News sources
An ordinary feed request, like any feed reader.
When: Every 30 minutes or more per feed, while the app is open.
Data and privacy
Your reading is nobody's business.
Fresh News has no backend. Everything lives in one file on your computer, and this page lists every single thing that ever leaves it.
Never, by design
- Analytics or telemetry
- Crash uploads
- Update checks
- Accounts or sign-in
- Advertising
- API keys in a file, log or URL
- Full article text
- Your data to anyone you didn’t choose
01What leaves your computer
The AI provider you chose
Outlet, date, headline and short summary of the selected reports. Or your question and the reports retrieved for it.
When: Only when stories are written or you ask. Never with no provider. Never off your computer with a local model.
Your sync folder
The edition, stories, saved marks, topic and notification settings.
When: Only if you chose a folder. Never keys, providers, questions or feed summaries.
Nothing else.
02What is stored on your computer
| Data | Contents | Kept |
|---|---|---|
| Feed items | Headline, link, date, outlet, and the feed’s summary cut to 500 characters. Never full article text. | 180 days by default |
| Generated stories | The explanation, its sources, the check result and the model name. | Until you delete them |
| Questions | What you asked, the answers and the reports used as evidence. | Until you delete them |
| Settings | Topics, schedule, edition options, sync folder, provider names and endpoints. | Until you change them |
| Backups | Full copies of the database: daily, before upgrades, before restores. | Newest 7 daily, rotated |
| Crash reports | Message, code location and call stack. Never uploaded. | Newest 10 |
| API keys | Not in this file. In the system keychain, write-only from the app, never shown again. | Until you remove them |
On macOS the folder is ~/Library/Application Support/app.freshnews.desktop. Retention for feed items can be 30, 90, 180 or 365 days; items behind a saved story or the last six editions are kept.
On your iPhone
The phone doesn’t talk to anyone.
The iPhone app keeps its own copy of the synced stories, your saved marks and its settings inside the app. It reads and writes only inside the folder you picked.
It doesn’t fetch news and it doesn’t call AI providers. Morning reminders are scheduled locally by iOS; no notification service is involved, which is also why the phone can only describe the edition it last received.
Phone and syncQuestions, answered.
Where exactly are my API keys?
In the operating system’s credential store: the macOS Keychain (Windows Credential Manager and the Linux secret service are configured but untested). They are write-only from the app: the backend never returns a key, and the database, logs and generation history never contain one.
Can I use Fresh News without sending anything to an AI company?
Yes, two ways. Use no provider at all, and you still get a ranked edition of headlines grouped by event. Or use Ollama or LM Studio, and stories are written by a model running on your own computer; the excerpts go to localhost only.
What happens if my data file gets damaged?
The app checks the database at every start. A damaged file is moved aside (never deleted), the newest valid backup is restored, and you are told what happened and where the damaged file is kept.
How do I delete everything?
Settings > Data, backups and diagnostics lets you delete generated stories, questions or feed items, or clean up now. To remove everything, quit the app and delete its data folder; remove API keys from Settings > AI providers first.
Does this website track me?
No. This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and loads no third-party scripts or fonts.
The full technical version is in the data and privacy docs.
Tomorrow morning
Read less. Understand more.
Set a time, pick your topics, and wake up to a short edition where every sentence shows its source.