaging app, a reply draft asked for or written, using up the free AI replies or openers, a message sent, a summary or an Autopilot draft.
• What it never holds. Message text, drafts, contacts, names, phone numbers, handles, tags, notes, personas, or anything else read from your chats. Only fixed feature names and whole numbers.
• Your account. If you're signed in, the report is sent with your sign-in, so the counts are kept with your Tera Chat account. Signed out, they're kept only by that random number.
• How long. Kept as daily totals for about 13 months. Deleting your Tera Chat account deletes the counts kept with it. The server doesn't log when reports arrive; to stop floods it counts recent reports from each network address in memory only, for up to an hour, and never stores the address.
• Usage counts aren't used for ads, and they're never shared or sold.

Sending on your behalf

Tera Chat sends a message only when you send it, unless you switch on an automation that sends for you. Automations that send messages for you are switched on per service or per chat, include quiet hours (except on Tinder) and rate limits, and can be stopped instantly with the emergency stop in Settings.

This website

terachat.co loads no ads or third-party scripts, and sets no cookies to count visitors. Pages and downloads are served from our own server, which keeps two simple logs, and the pages count visits with a small script of our own. None of these stores an IP address.

• Downloads and updates. To know how many people download and keep using Tera Chat, the server counts downloads and update checks, with the time and the browser's or app's user agent. Pages on this site fetch the same update feed to show the current version; those requests are logged the same way.
• Page visits. To know how people find Tera Chat, the server counts the pages opened here. For each, it keeps the page, the time, the browser's user agent (so search engine and AI bots aren't counted as people) and, if another site linked to it, only that site's name, like google.com or chatgpt.com, never the page or search you came from. If the link was tagged with where it was shared (its utm_source), that short tag is kept too, and for the Download button, which page here it was on.
• Visit counter. To know which countries and devices Tera Chat's visitors come from, each page sends our server a short note when it opens and when you click Download or a plan button. The note holds the page, the name of the site that linked here (like google.com) and any utm_source tag, your browser's time-zone setting (Asia/Kolkata, say, which tells the country) and whether the screen is a touch screen (to tell an iPad from a Mac). The server reads the device from your browser's user agent and leaves robots out. It adds the note to that day's totals for each page, the kind of site that sent the visit (like Google or ChatGPT), country and device, and keeps only those totals: never the note, the time, or anything that tells one visitor from another. To stop floods, it counts recent notes from each network address in memory only, for up to an hour; that count is never written down.
• Where a checkout came from. To know which pages lead to checkouts, the site remembers, for as long as the browser tab stays open (in the tab's session storage, not a cookie), the first page you opened here, the name of the site that linked to it and its utm tags. When you click a plan button, those, the page the button is on and your browser's time-zone setting go with you to our checkout, which reads your browser's language setting (like en-US) and works out the country from the time zone. They are stored with your checkout and subscription in our Stripe account and are never shared or sold. No IP address is added, and nothing about you beyond what the checkout itself asks for.

Nothing in these logs and totals says who you are, and none of it is shared or sold.

Download link emails

On a phone or a PC, the Download button can email you the link to open on your Mac. We send that one email through our email provider, Resend, and keep your email address, the time, the device you asked from (from your browser's user agent) and the country your browser's time-zone setting points to, so we know how many people ask and where from. We never email you again because of it. The record is deleted with your Tera Chat account, or after about 13 months; to have it deleted sooner, email hello@terachat.co.

Early access and phone waitlist emails

If you ask for early access to a paid plan, or join the iPhone or Android waitlist from a phone, we store your email address, the plan or phone you picked, the page you were on and the time. We use it only to tell you when that plan launches or if Tera Chat comes to your phone, and it is kept on our own server, never shared or sold. To be removed, email hello@terachat.co and we'll delete it.

Deleting your data

Because your data lives on your Mac and in your iCloud, you're in control of it. To remove the local data, delete Tera Chat and its folders: ~/Library/Application Support/Mercury (your inbox, insights, drafts and the Tinder and Telegram browser profiles), the whatsmeow files and media folder in ~/Library/Application Support/com.ace (WhatsApp), ~/Library/WebKit/com.ace.mercury (Instagram sign-ins) and, if you set up the Hinge beta, ~/.mercury. Its Keychain items are listed under com.ace.mercury in Keychain Access. Synced data can be removed from your iCloud account in System Settings → your name → iCloud. Step-by-step instructions are in Is Tera Chat safe?

Contact

Questions about privacy? Email hello@terachat.co.