Data and privacy

Fresh News keeps your data on your own devices. There is no account, no analytics, no crash upload and no update check.

Stored on your computer

One SQLite file in the app data folder (~/Library/Application Support/app.freshnews.desktop on macOS, %APPDATA%\app.freshnews.desktop on Windows), plus backups and crash reports.

Data	Contents	Kept
Feed items	headline, link, date, outlet, feed summary cut to 500 characters. Never full article text	180 days by default (30, 90, 180 or 365)
Generated stories	explanation, sources, validation result, model name	until you delete them
Investigations	your questions, answers and the evidence used	until you delete them
Settings	topics, schedule, edition options, sync folder, provider names and endpoints	until changed
API keys	not in this file: in the system keychain	until you remove them
Backups	daily (newest 7), before each upgrade, before each restore	rotated automatically
Crash reports	message, code location, call stack	newest 10, never uploaded

What leaves your computer

To	What	When
News sources	an ordinary feed request	every 30 minutes or more per feed, while the app is open
The AI provider you configured	outlet, date, headline and short summary of the selected reports; or your question and the reports retrieved for it	only when stories are written or you ask
Your sync folder	edition, stories, saved marks, topic and notification settings	only if you chose a folder

Nothing else.

Removing data

Settings > Data, backups and diagnostics shows what is stored and lets you back up, restore, set retention, delete generated stories, investigations or feed items, and copy a privacy-safe diagnostics summary for a bug report.

Damaged data

The app checks its database at every start. A damaged file is moved aside, never deleted, the newest valid backup is restored, and you are told what happened. Data written by a newer version of Fresh News is never opened by an older one.