FoldNotes and AI
The short version: FoldNotes has no AI built in. Your notes never go to an AI service unless you connect one yourself, and they’re never used to train AI.
Your notes and AI
- No AI in the app. FoldNotes for Mac and FoldNotes for iPhone and iPad contain no language model, and they never send your notes to an AI service. Your notes stay in your own folder, synced through your own iCloud if you use it. See the privacy policy.
- Apple’s Writing Tools are switched off in the editor, on the Mac and on iPhone and iPad, so they can’t rewrite or proofread your notes inside FoldNotes.
- The
fncommand line has no AI in it. It’s a plain tool for your terminal and your own scripts. - An AI assistant only if you connect one. On the Mac, FoldNotes includes an MCP server that lets an AI assistant read and work with your notes. It does nothing until you set it up. When a cloud assistant reads a note, that note’s text goes to the assistant’s provider as part of your conversation, under their privacy terms. With a model running on your own Mac, it stays there.
- Spotlight and Siri are Apple’s. FoldNotes adds your notes to Spotlight search and offers Siri actions, and Apple’s features can use them when you use those features, under Apple’s privacy terms. Apple’s settings control both.
- Never used to train AI. FoldNotes never sees your notes, and the app never sends them to an AI service.
How FoldNotes is made
FoldNotes began as a 50,000-line codebase I wrote entirely by hand, and major parts of it still run in the app today. Since then, most new code has been written by AI coding assistants working under my direction, and I still write some of it myself. I decide what FoldNotes does and how it should work, I test every update before it ships, and I decide what ships.
— Stephen